I had the awesome experience of co-facilitating the Beyond Trauma: Building a Resilient Sacramento Workshop with many of those championing the work in our community. The energy of the workshop planners to include: Gail Kennedy and Donielle Prince from ACEs Connection representing both Yolo and Sacramento County; Imani Lucas and Daniel Cisneros from the Sacramento Minority Youth Violence Prevention Program; and Dr. Andres Sciolla from UCD was phenomenal.  It was an honor to have Councilman Rick Jennings kick off the conference and start the dialog on trauma informed systems and the City of Sacramento’s involvement in programs to build resilient youth. Jane Stevens from ACEs Too HIgh hit it out of the park with her plenary along with the Lincoln HIgh School faculity. Karen Zamd, the workshop coordinator from Meristem, was able to take a concept and grow it into a wonderful learning experience for all who attended the workshop. She also coordinated viewing the documentary “Paper Tigers” at the Crest Theater on Friday night along with the panel discussion that followed.  She took donations from Kaiser Permanente and The California Endowment and shaped a fantastic workshop to include breakfast and lunch at a cost affordable to the community.  She was even able to provide scholarships for those needing assistance. I personally would like to thank all the panel presenters and coordinators.  Everything went off smoothly and we even got to experience rain.  A rare commodity in central California.  I would like to thank all the panel facilitators and participants for providing the community with learnings and great tools to address ACEs and develop a trauma informed community.

The ground at Meristem were such a source of healing.  I felt so peaceful there.  One of the thoughts that occurred to me during the conference was the incredible healing that Meristem is pouring into young people with Autism.  Could the youth we serve flourish in a similar environment? I know the young people I work with would benefit from the same type to experiences to calm their overstimulated brains and develop new pathways to address life experiences. What do you think?

Finally, I would like to thank all the school districts that sent representative to the conference and all the community organizations that supported this workshop. We are on our way to a Trauma Informed Sacramento.