Tagged With "Communication and Connections"
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How a natural disaster led one town to do something about its ACEs, past and future
Tracy Franke, principal of Darrington Elementary School, a K-8 school with 300 students, had heard about CLEAR, and called Dr. Christopher Blodgett, who runs the program, to arrange a visit from Turner. “We were hurting,” says Franke. “Our students and staff needed some tools to get through the trauma.”
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How ‘Cultural Evolution’ Can Give Us the Tools to Build Global-Scale Resilience (singularityhub.com)
Brewer is a change strategist dedicated to ensuring a thriving global civilization exists 100 years from now—and he believes this is becoming less likely every year. There’s rising instability in our fragile and rapidly changing biosphere, he says, and society is unlikely to escape harm. During our discussion, Brewer cited a list of urgent crises including climate change, soil degradation , ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss alongside techno-social issues like the breakdown of trust...
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Hurricane Florence first responders receive free trauma/resilience training
In a webinar offered this morning by Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, leaders from several North Carolina ACEs Connection communities affected by flooding and other damage by Hurricane Florence learned more about trauma response and how to better help their communities find resilience. Karas, who was delivering her Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training at Duke University in Durham, NC, offered the free training and provided...
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Hurricane Michael: Children Face Stress Of Upended Lives [health.wusf.usf.edu]
When Tiffany Harris and her two children emerged from their hotel after Hurricane Michael roared past, her 3-year-old son pointed to a sea of fallen trees and shattered buildings. "It's broken. It's broken, Mommy, fix it," she recalls her little boy Amari begging. Harris, who lives with her boyfriend, two children, plus her sister and her four children near Panama City, soon learned their town house was uninhabitable. Everything was a total loss after Michael powered inland across the...
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ITRC calls for Universal Resilience Education and Skills Training for Climate Trauma
Sneak Preview for ITRC ACEs Connection Members! Next Tuesday, Jan. 8, the ITRC will release a major report Preparing People on the West Coast for Climate Change. The media release about the report is below (and attached). It includes a link to the webpage for the report, where people can download the full report, and find a link to the webpage with examples of resilience programs across the west coast. You can connect with the ITRC CA and PNW Facebook page:...
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Post Traumatic Growth after Natural Disasters - Communication and Connections Help [sciencedaily.com]
A recent study from researchers at the University of Missouri found more communication among family, friends and neighbors who experienced the devastating and deadly 2011 Joplin Tornado was related to more post-traumatic growth. The 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, was one of the most destructive in U.S. history -- killing 161 people, injuring 1,150 and destroying approximately one-third of the city's homes. Individuals who experience such disasters can exhibit a range of mental health...
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Preparing People for Climate Change in California: Sonoma County Listens and Shares
Last summer Bob Doppelt asked me to join a planning committee for a conference on climate change . I was surprised to be asked as my recent professional expertise is tied to addressing childhood adversity. Bob changed my perspective on the relevance by saying, "Adversity and trauma are the social side effects of climate-related disasters. Imagine the social-emotional impacts on Katrina survivors." The connection was a glimmer in my mind, but I agreed to support a California conference .
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Recommendations for preventing & healing pandemic generated mental health and psychosocial problems
Attached is a set of ITRC recommendations for swiftly organizing community-based initiatives to prevent and heal pandemic-generated mental health and psychosocial problems. If you find the recommendations helpful, please initiate the creation of a resilience coordinating council in your community or region. Please also pass the document on to other organizations and individuals that might find it useful. Thanks--and stay healthy during this stressful time, Bob Doppelt
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We Need Help. Mental Health resources needed on-the-ground in Puerto Rico.
It can be hard for us outsiders to battle "disaster fatigue." Still, 21 days after the disaster, which was well predicted 10 days before that (a month ago, in total) -- and we can not figure it out? People are still waiting in line hours: "What I got was 3 bottles of water and 4 cans of Pringles." Most with no sanitation, no power, no running water, no cell communication, one thousand, five-hundred roads out -- "What are you going to do today, t.o.d.a.y.?" is never answered.
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Webinar: Building Resilient Communities with Elaine Miller-Karas
This webinar will explore integrating a biological based model to reduce the impacts of toxic stress for children and adults. It is a model both for prevention and to use in the aftermath of adverse event.
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Webinar Slides and Recording: The Human Impact of Climate Change
Recorded live November 13, 2019. Find the slides attached below. Speaker: Elaine Miller-Karas, MSW, LCSW, Executive Director and Co-founder, Trauma Resource Institute. Guest: Kelly Doty, MA, Strengthening Families Program Manager, Youth for Change Host: Carey Sipp, Southeast Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection. Climate change emergencies are real and the human toll during and in the aftermath impact children, teens and adults. This webinar will hear from Kelly Doty, a survivor, who lost...
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses with Bob Doppelt
Recorded live October 28, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The webinar recording: You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming toward us and why prevention is the only realistic...
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses with Bob Doppelt
Recorded live October 28, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The webinar recording: You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming toward us and why prevention is the only realistic...
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Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions
This is one of the better assessments of the psychological and psychosocial impacts of climate change, though it neglects some key issues. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, October 2018, by Katie Hayes et al. Abstract Background: This article provides an overview of the current and projected climate change risks and impacts to mental health and provides recommendations for priority actions to address the mental health consequences of climate change. Discussion and conclusion:...
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Collective Trauma is Real, and Could Hamper Australian Communities' Bushfire Recovery [medicalxpress.com]
By Erin Smith and Frederick M. Burkle, Medical Xpress, February 14, 2020 Most of us are probably familiar with the concept of psychological trauma, the impact on an individual's psyche caused by an extremely distressing event. But there's another kind of trauma. A collective disturbance that occurs within a group of people when their world is suddenly upended. Consider the Buffalo Creek flood of 1972, in which a dam burst at a West Virginia coalmine, inundating the town and killing 132...
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Florida Governor's Wife announces mental health aid for Panhandle after Hurricane Michael
Photo credit: Florida's Governor's Office The story below illustrates the urgent need to proactively build psychological and psycho-social-spiritual--Transformational Resilience--for climate change related disasters. It describes how the mental health impacts of these disasters often becomes most acute months after a disaster occurs, which is long after mental health first aid and other disaster mental health services have ended. Prevention is the only solution, and the focus must be on...
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Got Those Climate Change Blues (article)
"So what are we, the climate anxious, to do? If there's any lesson in my story, I think it's the importance of admitting our personal limitations. Such an admission of human weakness grounds us. It helps us focus. It helps us recharge for the fight ahead and connect with those who share the same vision. It helps me to do what I can." https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-2-march-april/last-words/eric-holthaus-got-those-climate-change-blues
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Re: Climate Change Isn’t Just Frying the Planet—It’s Fraying Our Nerves “We kind of lose our cool.”
I so value the way you connect the climate crisis to mental health. I do the same but from a causal perspective. I see historical childhood trauma as the result of colonial child rearing principles has disconnected us from our nature and Nature, which allows us to exploit and destroy her, causing the climate crisis. If you haven't yet read my blog, please do - Addressing ACEs as a Social Transformation Initiative.
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Re: Post Traumatic Growth after Natural Disasters - Communication and Connections Help [sciencedaily.com]
Thank you so much for sharing this research, Leslie. It affirms much of what I've read from other communities, and gives us insight for action here in Sonoma.
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ITRC Launches Campaign to Enact New Climate Change Mental Wellness & Resilience Policy
ITRC Seeks Organizational and Individual Endorsements for New Climate Change Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy! To read the complete policy and make individual or organizational endorsements go to: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ Why the Need to Enact a Climate Change Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy ? The International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) seeks organizational and individual endorsements for its new Climate Change Mental Wellness and Resilience...
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Sesame Street in Communities Provides Support for Kids Impacted by Wildfires
For resources and activities to help kids feel safe and comforted, visit: https://cdn.sesamestreet.org/sites/default/files/media_folders/Images/SupportAfterEmergency_Printable_Fire_FamilyGuide.pdf?_ga=2.91031322.1860374799.1600088181-1279904627.1598558329
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Invitation to Dec 2 webinar on the ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
You are invited to a free 1 hr. webinar on Wednesday , December 2 from 12 noon to 1:00 pm PST (3:00-4:00 pm EST) on the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy To register for the webinar go to: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ Why the Need for a New Climate Change Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy? Climate science indicates that global temperatures will, in the not too distant future, rise above the 2.7-degree F. temperature threshold that unleashes...
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Just 2 Weeks Until the Free Webinar on the Urgency, Methods, and Benefits of the New ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
Reminder of a free 1 hr. webinar on Wednesday , December 2 from 12 noon to 1:00 pm PST (3:00-4:00 pm EST) on the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy for Climate Traumas and Many Other Adversities Go to the ITRC website to register for the Dec 2 webinar: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ Why the Need for a New Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy? The Covid-19 pandemic, job and income losses, racial and ethnic violence, and many other adversities are generating widespread...
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A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis (zinnedproject.org)
A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution — as well as on people who are working to make things better. At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at...
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Register Now for March 25 Webinar on the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
The next free 1 hr. webinar on the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy is in less than 2 weeks: on Thursday , March 25 from 12 noon to 1:00 pm Pacific Time (3:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time--US & Canada) (Note: this webinar was originally scheduled for March 18). To Register for the Webinar go to the ITRC Website: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ Why the Urgent Need for a New Approach to Foster Mental Wellness and Resilience? The skyrocketing mental health and psychosocial...
Member
Anne Griffith
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Please Read This Article: Preparing for Climate Overshoot Requires Quickly Expanding Our Mental Health System
All mental health and social service leaders are urged to read the attached article Preparing for Climate Overshoot Requires Quickly Expanding Our Mental Health System . It describes: How this decade or early next global temperatures will likely surpass the 2.7 F temperature threshold that unleashes extremely destructive and possibly irreversible impacts on the planet and society (climate scientists call this "climate overshoot") How, if we remain unprepared, the climate overshoot will...
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How Do Children Impacted By Wildfires Recover? A Resilient Community’s Trauma-Informed Story Of Healing
Editor’s Note: Do you have a story of a local community creating programs to help their members recover from climate change disasters? Send us your story of a resilient community to editor@kindredmedia.org. We’re honored to feature Thrive , a healing initiative of the North Valley Community Foundation (NVCF), a collaboration of people, organizations and agencies in Butte County, California, whose mission is to address the impact of trauma across generations. In the wake of the devastating...
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Perspectives and Practices for an Eco-Wise Culture
The very best remedy for climate anxiety is knowing that this a collective experience, not an individual experience. This is a 12-month learning community to build understanding, resiliency and togetherness amidst the ecological crisis we and our planet are facing.
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How do we empower youth in face of the climate crisis?
Whether you are a parent or a guardian, a teacher or a school administrator, if you have children in your life, you might hear them talking about climate change. Whether it’s wildfires or floods or tsunamis and tornados, these events are happening with increasing frequency all around us. Climate change may once have been an abstract concept or foreign idea, but it is now our reality. Young people are more aware than ever of the threats to the planet’s future and are getting involved...
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Register Now for July 28 Free Webinar About the ITRC Community of Practice
The ITRC will launch a "Community of Practice" (CoP) this October to educate, connect, and empower people throughout industrialized nations to organize and operate community-based culturally accountable initiatives that use a public health approach to enhance the entire population's capacity for mental wellness and transformational resilience for the climate crisis. You can learn about the CoP by attending a free webinar on July 28. Why Prioritize Forming Community-Based Population-Level...
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Last chance to register for Sept 13 webinar on using public mental health approach for the climate crisis
LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER For Next Tuesday's Sept. 13 Webinar on the Need To Use a Public Health Approach in Communities to Build Population Mental Wellness & Resilience for the Climate Crisis The Webinar Will Describe the ITRC Community of Practice (CoP) that Begins in October on How to Organize and Operate Public Mental Health Initiatives in Communities. To register for the September 13 webinar go to the ITRC website: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/ The Climate Crisis Requires...
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How to Help Survivors of Extreme Climate Events (psychologytoday.com)
By Elaine Miller-Karas MSW, LCSW Building Resiliency to Trauma Psychology Today, September 30, 2022 Mental health can suffer after extreme climate events. KEY POINTS Mental health conditions exacerbated by natural disasters include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. After a disaster, the number of people needing assistance from the mental health systems strains or exceeds community capacity. There are simple strategies helpers can use to help survivors restore...
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A Sound Healing Grief Ritual for the Climate Crisis with Eric Bowers
When we don’t have support and space to grieve significant losses, the grief stays stuck inside us and takes a toll on our mental and physical health.
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Bob Doppelt to address Community Mental Wellness and Resiliency Act on Monday’s Resiliency Within Podcast
Bob Doppelt, the coordinator of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) will discuss why community-based initiatives that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience are important approaches to combat widespread harmful mental health and psychosocial problems generated by the climate emergency when he appears on the Resiliency Within podcast at 1 p.m. PT; 4 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 24. In September 2023 alone,...
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Bob Doppelt to address Community Mental Wellness and Resiliency Act on Monday’s Resiliency Within Podcast
Bob Doppelt, the coordinator of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) will discuss why community-based initiatives that use a public health approach to build population-level mental wellness and transformational resilience are important approaches to combat widespread harmful mental health and psychosocial problems generated by the climate emergency when he appears on the Resiliency Within podcast at 1 p.m. PT; 4 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 24. In September 2023 alone,...
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Natural Disasters are Traumatic: Urge Congress to Support Three Bills to Help Communities Heal
On September 18th, Hurricane Fiona made landfall on Puerto Rico, bringing massive rainfall, killing more than 30 people, and leaving 1.18 million people without power. Ten days later, Hurricane Ian hit Florida, killing over 100 people and displacing thousands whose homes were destroyed. The Mosquito Fire, which began in California on September 8th, is still active. So far, it has burned 80 thousand acres of land, evacuating 11,000 people and burning and damaging nearly 100 buildings. In...
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On Oysters, Humans, and Climate Change with Priya Shukla
Learn about what it means to do science to help climate-proof an industry that provides infrastructure to a community and may also play a pivotal role in bringing back the oysters that preceded them.