How Resilience can be Encouraged and Promoted – Institute for Community and Family Resilience

I have been thinking a lot about resilience and how we can help foster resilience in our communities. I am particularly aware of the need to be supportive of one another, which goes a bit beyond “just be kind”. And goes to a set of principles of Trauma-Informed “Caring”. The realization (i.e. understanding about trauma), the recognition of the signs of trauma (i.e. that a person is not okay), responding to those signs, and resisting possibly re-tramatizing. Yesterday I attended a celebration of Recovery Month, here in Gary. The event was called Region Recovery Riot and was sponsored by the organization, Gary Harm Reduction. And there was so much going on at the Gary Aquatorium and really was celebratory in all of the activities, the music, and the connections that folks were making. And it was appropriate and geared toward all ages. And this is certainly an example of how we can encourage and support individuals and families who may be facing invisible challenges every single day. And we don’t need to know the specifics of what those challenges are, we just need to have an awareness that many people are struggling with something. When we invite folks into our space or require them to be in our space (think community centers, churches/synagogues, government offices, Courts, schools, medical setting, etc.), how do we ensure their safety? These are questions that need to be asked and most importantly answered to be a trauma-informed/trauma sensitive, resilient community.

About Author

Elaine Spicer

I have been a social worker for 31 years. My work has been with families and children first in the area of Child Protective Services and then as a therapist working with the same population. I have worked with divorcing and divorced parents teaching co-parenting techniques, supervised therapists and have been a social worker for emotionally challenged children and adolescents in an inner city school system. About 7 years ago I was introduced to the work of Bryan Post and, as a friend and colleague said at the time…I went Post-al. All of my previous assumptions and indeed my work using behavioral interventions, got pushed aside. And along came the realization that none of the interventions, meant to change behaviors, had anything in common with helping children heal from the trauma they had experienced. My best work these days is as a coach/consultant for parents, other caregivers, and teachers. The services I provide are parent education, coaching, consulting and supervising. I am the mother of five adult children and grandmother to five. I am both a bio mom and an adoptive mom.

See author's posts