Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, wrote in her annual message this year that “Building a Culture of Health in America…is much like assembling a quilt. It requires many hands working together. And often, the most unlikely pairings create the most evocative designs.”
Over the next few months, the Shared Learnings series will explore the unconventional partnerships that lend power to the 14 community ACE & resilience networks participating in MARC. In this piece, we take a closer look at the engagement of youth.
Two volunteers race against the clock to stack red Solo cups into the highest tower they can manage.
Queenie Smith keeps knocking them down.
After the one-minute exercise, Smith, who is leading this hour-long training on trauma and resilience along with two colleagues, explains to her audience that the game is a metaphor: “You constantly build up your life goals, but ACEs keep knocking them down.”
The exercise works because participants respond in exactly the same way individuals respond to adversity: some give up in frustration, some lower their standards, and some just keep plugging away.
It’s also a powerful exercise because Smith and her co-trainers are teenagers, members of the Youth Healing Team at Hopeworks ‘N Camden, an organization that uses a trauma-informed approach while teaching web design and other skills to help youth ages 14-23 return to school or find meaningful work.
[For more of this story, written by Andee Hochman, go to http://marc.healthfederation.o...-resilience-movement]
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