Twenty-first Edition: Preventing ACEs | Healing Adversity

Aligning Resources Across Georgia To Support Resiliency

To Our Resilient Georgia Partners and Stakeholders:

Taking care of our mental health is just as important as taking care of our physical health. Fortunately many athletes have elevated this conversation in recent months. Please join us by registering for an intimate discussion about mental wellness, resilience, and perseverance with local Track and Field world class athlete and recent Olympian Kenny Selmon on October 28th at 11AM EST. Our first 50 guests to register will receive a special package from Resilient Georgia to enjoy during our meeting (hint- we love our friends at Ebrik coffee)! Be sure to include an accurate mailing address.

Our August Sector highlight focused on law enforcement, where it is clear there is a great need for mental health resources and support - if you missed it, please take a moment to read it here. In this newsletter, we highlight the critical need to support caregiver mental health – read more below.

We would also like to highlight several resources and news updates:

Representative Tanner, Chairman of the Georgia Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission (BHRIC), urges that it is “Time for Georgia to Act on Mental Health” in his recent AJC opinion piece. Read about how Resilient Georgia, the Georgia Mental Health Policy Partnership (GMHPP), the Georgia Parity Collaborative, and other partners support parity, access and other mental health best practices laid out in the BHRIC’s First-Year Report. This report moves us many steps closer to an integrated behavioral healthcare system in Georgia. To learn more, please view the August GMHPP press conference on Behavioral Healthcare Parity at the Georgia State Capitol, read The Carter Center's Mental Health Access Policy Brief, and listen to MHA of Georgia ED Abdul Henderson on WABE’s Aug 10 Closer Look episode discuss why Georgia ranks last for access to mental healthcare, as well as share solutions for barriers.
This story shows how United Way of Greater Atlanta’s “Motel-to-Home” program supports homeless individuals and families by offering housing assistance and invaluable life skills training.
NPR highlights the incongruities and lack of resources around mental healthcare that cause children in mental health crises to spend multiple days in the ER without treatment.
Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia provides free support groups hosted for and by mothers across Georgia.
Check out this feature on Cobb County’s new jail program that is leading incarcerated young men towards healthy parenting. The program is also teaching job skills in hopes of reducing jail recidivism rates.

Suicide Prevention Month

We would like to take time to acknowledge September as Suicide Prevention Month. There is a necessary and widespread national effort to educate, spread resources, and have open conversations about the risks of suicide. To start, this CDC page provides a helpful introduction to suicide facts and prevention strategies. The risk factors for suicide are complex and often suprising, but this article does a great job explaining the shocking difference in suicide rates between two Georgian counties with distinct demographics. They dive into the range of causes and factors which enable suicide, while also offering an analysis on how to foster connection and prevention in communities. Chance of suicide is an even larger risk when an individual has experienced one or more ACE’s. Thankfully, there are known protective factors that can buffer the interaction between these events. In addition, sharing survival stories can help bring attention to this difficult topic. We encourage you to check out the second episode from Cobb Collaborative podcast “Mind Your Mind”, featuring an inspiring interview with suicide-survivor Venessa Abram.

Resource-focused efforts to prevent suicide can save lives of those at risk, and because of this their importance cannot be overstated. Burnout and chronic stress in healthcare workers has been exasperated in these extremely stressful times, leading to an opportunity for increased suicidal behaviors. This toolkit from Chatham Safety Net can help healthcare workers recognize and understand these tendencies in themselves and their colleagues. The Canadian Center for Suicide Prevention is offering interactive trainings for enhancing protective factors against suicide. Browse their various times and topics on this page. Suicide may seem too drastic an option to affect children, but the reality is that no life is fully shielded from risk. This page offers guidance for how to effectively implement suicide screening procedures in schools. Additionally, Strong4Life’s suicide prevention page for kids and teens can help adults understand preventative suicide care as well as what to do when a kid in their life reaches crisis mode.

The Chatham County Board of Commissioners recognized community-based suicide prevention efforts with this proclamation. Tara Jennings, Strategic Planning Administrator at Chatham County, and Lizann Roberts, Executive Director of Resilient Georgia grantee Coastal Georgia Indicators Coalition (CGIC), received this proclamation for their work around resiliency, mental health, and suicide prevention. For those interested in partnering with an organization doing this work, Ro*co Films is searching for partners to host screenings two documentaries for the month of suicide prevention. If you’re interested, please fill out the registration forms for either “Coming Clean” or “Wake Up”, both of which highlight important mental illness struggles.

If you or anyone you know is facing suicidal thoughts or behaviors, please check out these national prevention resources, or call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the 24 hour national suicide hotline.

Finally, we would like to share three upcoming events and trainings:

The Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence in collaboration with the Resilient Youth Next Generation Initiative is hosting speaker Dr. Sherry Hamby on September 28th at 12PM. Register in advance here.
Register today for NAMI Georgia’s Annual State Conference taking place on October 8th and 9th.
Self-Discovery INC is putting on a 3-hour Community Resilience Model training on October 18th. CRM is an invaluable trauma-informed, body-based skill that fosters resilience. Register here. You can also l isten to Resiliency Within’s Elaine Miller-Karas speak about the benefits of incorporating tenets of CRM into Emory University’s Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT).

Please follow us on Facebook or Instagram to learn of additional future learning opportunities across Georgia.

Thank you for all that you are doing to support mental wellbeing and resiliency for children and families in your communities during these difficult times!

Sincerely,

Brenda Fitzgerald, MD

Executive Board Chair

Emily Anne Vall, PhD

Executive Director

Regional Grantee Coalition Spotlight

The Vashti Center/Resilient SWGA: Who We Are

Our coalition has focused on seeking community partners and youth serving organizations that benefit from Youth Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Care trainings, to help raise awareness around the health disparities that exist in SW Georgia, especially those related to youth and behavioral health, and to advocate for a more trauma-informed and connected community. Our coalition focuses on rural counties in our region, with targeted populations including foster parents and families, school systems, faith-based programs, and local non-profits. Resilient SWGA also coordinates and provides trainings on Youth Mental Health, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Child Abuse Prevention, and Resiliency.

Coalition Geographic Service Area:

Colquitt, Decatur, Early, Grady, Miller, Mitchell, Seminole, Thomas

Tell us about an innovative community partnership that your coalition is actively engaged in to address the behavioral health needs of your region?

Resilient SWGA has formed a partnership with the Adoptive and Foster Parent Association of Georgia (AFPAG). We have trained more than 80 foster parents in our region on a multitude of relevant topics to help them become more trauma-informed. This equips them to better support and engage with children who may have experienced trauma, while also raising awareness around children’s mental health and sharing local resources.

What are some accomplishments you would like to highlight?

In Resilient SWGA’s first year, we were able to train 1,082 people from 22 youth serving organizations covering 12 counties in Southwest Georgia. To help reach this goal we coordinated trainings on relevant awareness days and months; for example:

In April 2021, as part of our Child Abuse Prevention month efforts, we hosted 13 trainings throughout the community. We trained over 250 people.
In May 2021, as part of our Children’s Mental Health Awareness month efforts, we ran a social media campaign through Instagram and Facebook which included relevant statistics, self-care messages, and other positive mental health posts. We also placed 200 green bows in Downtown Thomasville to help raise awareness.

To learn more, please visit their website and read our Resilient Georgia Regional Grantee Summaries - Summer 2021

Sector Highlight:

Supporting Caregivers In Georgia

Being a caregiver can be a beautiful and rewarding experience for many individuals. However, research is revealing that the well-being of caregivers seems to be generally worsening, especially throughout the pandemic. Many women caregivers feel that the combination of their professional work and providing children with safety and supervision has inhibited their own practices of self-care. Parenting during the pandemic continues to be a daily struggle where strategies for resilience may feel difficult, even though they do exist. Thankfully, Mental Health America has curated this page of helpful caregiver resources for the pandemic and beyond. Additionally, The Rosalyn Carter Institute’s programs are providing support for unpaid as well as professional caregivers through multiple session programs aimed at solution-oriented connection and coping skills.

The year’s earlier promise of a return to school free from COVID-19 has dissipated, leaving many caregivers and children confused, scared, and grasping for safety. Breakthrough infections for vaccinated, as well as cases in children, are consistently disrupting normal school functioning for many families. In addition, mental health continues to be a huge point of concern for many children re-entering into social lives at school. In response to all of these issues, Greater Than COVID has created this awesome video resource page to answer different questions around how to keep children as safe as possible this year. We hope that these articles and resources help foster a sense of connectedness and support for caregivers who may feel incredibly isolated and discouraged at this time. At Resilient Georgia, we recognize and applaud your efforts to keep your children safe throughout their development.

To learn more about how to incorporate a trauma-informed framework into a range of institutions, take a look at our training roadmap, which offers sector specific trainings and resources for your convenience.

Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences (PACEs)

Trauma is, unfortunately, an inevitable part of life. The National Council for Behavioral Health states that 70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced a traumatic event personally, while even higher numbers bear witness to traumas via news feeds or the experiences of clients and loved ones. Experiences of trauma in childhood, commonly referred to as ACE’s, can cause “toxic stress” that cost us personally and as a society - through treatment expenses, broken relationships, and loss of precious lives. Resilient Georgia believes the solution is a multidisciplinary preventative approach of trauma-informed care. Madhuri Jha, director of the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity, discusses the need for “wrap-around services” that reach beyond individual reactions to trauma and create a collective buffer of resilience.

Given the prominent role of education in development, school is an important component of trauma-informed care. Cox Campus and partners are offering a short self-paced course for educators who want to learn more about trauma-informed classroom practices. Similarly, Doctors Veda Johnson and Jennifer Holton are offering their perspectives on how we can all work to keep kids mentally well as they return to school this year. If you’re interested in what a trauma-informed classroom looks like, read about the Miss Kendra curriculum, which when implemented in classrooms can help heal the wounds of childhood trauma. Additionally, The Black Child Development Institute-Atlanta is leading courses on Culturally Responsive Literacyand Trauma-Informed Care that can benefit anyone who works with children. Follow the links to obtain more information and register. And finally, on a larger level, the CDC’s ACE’s resource page offers research-based state and nation-wide practices that can promote trauma-informed care across America.

COVID-19 Resources

The President of the Georgia Nurses Association is calling for all nurses in Georgia to get vaccinated against COVID-19. For the full story, check out this WABE talk segment .

In this video, Cobb County leaders come together to issue a message of mutual support and responsibility that can help keep the community safe from extremely high rates of COVID-19. Cobb County's Marietta City Schools District has made the decision to enforce a mask mandate this school year. Their superintendent explains why he felt it was the best choice to keep kids safe.

Listen to infectious disease specialist Dr. Matthew Linam deliver his first-hand account of hospitals packed with COVID-19 patients. Although the current situation is extremely disheartening, there are ways to take back control. This opinion from the AJC discusses why vaccinations and masking can protect communities, particularly children who are still ineligible for vaccines.

The US Department of Agriculture is offering up to up to $500 million in grant funding to help broaden access to COVID-19 testing and vaccines, rural health care services, and food assistance. Learn more at the USDA Emergency Rural Health Care Grant Program website.

Racial Equity Resources

Equity In the Center is hosting numerous racial equity trainings throughout the rest of this year. To check out the topics and dates, please refer to this page.

A new Savannah-based initiative is utilizing research to coordinate a racial equity task force. Learn more here .

The BLK Cross is a Georgia-based organization restoring community trust, agency, and access to care for Black individuals. Their new initiative, Alive and In Color, is partnering with surrounding institutions to spread awareness and resources around the intersection of COVID-19 and the Black community.