Thirty-seven Reno County community members took the first step in the commitment of becoming a trauma-informed community. District 308 and ESSDACK drew people towards the pioneering conversation of building a resilient and trauma-informed Hutchinson. This all stems from the district bringing in two national trauma-informed leaders, Heather T. Forbes, author of Help for Billy and Jim Sporleder, the principal in the documentary Paper Tigers, to Hutchinson to help the district begin the journey...

Jim Sporleder was in Hutchinson on October 12th to meet with various groups. In all, he made four presentations. Jim started his day by sharing the Lincoln story with USD 308 administration. From there, he spoke to nearly 40 non-profit organizations at the Community Foundation quarterly luncheon. Jim's next presentation was at ESSDACK. This time he had almost 100 people in the room. This included about 50 community people, 25 from ESSDACK and 20 from the Learning Center. The last...

Childhood trauma comes in many forms. Whether it’s the shock of a friend’s sudden death or violence in school, we’ve heard far too many stories about students having to recover from traumatic events. But trauma can also rear its head in more subtle ways. It’s easy to write off a misbehaving student as “troubled.” But often, this behavior is a direct result of continued trauma at home. Abuse, neglect, struggles with poverty are all part of a particular type of trauma called Adverse Childhood...