Part 2: The Brain, Body, and Resilience

In week 2, you’ll examine how the body and brain are affected by toxic stress, define different types of stress, and understand toxic stress physiology. You’ll also learn what resilience is, identify how protective factors can help heal the impact of trauma, and discuss how resilience can be built and sustained in individuals, organizations, and communities.

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Discussion post: Post your answer to these questions on the discussion section:

1) Reflect on integrating this approach in your setting:

• What are some of the potential barriers?
• What are some of the strengths/facilitating factors?

Part 2- Social and Historical Trauma

In this section, we will cover the key principles of social, historical, and systemic adversity. We will also review the role of epigenetics and how individuals, groups, and societies can be affected by adverse community experiences across generations.

Learning Questions:

• What are social, historical, and systemic trauma?
• How do social, historical, and systemic trauma affect health and behavior?
• What is the role of biology in the intergenerational transmission
  of health outcomes for individuals and communities?

Tasks for this section:

• Download the lesson resources below
• Click the “Comment here” button and share your answers to the learning questions (or ask any questions)
• Share any “Aha” moments you have on social media. (Don’t forget to tag us @originstc #otcbasics)

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Exploring Your Strengths & Needs

Key takeaways:

• The focus of this workshop  is on evaluating the different areas of your setting–both the things that are working well (strengths) and the areas that could be improved (needs). The information you gather in this process will help guide the development of specific goals and activities, which will be the focus of the next workshop.  Don’t skip those strengths- celebrate the things that are going well!
• Utilizing the different perspectives from the members of your champion team, consider what may increase or decrease stress for staff (internally) and patients (externally). You may want to use the following trauma-informed principles as a guide:
  • Safety
  • Trustworthiness & Transparency
  • Collaboration & Mutuality
  • Peer Support  & Mutual Self-Help
  • Empowerment, Voice, Choice, & Self-Agency
  • Resilience & Strengths Based (Healing Centered) 
  • Cultural, Historical & Gender Humility
• Once the needs have been identified, prioritize! Remember the quote, “If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any.” (Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t)
• Consider if there are voices that may be missing from your champion team. Remember the human-centered design concept that “the people who face the problems every day are the ones that hold the key to their answer.” 
• Remember that this is a process. You will not solve everything right away and strengths and needs will continue to reveal themselves as your  journey to build a resilient culture deepens. Consider how you will integrate your values and the trauma-informed principles throughout this process.
• For those of you who are interested in a deeper dive on this topic, we have included the  Trauma-Informed Program Self-Assessment Scale developed by Drs. Roger Fallot and Maxine Harris as an additional resource.  Their work provides a foundation for many of the trauma-information assessment tools that exist.

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Part 6 – Creating an Action Plan

In week 6, you will build off the findings from your assessment to define concrete goals for integrating a trauma-informed approach into your setting. You will then translate those goals into a concrete action plan through the process of brainstorming and prioritizing potential solutions.

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Discussion post: Post your answer to these questions on the discussion section:

1) Reflect on integrating this approach in your setting:

• For each goal you defined, what are the 1-3 activities you will focus on to help you achieve it? Are any
  of these activities things you are already doing (or things you plan to stop?)
• How will your action team be organized to help you implement these activities?

Workshop 5 – Creating an Action Plan

The focus of this workshop will be on using the needs identified in the previous workshop to define concrete goals for integrating a trauma-informed approach and supporting sustainable culture change. Participants will then translate those goals into an action plan through the process of brainstorming and prioritizing potential solutions.

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Part 4 – Assessing Your Setting

The focus of this workshop is on exploring the strengths and needs of your setting, considering different organizational domains, such as leadership capacity, services, clients, policies and procedures, and physical environment. The goal of this workshop is to identify a process to gather information about strengths, assets, what’s working well, and what organizations might do differently to best support staff and serve clients.

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Discussion post: Post your answer to these questions on the discussion section:

Reflect & Refine:

• What are the values that are important in your setting?
• What are some specific ways that your your values show up in your setting?
• What are some specific ways that your your values show up in your setting?

Workshop 3 – Defining Your Values

The focus of this workshop is on the role of values in building a resilient culture. As part of this, participants will explore their values, reflect on how their organizational culture developed, and consider how the culture does (or does not) reflect those values.

Join the Discussion:

Discussion post: Post your answer to these questions on the discussion section:

Imagine your setting in five years….

• What does your ideal future look like?
• What does your ideal future feel like?

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Part 3 – The Body & Brain

In this section, we will examine how the body and brain are affected by toxic stress. We will define different types of stress and explain how it can become toxic. We will also explain the body’s response to positive and toxic stress.

Learning Questions:

• What are the different types of stress?
• How do the brain and body adapt to stress?
• What is the resilience zone?

Tasks for this section: 

• Download the lesson resources below
• Click the “Comment here” button and share your answers to the learning questions (or ask any questions)
• Share any “Aha” moments you have on social media. (Don’t forget to tag us @originstc #otcbasics)

Join the Discussion

Defining Your Goals

In this section, you’ll build off the findings of your assessment to define concrete goals for integrating a trauma-informed approach into your setting, using a strengths-based method to identify resources that can support you in your process.

Key Takeaways:

• The process of integrating a trauma-informed approach is hard! It’s not linear and can be frustrating at times. Coming back to individual and community skills of grounding and connection can help us and our team. Remember: Control what you can and let go of what you can’t. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 
• Creating an action plan builds upon the strengths and needs identified in the previous workshop and includes defining goals and creating activities to meet those goals.
• Looking at the needs that you and your team have identified, peel back the layers. For example, if your team has identified a need for a space for staff to gather, what is the need behind that need? Is it a place for staff to connect? To take a break? Something else?
• Once you have peeled back the layers and identified the need, you and your team can start the process of defining concrete goals to meet the need/s. Remember that some of the goals that you create will be short-term and some will require more time to execute.
• Considerations as you define your goals:
  • First, be as specific as you can. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? improvement?
  • Second, how are you going to know if you are making progress against your goals? Measurement can be tricky – how will you know if you are succeeding?”
  • Third, remember that this is a team approach. Think about your allies for this work (both within and outside of your setting) and who can help. You cannot do this alone. A strong team is essential to prioritize and problem-solve.
  • Fourth, make sure your goals are realistic. Think about your setting, your sphere of influence within that setting, and create goals that you think you can achieve.  Early success with smaller goals will more likely lead to buy-in from others than grand plans that sound great but don’t go anywhere. Remember the mantra…keep it simple!
• Once you have defined your goals, brainstorm and prioritize potential activities to meet those goals. You may want to use the START, STOP, CONTINUE framework to support this process. It is important to acknowledge the things you are already doing to support a trauma-informed approach!

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Part 4 – Resilience

In this section, we will define resilience, identify how protective factors can help heal the impact of trauma, and discuss how resilience can be built and sustained in individuals, organizations, and communities.

Learning Questions:

• What is resilience?
• What is the impact of resilience on health and behavior?
• How can we build and sustain resilience in ourselves and others?
• What are the pillars of a trauma-informed approach?

Tasks for this section: 

• Download the lesson resources below
• Click the “Comment here” button and share your answers to the learning questions (or ask any questions)
• Share any “Aha” moments you have on social media. (Don’t forget to tag us @originstc #otcbasics)

Join the Discussion

Focusing on an Action Plan

Key Takeaways:

• The focus for this final section is on creating an action plan by identifying specific activities to meet the goals you defined in Week 5. Remember the distinction between a goal and an activity.  
• Structured brainstorming will help identify activities to help achieve your goals. Key considerations for your brainstorming:
  • In addition to brainstorming ideas for new activities, consider what activities you want to you CONTINUE to help achieve the goals you defined (and anything you may want to STOP!) 
  • Keep an open mind. Don’t dismiss anything (yet!) because of a perceived lack of resources or other challenges
  • Thing big (and think small!)
  • Be as inclusive as possible in this step in order to get ideas and solutions from other colleagues, community members, and clients
  • Brainstorming is a team sport. Look at the table you have set for your team. Is anyone missing? Whose voices are not included? How might you include them?

• As you select specific activities from this larger brainstorming list, focus on ideas that are realistic within your setting. (But keep that bigger list—you may want to come back to those other ideas in the future!)
• You may want to provide additional structure to your team to help you implement your efforts. How frequently will you meet? Will you develop subcommittees within your larger group to focus on specific initiatives?
• Don’t forget–getting started is often half the battle! Don’t let the fear of making mistakes keep you from taking action.

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What’s Next & Survey

Next Steps

You may have had an Aha moment or two as you went through The Basics. Keep the momentum going and use #OTCBasics to share what you learned on social media.

Please leave us a review here!

You now have the foundational knowledge to move from Aha to Action and become a Resilience Champion! In this self-paced online training, you can apply the concepts from The Basics to your own setting and become a leader on the path to resilience.

You can also tweet, follow, or friend us @Originstc.

Once you complete the post-course survey, you will receive an email with a certificate.

Thank you for letting us join you on your journey!

Andi & Lori