Inaugural Statewide Trauma Summit, ”Leveraging North Carolina’s Assets to Prevent Child Trauma” dates announced!

Shared by Diana Fishbein: Momentum is growing in NC for building trauma-informed systems that strengthen resilience and weed out systemic and often intergenerational sources of child trauma. To advance this work, it is critical that community-research-policy partnerships are forged to promote the widespread adoption of science-based strategies and encourage a transformational shift from a reactive to a preventative approach.

This inaugural Statewide Trauma Summit, ”Leveraging North Carolina’s Assets to Prevent Child Trauma” will stimulate dialogue between community stakeholders and members, researchers, practitioners and clinicians, and legislators and agency officials to advance these objectives. The ultimate outcome of this two-day convening will be a state-level strategic plan to implement best practices within well-oiled delivery systems focused on preventing child trauma.

Installing multilevel solution-based strategies into mindsets, practices, and policies is essential to the health, development, and wellbeing of NC's most important asset -- our children.

The summit begins on the evening of April 26^th, with a virtual dialogue between community representatives, clinicians, researchers and agency officials to set the stage, defining trauma from their perspective and discussing their approach to its prevention. The summit itself takes places on April 27th and  28^th in the McKimmon Conference and Training Center at NC State University, Raleigh, NC.

Topics for April 27^th and 28 include:

• Vision for preventing child trauma in North Carolina
• Effects of early life experiences on children’s brain development and health, and trauma’s intergenerational effects on mental health across the lifespan
• The role of partnerships between the community, researchers and policymakers in preventing exposure to adverse experiences and strengthening resilience.
• Viewing social and racial inequities and involvement with the child welfare, educational, health care, and justice systems. as trauma and opportunities for population level change to promote equity.
• Understanding how agency level and legislative policymaking can protect our children.
• Invoking systems change from an implementation standpoint
• Promoting better aligned community care systems and incorporating community perspectives and lived experience on change from the ground up.
• Evidence-based policy change and legislative efforts and opportunities to address trauma, informed by prevention science, with NC’s opioid use prevention policy as an exemplar
• Statewide agency initiatives to support trauma-informed practices and policies
• Understanding the costs and the benefits of supporting families to prevent trauma
• Building trauma-informed societal systems

Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more details!

Supporters include CSS-UNC, SmartStart The Duke Endowment, ChildTrust Foundation, KB Reynolds Trust, and the HopeStar Foundation.