Conference Sessions

Community Resilience Initiative’s Executive Director, Rick Griffin will share why coaching and consulting will be the next big thing in the trauma and resilience movement. The session will discuss how coaching and consulting can be more impactful than training in motivating individuals to act. Participants will also be exposed to a preview of CRI’s upcoming Coaching and Consulting Certification.

 In this session, you will discover how coaching and consulting can be more impactful than traditional training in motivating individuals to take action toward building resilience. Drawing from his extensive experience in the field, Rick will provide insights and practical examples of how coaching and consulting can help individuals develop the skills and mindset needed to overcome adversity and build resilience.

But that’s not all - participants will also be treated to a preview of CRI’s upcoming Coaching and Consulting Certification. This certification program will equip participants with the knowledge and skills needed to become effective coaches and consultants in the trauma and resilience space. It is a unique opportunity for mental health professionals, organizational leaders, and individuals to gain the expertise needed to help others overcome trauma and build resilience in their communities.

How does a school serving marginalized students have a 100%  graduation rate and 95% go to college? Discover the trauma-informed strategies and the neuroscience behind them that have led to student success. You will leave with a "tool chest" of strategies to implement in your school to support students who have experienced trauma and bring equitable education for all.

Life expectancy in the US has dropped, with the ten leading causes of death closely related to results from Adverse Childhood Experiences, historical trauma, trauma from racism, and other forms of discrimination. This workshop seeks to expand our understanding of approaches that foster regenerative well-being by introducing a healing-informed social imaginary to stimulate a culture of belonging and create a more just/healed world.

This session will focus on methods and information that accelerate the trauma-informed movement by providing stakeholders, advocates, and practitioners with tools to encourage and assist systems in every community in integrating community-led, trauma-informed, prevention-oriented, resilience-focused, and healing-centered approaches and principles into their daily operations.

When parents and caregivers are unable to provide support and protection for children or are themselves the cause of harm, it can have lifelong impacts on psychological and physical health. Beyond families, service providers and systems of care that are meant to create a safety net sometimes add to, rather than alleviate, the toxic stress that children experience. It doesn't have to be this way. One caring adult in a child's life can make a difference, because just as the harm of trauma happens in a relationship, so does healing. In this workshop, we'll explore how trauma impacts developing brains and what service providers can do to support resilience in children, using the Sanctuary Model as a reference.

Information will be provided regarding the use of mobile health units during the COVID-19 pandemic. The School of Nursing committed to building trust in the community regarding health management and disease prevention in a new way, using mobile health. The mobile health units played a particularly important role in providing health services to underserved and vulnerable populations in rural North Carolina.

The brain's plasticity and its role in compassion and empathy are critical to individual well-being and human connections.  This presentation focuses on strengths and challenges to building individual, interpersonal, and societal connections. Participants will explore bonding, bridging, and healing; they will examine their own practice to cultivate a culture of connection that ultimately contributes to community resilience.

The work of resilience comes with pressures that make it hard to unlock creativity and presence. We are on the go, planning and performing. This hands-on workshop will switch your brain from efficiency to exploration. After an overview of the benefits of doodling, participants will be led through active prompts to create. Participants may share their creations, reflections, and discoveries.

The Community Resiliency Model® (CRM), created by Elaine Miller-Karas, supports resiliency by creating an awareness of the body's experience during regulated moments, using this to pivot during times of stress back into our resilient zone. CRM can be taught and learned by anyone, and participation will empower you to use it and share it with others.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded that we quickly adapt and display resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges. This has led to the creation of a new community-led public health workforce, which has proven vital in the pandemic response. As we transition from a rapid response model to a more community health-focused approach, we are now utilizing trauma-informed practices to ensure that our team remains aligned with the needs of the communities we serve.

The impact of adversity and anxiety-inducing situations can take a toll on one’s mental and emotional health. However, an evidence-based and consistent stillness practice can build resilience to mitigate the effects of stress. In this session, attendees will learn practices to build their own “at the ready” toolbox for finding calm while navigating the ups and downs of everyday life.

Relationships are the greatest protection we have against all threats in life. Unfortunately, many of us have relationships in the earliest days of our lives that make it difficult to form protective relationships later in life. Hope is not lost, though. Life is a WE thing, and it’s never too late to learn how to WE.

Adverse childhood experiences are common and corrosive to both individual and community well-being.  However, such negative outcomes are not a certainty if individuals possess resilient characteristics and/or live in resilient environments.  Participants will learn about the evidence-based building blocks of resilience and using this information, will develop their own personal or organizational resilience action plan.

A clinical therapist shares the art of offering therapeutic support without being a professional therapist. This session is ideal for educators, coaches, managers, and other non-therapy professionals who often find themselves in situations where they need to provide emotional support, guidance, or a listening ear. Participants will learn evidence-based techniques to increase wellbeing by building a healing relationship and creating a safe space for open dialogue. The session will also emphasize the importance of modeling coping skills, ensuring that non-therapists can offer essential support without overstepping their roles or risking harm.

Sitting in a national conference session to learn how to better understand her students, Laura Clark learned what being trauma-informed could mean not only to her students but to her own life.  Join us for a personal conversation and storytelling about how a single hour changed her life.  Laura will share how a goal of adding two hundred trauma-informed individuals to the world set in motion a new way of doing things for her department and agency and sparked new directions and ideas that are resonating nationwide.