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Supporting Infant and Early Childhood Professionals and Community Resilience

 

In January, Resilient Georgia and the Center for Interrelational Science and Pediatrics received a Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning Community Transformation Grant to launch an Infant and Early Childhood Professional Development Course and Guidebook.

Across Resilient Georgia’s 16 regional coalitions, there is a documented need to support the early childhood care and education (ECCE) workforce. Leveraging statewide support for training Georgia’s workforce in the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) wellness intervention, we will collaborate with expert faculty to develop and standardize an Infant and Early Childhood Professional Development Course and Guidebook for ECCE professionals. The course will feature the latest science on child development during the first five years and will incorporate CRM as a practical, trauma-informed wellness intervention. CRM was selected as evidence suggests it increases wellbeing and reduces stress in front-line providers. In addition, CRM is a developmentally appropriate intervention for children and ECCE professionals can become trained as CRM Guides or Certified CRM Teachers to help sustain this effort.

“CRM wellness skills have transformed the way I interact with children, families, and early childhood professionals,” says Dr. Jordan R. Murphy, CEO of the Center for Interrelational Science and Pediatrics (CISP). “We are seeing an increased need to support children who may show challenging behaviors and at the same time, staff are asking for classroom-level support and clarity on what behaviors are typical or require intervention.” For the last 18 months, families and staff at Atlanta Children’s Shelter (ACS) have received access to developmental surveillance and screening, CRM wellness sessions, and staff training. When needed, families can access clinical services such as referrals for speech, child-parent psychotherapy, or a visit from our collaborating developmental pediatrician, Dr. David O’Banion who volunteers his time to help reduce barriers to care. “We know that very few centers in Georgia receive the level of support provided at ACS, so we are working hard to increase access to the same knowledge and wellness skills for ECCE staff across the state.”

Resilient Georgia and the Center for Interrelational Science and Pediatrics are thrilled to partner with expert faculty from the fields of education, childhood development, pediatrics and more to provide content for the Infant and Early Childhood Professional Development Course and Guidebook. Our goal is to expand the number of CRM-trained ECCE professionals and early interventionists working with children birth-to-five in Georgia.

In the picture above, Jordan R. Murphy, PhD, RN, CPNP-PC is a Certified CRM Teacher and conducts developmental surveillance and screening at Atlanta Children’s Shelter.

The project described is supported by the Community Transformation Grant (CTG), Grant Number 469-G23-921-RGAI-014, from Federal Funds awarded to the State of Georgia and to the Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) by the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. The contents of the course will solely be the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of DECAL, the Granting Federal Agency or the U.S. Government.

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Hello , I am pediatrician in small sub urban community in Chino , Los Angeles California .

I am interested in CRM certification course and guide book .

kindly E MAIL the prerequisites

WARMLY ,

HARSHA SHETH

Dear Dr. Sheth! I would love to connect about the CRM course and guide book. I have sent you a direct message with my email address. Warmly, Audrey

Hello , I am pediatrician in small sub urban community in Chino , Los Angeles California .

I am interested in CRM certification course and guide book .

kindly E MAIL the prerequisites

WARMLY ,

HARSHA SHETH

Terrific post!

Congratulations again to Resilient Georgia for  the brilliant, groundbreaking work that has been going there for about five years since your  brilliant, visionary leaders —including Lynn Patillo, Bonnie Hardage and Tiffany Sawyer — had the forethought to tie worker preparedness (in a state that is all about attracting new businesses and industry) to preventing and healing adverse childhood experiences. Having a work force with the soft skills — read: social, emotional learning — on board to LEARN the math, science, engineering, computer and communications skills that could attract and support the new business was a great strategy and driver!

That Dr. Linda Grabbe at Emory University’s Nell Hodges School of Nursing latched onto the Community Resiliency Model (CRM)  — and brought the model’s co-creator Elaine Miller-Karas — there for trainings, I believe as early as 2017(?) really started a movement to get these self and co-regulation skills into nursing, medicine, education, other fields, and to the people who need them. Heck — Linda Grabbe was teaching CRM to youth experiencing homelessness almost any time and anywhere she had the chance! And we know her work helped in the nursing community because she had the forethought to capture the data toward creating reports of this now, thanks in part to Dr. Grabbe, evidence-based model!

A history of Resilient Georgia is truly a case study of a successful statewide resiliency initiative — from getting the ACEs, now PACEs (for positive and adverse childhood experiences) story out there to all sectors, working with existing groups and their frameworks (Georgia Family Connections, health centers, etc) to systematically bring each region on board and to equip leaders already doing great work, with tools, resources, and CONNECTION TO EACH OTHER, for an overall vision that is being realized. And is especially appreciated in light of the Pandemic and long overdue racial reckoning sparked by murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and deepened in Georgia and elsewhere with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

Congrats to all of you, especially executive director Emily Anne Vall and Neha Khana, director of strategy and operations and research scientist extraordinaire. And to the early-on group who helped connect different prevention, education, and child focused groups to PACEs Connection, including Deborah Chosewood, Julia Neighbors, Chinyere Nwamuo and former ACEs Connection staffer Jen Hossler. It has been such a privilege to work with each and all of you!

As a native Georgian (now living in another state doing exemplary work, North Carolina) I am so thrilled and proud to see the monthly updates and posts from Resilient Georgia, to see how this group stays connected and uses the resources of PACEs Connection, and how Resilient Georgia’s collective impact is making a difference! The sheer number of people trained in some aspect of PACEs science, through scores of training programs (starting with Darkness to Light and training, via the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy, more than 190,000 Georgians as Stewards in preventing child sexual exploitation) is phenomenal.

Thank you, all members of Resilient Georgia, who’re diligently doing the work. It needs and deserves to be celebrated. I am so glad you all continue to post and share your work on PACEs Connection and on your Georgia PACEs Connection website!

You all are among so many amazing people doing the work and realizing the importance of sharing outcomes with your colleagues across the country and around the world, inspiring each other to keep going. The consequences of not doing the work are too great to the people who’ll suffer if we don’t. And the benefits, in preventing and healing trauma, and creating healthier, more compassionate and resilient children, families, and communities, is the most important work we can be doing.

❤️🦋❤️

Peace and thank you,

Carey Sipp

Last edited by Carey Sipp
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