Conversations

Week two started at the same pace as week 1 ended, as there were so many people I caught up with rather than break it down chronologically I am going to cover the different types of organisation that I met and the impact that it had. We began our week by receiving a proclamation from the County Commissioners celebrating Resilience Month in Walla Walla and it was moving to hear one of them describe the impact that ACE's and resilience had on him personally. This was another example of working to get buy in at as many levels within the community as possible, all three commissioners were interested and engaged with what was going on and keen to see the results be as impactful as possible. We met again with them on Tuesday where they had a chance to ask questions about what was happening and I discussed some of my personal lived experience. I also met with Mayor Barbara Clark and City Manager Nabiel Shawa for a long discussion on the impact that the trauma informed movement has had o

Wednesday was quite an inspiring day, I travelled up to Pasco where Broetje Orchards have helped to create two communities which were established in support of their workforce but encompass a trauma informed approach which of course was great for me to see. The Broetje family place a large emphasis on their faith as the reason for their commitment to their staff, this isn't just extended to ensuring that people turn up and pick fruit, it is a genuine desire to see people lead successful lives, resolve issues, and become more happy and more fulfilled. They combine the work of their business with their charitable foundation and the team at Tierra Vida (the first and newest housing project I saw) are employed to ensure community cohesion and support for people, trying to ensure that new arrivals are welcomed and engaged with neighbours. The Staff at Tierra Vida and my friend Andrew Rodriguez from C2C They have combined the community work with a tremendous body of evidence, like D

So I am in the middle of my first week in Walla Walla, I am based with Teri Barila of Community Resilience Initiative who has had a remarkable impact upon the entire community through her work on ACEs and resilience. As well as creating practical networks and organisations to empower communities, she has worked with Dario to create a stunning base of researched evidence. Walla Walla is well known by many as the home of Lincoln High, the subject of the Paper Tigers documentary movie - and whilst I would encourage people to view that I would say that it is not the whole story, here in Walla Walla it is a broader and wider community initiative that has created a culture open to prioritising the emotional health of children and communities as a vital part of delivering social cohesion, academic success, and healthier, happier people. The road to Walla Walla! So how is this happening? Firstly a lot of work is done to 'name' what we want to see, I am attending a City Council p

The amazing drive into Bremerton I arrived in Bremerton to meet with Kody Russell of Kitsap Strong, I felt a lot of connection to the Lowestoft and Waveney area in some ways - Kitsap County is a diverse area, there are plenty of affluent areas and 'second homers' enjoying the incredible waterfront views and access to Seattle. But there is also a huge part of Kitsap that encounters depravation, at one time it was the richest county in the United states due to the logging industry - but over time the industry changed and many jobs were lost. The loss was also that of identity, families who assumed they would have generations following a path into logging suddenly lost that opportunity. Kitsap had areas where they have extremely high ACEs scores accompanied by low resilience levels, the response to this was Kitsap Strong which is an organisation created to develop awareness of the issues associated with developmental traumas, but more importantly to create networks who respo

Well Hillsboro is a pretty special place, I cannot speak highly enough of the people who welcomed me to their schools and their offices - I think it's impossible to be around people who are trying to do this kind of work, especially with children and be dispassionate about it. The success of any system is of course based upon planning, structures, principles and so forth... but in reality it also needs the right people with the right attitude, in this respect Grant has hit gold with his team. I can think of few weeks in my professional life where I felt so impacted by the people that I met and the work that they do. Firstly they believe in and care about what they have to deliver - trauma informed work is HARD, you need to be aware of your own actions and regulation and you have to be prepared to be honest about what you find difficult. Secondly they need to care about what they are doing, about each other and about the children in the schools - you cannot be trauma informed

I intended to write a further blog at the end of this week but I've already been inspired by so many things that I felt that it was important to get my thoughts on paper today and then I can sum up at the end of the week too. What has been absolutely amazing here in Hillsboro County is to see the way in which schools have embraced the idea of trauma informed approaches - that's not to say that there haven't been challenges in doing this, they have been very open about the fact that for some people in education the idea that you focus on the emotional regulation of children - sometimes accepting that academic progress may be more slow for a time - is a huge shift for teachers with a focus on academic outcomes. So what is working here? Well what's working here is that firstly the system tries to model the approach, which means that there is an acceptance that change can be hard, that we don't get things right first time so we have to be able to cope with adapting

So I had two amazing full days in Washington DC, and as with Boston I also had the bonus of seeing some bonus community activities 'ad hoc'. If I'm overly gushing in this post it's likely because as much as I had a truly amazing time I am also a huge US politics junkie and have been since I was 11/12, so being in 'DC' having meetings 'on the hill' and being in the same building at the same time as a major senate hearing was happening was something else! Just like the first time I got to visit Westminster I was really thrilled. Having said that I'm not just here for personal kicks! Day one proved to be incredibly useful and interesting starting with a breakfast meeting with Wendy Ellis and Dan Press, both are involved in supporting the Building Resilient Communities Collaboration across the US and with working at a high level with policy people in Washington. Wendy has been fundamental to the introduction of Trauma Informed practice across the US an

Well... I arrived at my lodgings in Boston at around midnight and then around 7am I got myself on the MBTA train into Boston itself to have time to see some of the city before I headed to my meeting with the Center Clubhouse . I managed to find a really great community cafe just outside the station, Panera Cares  have great food and coffee, patrons pay what they can afford (there is a recommended price) and this supplements the aim of supporting people who are less fortunate. There are of course similar projects in the UK, but to find it right outside a major metro stop on my first morning felt quite precipitous! From there I managed to see some of the city, I was keen to see Faneuil Hall and the marketplace - I saw enough to be sure I wanted to visit Boston for longer one day. Now... I had arranged to meet my hosts from Center Club outside the station, I was confident they would find me as I had a green bag, blue shoes, and a bright blue shirt... my host was Anthony who won't

In three weeks time I will have landed in Boston to embark upon my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship in the United States. I can barely believe that it is here, but I am really excited to be making the final arrangements for my travels. Even this week I have managed to find one or two more contacts, engaged with them and agreed to meet and the people I had already been in contact with have been so amazing, so lovely, and so helpful to me. In truth I am also learning more about myself and the crucial things that I need to be better at, I am hopeful that I will bring a lot of practical learning back to the UK but also personal development. I am a middle aged white man living in Suffolk, as much as I try to be aware of and respond to the fact that I experience privilege on a daily basis I am reminded that I do not work hard enough to live up to what should be expected of me. What should be expected of me is to use my role to give a platform to people who don't usually ge

Reading and viewing responses to The Lowestoft Conference has been an amazing experience, for someone who by nature fears rejection and disapproval it is an intoxicating and terrifying time. My #coa inner child needs to hear that people like me, that I haven't disappointed or upset them, that the response my actions create is the only measure of whether I am good enough. My slightly more developed self still fears that I may not be good enough, but from the perspective of wanting my intentions to mean as much as my actions, for people to see that it is not my childlike grasping for approval that is important but my hope that other people will benefit from what I hoped to achieve. For most of my life the feeling of not being good enough pervaded every aspect of my external persona - my absolute conviction was that I was indeed not good enough, that I was a bad person and that if people got to know my fears and vulnerabilities they would reject me. And rejection causes shame