Preventing Trauma
and Its Consequences
A Series Brought to You By The South Southwest PTTC
In this Issue:

  • The Science and Power of Hope and How to Nurture it in Youth and Adults
  • Additional Resources on the Science of Hope
  • What's Happening Around the Region?
  • Registration still open! Session 2 of the 5 Session Webinar Series on Trauma, April 22
  • Emerging Drug Trends in the South Southwest, April 27
  • How to Develop an Effective Program Logic Model Part 1, May 4
  • Epi Corner: Measuring Resilience: Challenges and Future Directions
The Science and Power of Hope and How to Nurture it in Youth and Adults
 
by Chan Hellman

The Science and Power of Hope
 
Hope is the belief that our future can be better than our past, and that we have a role to play in making that future a reality. This positive expectation of the future is grounded in three simple elements: Goals, Pathways, and Willpower. Goals are the cornerstone of our ability to hope. Goals can be both short-term or long-term. However, goals must be desired enough to motivate action. The nature of the goals we set drive the way we think about both pathways and willpower. Pathways thinking refers to the ability to identify strategies or plans on how to achieve our goals. The hopeful person is able to identify multiple pathways to the goal and can effectively identify alternative pathways or solutions to potential barriers. Willpower (Agency) thinking refers to the mental energy we deploy toward our goal pursuits. The hopeful person has the agency to self-regulate their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions when selecting and pursuing their desired goals. It is important to recognize that hope is a way of thinking and not an emotion. Because hope is a way of thinking about our future, it can be taught and learned.
 
Why Hope Matters
 
Hope theory provides the foundation for understanding behavior in the social environment and offers an evidenced based framework for practitioners, leaders, and community stakeholders in an effort to create and sustain a positive environment where children, adults, and families can thrive. With over 2,000 published research studies, hope has emerged as one of the best predictors of goal attainment and well-being for both children and adults. This research has established that 1) Hope leads to positive outcomes, 2) Hope is a protective factor buffering against adversity and stress, and 3) Hope can be taught and learned.
 
Hope is important for staff as well. At the Hope Research Center, our studies show that staff with higher hope are better at finding strategies to increase their well-being as well. In addition, we have found that hope is associated with lower burnout, lower turnover, increased job satisfaction, and increased engagement.
 
Hope provides a unifying framework to create a positive culture grounded in setting goals, finding and navigating pathways, and supporting the willpower necessary to pursue those goals. A hope centered organization seeks to infuse values, policy, practices, and structure with the science of hope creating an environment where both clients and staff thrive.
About the Author

Chan Hellman is the facilitator for the second session of the “Preventing Trauma and Its Consequences” series on Thursday, April 22. Dr. Hellman is a professor of social work at the University of Oklahoma and director of The Hope Research Center. His research informed the development of the “Hope Centered and Trauma-Informed” training program, focusing on hope as a psychological strength helping children and adults overcome trauma and adversity. He has written more than 150 scientific publications, presented at numerous national and international conferences worldwide, including a TEDx presentation in the fall of 2020. Dr. Hellman is the co-author of the award-winning book, Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life, with his co-author Casey Gwinn. Read more about Dr. Hellman and register for session 2.
Additional Resources on The Science of Hope
An Open Letter to Police Chiefs: The Need for Trauma-Informed Policing
Christopher Freeze
This blog by Christopher Freeze gives four top reasons police chiefs need to be trauma informed. The blog provides a link to a letter template you can use to send to your police chief as well as links to many other resources related to trauma.

Learning Series: State Policy Approaches to Addressing Childhood Adversity
California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity
The goal of this webinar is to provide state advocates an opportunity to learn about current models of addressing childhood adversity at the state and local levels with a focus on trauma-informed and resilience-building efforts.
 
Grow Your Positive & Adverse Childhood Experiences (PACEs) Initiative!
PACE Connection
This blog and six-part short video series provide the five basics for growing a city or county PACES initiative.
 
The Science of the Positive: Growing Health with Positive Community Norms and HOPE
Mid America PTTC
The Science of the Positive framework is based upon the realization that ‘The Positive’ exists in ourselves, our communities and our cultures, and can be increased to improve health and safety. Both the Positive Community Norms approach to prevention and the new science of HOPE (Health Outcomes from Positive Experiences) are organized around the Science of the Positive Cycle of Transformation and its domains of Spirit, Science, Action, and Return. This interactive session will introduce these three key approaches to transforming community health.
 
Exploring HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences
Northwest PTTC
This webinar recording will explain how the building blocks of HOPE emerged through careful review of evidence. This session will conclude by providing attendees with flexible building blocks to apply HOPE at individual, family, community and societal levels to prevent adversity, support resilience and promote healing and health equity based upon positive childhood experiences (PCEs).
The South Southwest PTTC is currently suspending in-person training and meetings until further notice. Take advantage of our many virtual products and services available for free from our website.
Preventing Trauma and Its Consequences
A Five-Part Webinar Series
Presented by the South Southwest HHS Region 6 PTTC

Session 2: The Science and Power of Hope
and How to Nurture it in Youth and Adults
with Chan Hellman,
Director of the Hope Research Center

Thursday, April 22
1:30-3 pm CT

Hope has emerged as one of the top factors leading to humans flourishing across the life span. This seminar will present the science of hope as a psychological strength in our ability to cope with traumatic experiences
Save the Dates for other sessions in the series
 
Preventing Trauma and Its Consequences: Practical Steps for the Prevention Professional
 
A South Southwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center Webinar Series
 
Please join us in this webinar series as we come together to share the good news about the role of prevention in addressing ACEs and other trauma. Together we'll learn the practical steps to preventing trauma and its consequences in your community.
 
Session 3: May 27
Session 4: June 24
Session 5: July 22
 
Each webinar will begin at 1:30 p.m. CT and run for 90 minutes. Please join our email list to receive notifications about specific topics and registration details as they become available.
Emerging Drug Trends in the South Southwest

April 27, 2021,10:00 a.m. CT

It is important for prevention professionals to be aware of emerging substance use trends and patterns in order to provide comprehensive and proactive services that stave off widespread problem use. Using national and state data sources, presenters Josh Esrick and Emily Patton of Carnevale will describe emerging substance use trends in the South Southwest region (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas). They also explain how the extent and impact of these trends can vary by state due to geographic, demographic, and cultural factors. Finally, they will explore the preventionist's role in addressing emerging substance use trends before they prove damaging.
  
This is a webinar you will not want to miss! Register today to be a part of the conversation on emerging substance use trends and the evidence-based, promising strategies for addressing them.
How to Develop an Effective Program Logic Model Part 1

May 4, 10:30 a.m. CT

Logic models provide valuable insight into a program's effectiveness and impact. In a two-part webinar series, speakers will show participants how to develop a logic model that effectively describes your program and guides its evaluation. The first webinar will provide an overview of logic models and will describe the steps to creating one for a prevention program. The second webinar will be a learning lab that gives participants an opportunity to apply information from the first webinar to craft a logic model using a case study.  
 
Who should attend? This series is tailor-made for prevention practitioners and community stakeholders in the early stages of developing a logic model and those needing to update their program's logic model.

At the completion of the webinar series, participants will have an opportunity to access individualized technical assistance from an evaluator to update their program's logic model.
Prevention Online Courses

Free online courses are available through the Prevention Technology Transfer Center.

If you are new to prevention, be sure to take the course, "Introduction to Substance Abuse Prevention: Understanding the Basics (Pre-SAPST)".
Epi Corner

Iris Smith, Ph.D., M.P.H.
South Southwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center
Measuring Resilience: Challenges and Future Directions


The South Southwest PTTC is proudly presenting a five-part series on the role of trauma for preventionists. Since the original study by Felitti, Anda, and Nordenberg (1998), there has been extensive research on the physical and psychological consequences of early childhood exposure to toxic stress and other adverse childhood experiences.1 The negative outcomes associated with ACEs across the lifespan have now been well documented. However, there is limited evidence for the effectiveness of most interventions for children and youth who have experienced ACEs.2 The strongest evidence is for cognitive behavioral therapy, with other forms of individual therapy (family therapy brief motivational interventions, psychodynamic psychotherapy) producing mixed or equivocal results. 2
 
Over the last 30 years there has been increasing interest in identifying factors that contribute to healing and resilience in individuals who experienced childhood trauma and adversity. One of the challenges in measuring resilience has been the lack of an agreed upon definition. Common to most definitions is the experience of adversity or stress and the achievement of positive outcomes during or following the exposure.
 
Available evidence suggests that positive future expectations and self-confidence are key to children’s resilience, especially in response to maltreatment. A child’s belief that they have the ability to make good things happen for themselves is a major predictor of resilience in highly stressed children.3 Increasingly resilience is being viewed as the result of dynamic interaction between individual characteristics and the resources and support within their physical and social environment. While individual traits such as hope, optimism, self-esteem and self-efficacy are associated with resiliency, the availability of resources and opportunities in the larger social environment is also important. 
 
In a review of research on resilience and mental health, Ungar &Theron (2020) maintain that resilience is a process influenced by the social context in which it is measured. Cultural narratives are particularly strong in studies with Indigenous and ethnic minority populations. Thus, interventions should be tailored based on cultural and contextual norms. The influence of social determinants of health such as disadvantage, community resources, social supports and other transactions within the ecological framework should be considered in the design of interventions. The intersection of individual characteristics such as gender, developmental stage at exposure, ethnicity and systemic disadvantage should also be explored.4
 
Articles of Interest
 
Gallagher MW, Long LJ, Phillips CA (2020). Hope, Optimism, Self-Efficacy, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analytic review of the Protective Effects of Positive Expectancies. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 76, pg. 329-355.
 
Nayeri ND, Goudarzian AH, Herth K, Naghavi N, Nia HS, Yaghoobzadeh A, Sharif SP, Allen KA (2020). Construct Validity of the Herth Hope Index. International Journal of Health Sciences, 14 (3); pg. 50-57.
 
Seko Y, Lamptey D, Nalder E, King G (2020). Assessing Resiliency in Pediatric Rehabilitation: A Critical Review of Assessment Tools and Applications.  Child Care Health Development; 46(3); pg. 249-267.
 
Stoddard SA & Pierce J. (2015). Promoting Positive Future Expectations During Adolescence: The Role of Assets. American Journal of Community Psychology 56; pg. 332-341.
 
Ungar M & Theron L (2020). Resilience and Mental Health: How Multisystemic Processes Contribute to Positive Outcomes. Lancet, 7; pg. 441-447
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1Felitti VJ, Anda RF, Nordenberg D, Williamson DF, Spitz AM, Edwards V, Koss MP (1998). Relationship of
Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults. The
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 14, pg. 245-268.

2Lorenc T, Lester S, Sutcliffe K, Stansfield C, Thomas J (2020). Interventions to Support People Exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences: Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews. BMC Public Health 20; pg.657

3Mullin A (2019) Children’s Hope, Resilience and Autonomy. Ethics and Social Welfare, 13 (3), pg. 230-243

4Ungar M & Theron L (2020). Resilience and Mental Health: How Multisystemic Processes Contribute to Positive Outcomes. Lancet, 7; pg. 441-447