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Hello Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative Members,
In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I would like to extend my gratitude to the many Collaborative members I have had the opportunity to work with and learn from since joining the Health & Medicine team in September. We have our work cut out for us right now, but the generosity, creativity, knowledge, and passion of this group gives me much needed hope as we head into winter.
In this newsletter, we’re sharing a newly published report full of insights from Chicago-area hospitals and health care systems working to become trauma-informed, as well as details about an upcoming webinar featuring this work at several hospitals. We’ve also picked out some of our favorite sessions from the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, which we hope you will find useful and inspiring.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Bridget Gavaghan
Director, Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative
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New Report: Aligning Hospitals to Promote Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered Transformation in Chicago
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The Trauma-Informed Hospitals Working Group, co-convened by the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative, the Chicago Department of Public Health, and the Alliance for Health Equity, was the first of its kind nationally to unite hospitals and health care systems to begin to bring trauma-informed transformation to scale. The Working Group remains a leader in the field, with its co-chairs presenting at national conferences and providing technical assistance to others seeking to replicate this model. It provided, and continues to offer, an unprecedented opportunity for organizations that ordinarily compete to come together and share resources, think collectively, problem solve, and learn from national best practices and emerging evidence in order to implement systems change.
Given the increasing attention being paid to trauma-informed care in health care settings, this report aims to share the learnings of the Working Group. It reviews the hospital members’ journeys with a focus on eight that participated in qualitative interviews, highlighting their successes and challenges, discussing plans for sustainability moving forward, and describing the role of the Working Group in guiding progress. It is our hope that the insights presented will provide direction for health care institutions and other organizations pursuing TIHC transformation.
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New Resource: A Guide for Launching and Sustaining a Trauma-Informed Hospital Workgroup
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Forming a Trauma-Informed Workgroup is a critical, early step to take in a healthcare organization’s journey to become trauma-informed (TI). This resource guide is designed to provide you with tools and strategies to establish and grow this workgroup. It also includes resources on adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and trauma-informed care to share with each other and your organization as a whole. This guide will assist hospitals and healthcare organizations in leading a workgroup that advocates for and implements trauma-informed practices that create safer, more supportive, and healing-centered environments.
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Join Us for Our Next Webinar on Wednesday, 12/9!
The Collaborative is excited to announce our next webinar, Chicago’s Trauma-Informed Hospital Working Group: Lessons from Collaboration and Organizational Transformation on Wednesday, December 9th at 11:00 am CT. Since 2017, the Collaborative and the Chicago Department of Public Health have co-hosted 19 Chicagoland hospitals all committed to trauma-informed organization building. This webinar will highlight the formation and successes of the Work Group, with presentations from member hospitals on how they’ve integrated trauma-informed principles into their work, organizations, and communities; as well as plans for the Work Group’s future in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Webinar — Chicago's Trauma-Informed Hospital Working Group: Lessons from Collaboration and Organizational Transformation
Wednesday, December 9th, 11 am CT
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APHA Highlights
The American Public Health Association held its annual meeting from October 24th-28th, forgoing an in-person event for a virtual conference. Senior Policy Analyst Madison Hammett was invited to present “Integrating Historical Trauma into a Scalable and Multidisciplinary Childhood Adversity Training Program,” highlighting the creation and piloting of the Collaborative’s new historical and structural trauma training. Though the conference was forced to move to a virtual space in light of COVID-19, attendees still had the opportunity to hear from hundreds of presenters, including many highlighting their work in trauma-informed and resilience building practices. To watch the Collaborative’s presentation, view our recording here. Here are some other sessions we recommend checking out:
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Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley continued pushing forward her newly introduced bill that aims to address the origins of childhood trauma. The STRONG Support for Children Act targets the root causes of childhood trauma and the inequities that contribute to it through grant funding for public health services. Pressley recently held a townhall with her constituents to discuss the impact of trauma on their lives, and how she hopes this legislation will provide support for survivors- particularly those of color.
According to Pressley, the grants proposed in the STRONG Support for Children Act “Will support communities in addressing the root causes of childhood trauma through reparative, healing-centered, neighborhood based, gender responsive, culturally specific, and trauma informed approaches that recognize the role that systemic racism and inequities have played in traumatizing children for generations.”
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“The COVID-19 Pandemic, Stress, and Trauma in the Disability Community: A Call to Action” by Emily M. Lund, Anjali J. Forber-Pratt, Catherine Wilson, and Linda R. Mona, Rehabilitation Psychology
This article sheds light on the ways in which people with disabilities in the United States are disproportionately exposed to sources of stress and trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, as early as March an online disability-focused website conducted a survey on how the pandemic was affecting the lives of disabled users. Of the over 13,000 responses, three-quarters reported that the pandemic had affected their health care in some way. Participants also reported skipping doctor’s appointments and going without medications or other routine medical care. Furthermore, the article highlights how conversations around COVID-19 have unearthed ableism in the way we talk about the pandemic- “coronavirus isn’t that dangerous. It just affects people with pre-existing conditions.” The authors call on rehabilitation psychologists and others to recognize and address disparities in their work through acknowledging and addressing ableism and other forms of oppression.
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This interview with psychotherapist and workplace wellness expert Farah Harris discusses how race-based trauma impacts employee wellbeing and how companies can support employees through the U.S. presidential election season and beyond. Though the business world may seem an unlikely place to address trauma, Dr. Harris argues that employers have a duty their staff of color who are dealing with both potential trauma inside and outside of work, and offers methods companies can utilize to protect employees.
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Donate to the Collaborative and Health & Medicine to ensure issues of trauma and toxic stress remain central to our response to this pandemic and in the future.
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