Resiliency Within

New Hanover County faces many natural crises due to their location on the coast of North Carolina and the numerous hurricanes that have occurred over the last few years. New Hanover County adopted biologically-based resilience practices from the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) with the goal to create a trauma-informed and resiliency-focused practice toward each person in public service, sharing a common understanding of the impact of trauma and chronic stress on the nervous system. The implementation is integrated as core measures for professional development and as a means to permeate the county’s culture.  This is not only imperative in the aftermath of community disasters but also for prevention. Bo Dean and Mebane Boyd will discuss how resiliency strategies were implemented through community partnerships and in conjunction with the New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force.  They will discuss how their resiliency programs emerged throughout the county and discuss their challenges and successes.

Heidi Williams-Cooper and Lindy Settevendemie began working together just prior to the pandemic with Emory University's Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning program. SEE Learning is an innovative K-12 education program, providing educators with the tools they need to foster the development of emotional, social, and ethical intelligence for students and themselves. Ms. Williams-Cooper and Ms. Settevendemie's work started as a collaboration to create a culturally responsive adaptation of the SEE Learning curriculum to meet the needs of the the Kindezi Schools' community, students and teachers alike. They have rich teaching backgrounds and a shared wisdom in ideas to guide us during this post-pandemic era from a vista of looking forward as they look back. They will explore how to use SEE Learning to cultivate well-being, promote healing, and support liberation.

This month is PTSD Awareness Month. Kate Wheeler and Elaine Miller-Karas will dialogue about the treatment of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and how through two treatment methods, EMDR and the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), healing is possible. EMDR treatment was recently highlighted by Oprah and Prince Harry as a treatment for trauma. PTSD is a mental health condition. It can occur in children, teens and adults who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. The experience could be direct or indirect like hearing about the death of a loved one. PTSD can occur in all people, of any ethnicity, nationality or culture, and at any age. PTSD affects approximately 3.5 percent of U.S. adults every year, and an estimated one in 11 people will be diagnosed with PTSD in their lifetime. Women are twice as likely as men to have PTSD. PTSD affects a person's mind and body. People can be reminded of the traumatic event by multi-sensory triggers of the event, like a sound, a smell or a visual image. It can feel like the event is happening in the present moment even if it happened years ago. Sometimes people don't remember the details of the event, but the body remembers by sounding an alarm when reminded. A person can be left with a powerful physical experience with no memory associated with it. There is hope of healing with EMDR and TRM.

The internet and social media are often perceived as the bad guys as they have unfortunately been abused by perpetrators to target children, teens, and adults for bullying, sexual harassment, predatory grooming and sex-trafficking. But what if this same technologies could be used in a positive way to provide individuals, organizations, and communities with the knowledge and tools they need to address and prevent sexual violence? Today's guests bring a combined 50 years of experience in the field of sexual violence prevention and will share why they are convinced that technology is a major key toward eradicating all forms of sexual misconduct.

During a two-year period in Santa Maria, California -a city of 103,000- there were 23 murders within 17 months. This epidemic had many contributing factors, including gun violence. As the community reeled and came together, one factor that arose was the need for accessible mental health services. Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley (FBSMV) was asked during this time to develop a violence reduction program in the schools. The mission created by FBSMV was to partner with all members of the community to achieve resilience against substance use, reductions in violence, and promote a healthy and safe environment for youth and families. They were tasked with conducting conflict resolution using a restorative approach. Edwin Weaver, the Executive Director of FBSMV, will discuss how students who have conflict go through the restorative mediation with a Fighting Back Program Specialist. This approach has reduced school suspension and reduced recidivism to zero. The students who go through this process do not get into fights with each other and can instead focus on learning. But what the staff realized quickly is that you cannot participate in the restorative process if you have not felt a sense of safety. Edwin Weaver trained as a Community Resiliency Model Teacher and began workshops throughout Santa Barbara County. Edwin will further elaborate upon how community wellness can be expanded by integrating programs like the Community Resiliency Model.

In light of the recent shootings in Georgia, this show will look at hate crimes in the Asian-American community and honoring the diversity of lived experiences within the vast group labeled as “Asian-American”. Reena Patel and Kimberly Wong will be speaking from their respective lens as Indian-American and Chinese-American individuals whose experiences both overlap and greatly differ in response to events in the last several years, and most recently with the uprise in violent crimes for Asian-Americans. They will explore how the concept of ‘othering’ creates fear and ultimately endangers individuals and communities who are not considered to be a part of the widely accepted American narrative. In addition, they will explore ways to move from “othering” to “us” as we look to ways to bring healing to our communities.

Preventing Child Abuse in Residential Facilities is the passionate commitment of our guests who are two of the founders of Breaking Code Silence, a newly formed nonprofit. Vanessa Hughes and Kathryn McNamara, both survivors of residential facilities, will share their lived experiences and discuss the Troubled Teen Industry, a multi-billion-dollar industry profiting off vulnerable children. They will discuss the abuse that happens, how prevalent these facilities are today, and how you can get involved for support if you are a survivor or would like to become an advocate. Through trauma-informed community projects and empowerment, survivors are breaking the code of silence previously placed on them and raising awareness to prevent future children from enduring the same harmful experiences.

Clive Corry will discuss the mission and purpose of Action Trauma, the nonprofit he started in 2016 in the memory of his wife, after discovering that trauma, anxiety and stress may have contributed to her death from cancer. He will share the wisdom of his journey beautifully expressed, when he states, "my greatest personal achievements have been to discover, nurture, and practice, love, kindness, understanding, and compassion. Firstly, in myself and then to encourage and share them with others. These emotions, thoughts, and attitudes are badly needed if we are to heal the world of trauma." Action Trauma's mission is to change people's lives for the better by promoting awareness of trauma, its causes, effects, and recovery throughout the world. He will discuss his vision of a world where people stop hurting themselves and others because of trauma and other adverse experiences. The message to that world is that trauma is not an illness; it is an injury which can be healed. He will share the next major world event Action Network has created, the virtual Trauma Recovery Summit (www.traumasummit.com) on 21st to 23rd June this year. It will be hosted from the iconic Belfast Titanic Centre and brings together world leading experts in the field of trauma and trauma recovery with a full schedule of keynote presentations, workshops, panel discussions and networking.

In honor of Mother's Day and Mental Health Awareness Month, the mother-daughter team of Jesssica Karas Waterson, LMFT and Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW will share how their shared interests led them to work together as trauma therapists with the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), a biological approach representing a paradigm shift in the treatment of trauma. Symptoms are treated as common biological responses rather than pathological or mental weaknesses. TRM helps those who suffer an opportunity to reprocess their traumatic experiences and teaches them wellness skills for self-care. TRM emphasizes that learning to read sensations of well-being is transformational not only for survivors of natural and human made disasters, but for those who suffer the consequences of developmental and cumulative trauma. Traditional talk therapies can help a person gain insight into what happened, but the multisensory body experience of traumatic events so deeply embedded in the nervous system may still plague trauma survivors. TRM suggests that physical sensations underlie emotions and its accompanying unpleasant physical sensations. TRM helps clients learn techniques to intentionally shift to pleasant or neutral sensations which lead to transforming emotional states and cognitive meanings about their lived experiences. Both therapists will address the challenges faced by parents, grandparents, and children during the pandemic and how body-based skills can help families during these challenging times.

From civil rights, to violence against women, to disability and LGBTQ rights, to the current Black Lives Matter & MeToo, movements shape what is important and impact policy and culture. Patti Giggans is the Executive Director/CEO at Peace over Violence(POV) and has been an advocate, author and movement leader. Peace Over Violence came into existence out of the feminist violence against women movement in the late sixties/early seventies. This year POV celebrates its 50th year. POV operates the longest running sexual & domestic violence hotline in the country and are the originators of the Denim Day movement -the longest running sexual violence prevention campaign now in its 22nd year. Movements Matter. Patti Giggans will share her insights about POV and why movements matter.