We’re well into 2024 and the year has already been a busy one for TGW. I’m going to share a few of our exciting projects.
• Our work with the Novalis Trust in the Cotswolds, UK:
We are entering our third year in bringing SRM to Novalis Trust’s Chine School. The school delivers heart-based education and healing to severely disturbed young people. It may seem odd to refer to “heart-based” education, but in my consultation with staff at the school and the administrators, Jake Lukas and Caroline Tebay, their emphasis on deep relationship and respectful treatment to their young people is inspiring. This spring we will be providing SRM orientations to families and board members as well as a refresher to staff. A special delight in this work is the physical environment, based upon Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf approach and architectural philosophy. Teaching there I can see the hillside outside the buildings dotted with cows (they do love their cows in the Cotswolds!)
• TGW’s work to raise the visibility of leading with resilience is reflected in 2 current projects:
-Research by Linda Driscoll in Colorado is validating my alternative to the A.C.E. (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Survey. The instrument I designed is called P.A.C.E.S. (Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey). This survey incorporates the 10 items from ACES in addition to 10 questions about positive experiences. The questions are presented in an order that decreases reactivity and helps maintain an individual in their Resilient Zone. Too often research instruments that are assessing trauma risk retraumatizing individuals simply by the deluge of questions about traumatic events. Driscoll’s study is being done with 728 opioid drug users. The abstract will be added here as soon as it is released.
-An article co-written with Brigid McCaw, MD, recently published in the Kaiser Permanente Journal titled “Time to Move Forward: Resilience and Trauma-Informed Care (RTIC). The article is in our last blog. In this article we urge the use of this new term RTIC instead of TIC and we provide the neuroscience-based reasons why leading with resilience is so important.
• And, a project currently in development is a collaboration between TGW and two human rights advocates, Rick Jones and Tom Boerman. We have designed a project that will bring SRM to El Salvador and to organizations working with El Salvadorans in the United States. SRM has been used extensively in other cultures (China, Thailand, Nepal, Rwanda, Haiti), particularly those suffering from large-scale traumatic events. The project will focus on the trauma caused by the actions of the drug cartels and the impact on physical and mental health. It has a train the trainer component to build local capacity to provide SRM to local people, organizations, and their communities. It also has a component for immigration court judges.
I am so grateful to work with individuals who strive on a daily basis to help make our world a better place. This is a time of so much struggle and dissension in the U.S. and much of the world. Bringing SRM into communities nationally and internationally is TGW’s way to contribute to peace and healing.
