Cultivating Trauma-Informed Care through Growth, Healing, and Knowledge

3 CMEs

Join North Memorial Health for this free symposium, which is in response to the recent community health needs assessment that named life-impacting traumas as one of our two top health priorities. It is a first step in laying the groundwork about trauma-informed care by providing training on the range of life-impacting traumas and their affect on health.

Traumatic experiences rooted in the three realms of ACEs (adverse childhood experiences, adverse community events, and adverse community environments) have left many people grieving and in need of support to help them heal. Join North Memorial Health, local subject matter experts, and fellow community members for a day of insight, storytelling, and understanding as you learn about:

• Types of traumas, principles of trauma-informed care and tools to address trauma.
• How adverse community events impacted people’s lives and how they nurtured their response in resilience, healing and hope.
• Potential secondary traumatic stress among providers working with traumatized populations and learn strategies for self-care and burnout prevention.

Topics include:

• Laying the groundwork for understanding trauma
• Personal journeys with trauma, healing, and hope
• How health practitioners and care providers can provide trauma-informed care
• Radical self-care for those providing care to others, including those in healing professions

Breakfast & lunch will be served – Vegan, vegetarian & GF options available.

Co-sponsored by Northwest Family Resource Collaborative

Agenda

Opening Session

Dysregulation & Disconnection – Understanding the Legacy of Trauma

Speaker: Ryan Van Wyk, PsyD

Traumatic experiences, whether single events, repeated episodes, or chronic conditions, when left unacknowledged and the subsequent symptoms untreated, can result in persistent dysregulation that disrupts behavior, relationships, and daily functioning. When these experiences happen early in life, it can significantly alter a person’s developmental trajectory and mental health. This presentation will explore the neurobiology of both trauma and resilience, discuss different forms of experiential and environmental adversity, and discuss the importance of a trauma-focused approach to care.

Community Panel

Community Voices: Transforming Trauma into Triumph

Speakers: Marea Perry;  Nick Alm

Trauma isn’t a one-time event. Trauma is what we are left with after physically, emotionally, and spiritually painful experiences. Come listen as two community voices share how trauma has impacted their lives, how they have navigated their healing journey (within and outside of existing systems of care) and how they have turned their experiences into lifelong passions aimed at reducing trauma for others and making the world a better place. Through their stories, we will work to define how North Memorial Health can play a holistic role in recognizing and treating trauma in its many forms as well as building a system that aids communities in breaking the cycle of trauma.

Knowledge Breakout Session

Implicit and Racial Bias in Domestic Violence Cases – Providing Trauma-Informed and Anti-oppressive Care

Speakers: Amirthini Keefe, MSW, LICSW;  Beth Johnson MSW, LICSW (Moderator)

Domestic violence continues to be a public health epidemic. During COVID, medical providers became one of the most accessible pathways to safety and support for victims in the community. While we understand that domestic violence does not discriminate, our implicit and racial bias can be a barrier to access to services, supports, and safety. In this session, participants will learn more about how implicit and racial bias can show up in domestic violence cases and how to provide trauma-informed, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive care to help break the cycle of violence in families in our community.

Growth Breakout Session

Growth: Reshaping Perceptions of Trauma through Restorative Practices

Speaker: raj s, he/him/they

Join us for a low-tech, high-touch conversation about restorative and transformative practices that can help people, systems, and communities learn from the past so that we create a better future. Part of the session will include examining personal values, how values bring us to our work, and how systems are designed/operated to distance people from their values. We will address the concept of deep medicine and how medical systems have failed at building trust and relationships with the communities they serve. Participants are encouraged to be present in their heart space and practice self-care to work together to create safe and brave spaces for our team members, patients, and community.

Healing Breakout Session

Using Sound and Meditation on the Path Towards Healing

Speaker: Tamiko French

This session will be a 45-minute meditative practice utilizing sound as a healing element, along with journaling, movement, and breathwork. Sound healing is an ancient concept, also known as sound meditation or sound bathing. Sound healing can reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep, create a deep sense of wellbeing, and promote healing that goes well beyond simple relaxation. According to the laws of physics, everything in the universe vibrates with frequency. Human beings have their own frequencies too, known as resonances. Sound healing is based on the belief that dysregulation or disease in the body is a result of our natural resonance being out of tune or off balance, due to stress, illness, or environmental factors. Working with frequencies can bring bodies back into healthy vibration. Come relax and recharge your mind, body, and soul by ingesting the healing sounds of quartz crystal and Tibetan singing bowls, hand pan, sansula, gong, chimes, shakers, tongue and buffalo drums while lying down or sitting.

Closing Session

From Heartbreak to Healing: Radical Self-Care for Emotional Laborers

Speaker: Dr. Joi Lewis

This session provides space for us to center healing in community. We explore practices of Healing Justice and reclaiming our own humanity and create space for radical self-care grounded in the Orange Method of Healing Justice, which is accessible to every human being, right where we each are. Radical self-care is “the intentional practice of attending to your mind, body and soul in ways that oppose forces of oppression that want us exhausted and sick.” This allows us to hold heartbreak and joy even more, or perhaps for the first time, particularly as “invisible emotional laborers.”

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