For over a year, about 12 people from Hampshire County met to plan a Roads to Resilience conference. The long-term plan was to create a trauma-responsive Hampshire County (MA) by working collaboratively with and in the community.
The kick-off conference was attended by hundreds and led by Laura Porter, co-founder of ACE Interface. Porter informed attendees about the neuroscience of ACEs and how others use it to become trauma-informed, trauma-responsive and to create self-healing communities — work she's been doing with many communities over the past decade.
Before the conference concluded, attendees participated in a brainstorming session by sector that resulted in a plan to make Hampshire County more trauma-informed and resilient.
Today, a larger community is working together to make that plan a reality.
The next meeting of the Trauma-Informed Hampshire County partnership is on Thursday, December 6th from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm. It's hosted at Clinical & Support Options at 8 Atwood Drive in Northampton. Visit the community site for more information or to add other calendar events, resources, blog posts, questions or comments.
Hampshire County (MA) Roads to Resilience Community
This initiative has a new online community platform located right here on ACEs Connection to support their work. Here's how they describe their mission:
Hampshire County Roads to Resilience is a newly formed group of individuals and organizations across multiple sectors, all committed to educating, promoting policy changes and providing the necessary resources to the people of Hampshire County towards building resilient and trauma-informed communities. Though our work it is our hope to:
- Prevent risk factors surrounding trauma and increase protective factors that build resilience;
- Address stigma and create a culture and environment where people feel safe;
- Connect community members by encouraging/creating a sense of shared responsibility towards the health and well-being of children and families;
- Improve the health of those affected by adverse childhood experiences.
Click here to join this community. The community is open to everyone. The work is collaborative.
Community Contacts:
Please reach out to Kristal, Andrea or Heather for questions about this initiative.
@Kristal Cleaver @Andrea Mancuso @Heather Warner
- Kristal Cleaver is supporting staff and community in building trauma-informed practices. She's a social worker who works at Clinical and Support Options, Inc.
- Andrea Mancuso is a graduate student at UMass Amherst and working with the Center for Community Health Equity Research and the SPIFFY Coalition.
- Heather Warner's goal is building a resilient and trauma-informed community. She works as a public health/coalition coordinator for the SPIFFY Coalition/Collaborative for Educational Services.
They are all wonderful to work with and it's super exciting to have local ACEs initiatives here in my home state of Massachusetts.
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