Community Possibilities
Community Possibilities
Building a Resilient Georgia
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Emily Ann Ball and Audrey Itikata of Resilient Georgia join us to talk about their work with the organization marking its fifth year of dedication to trauma-informed approaches, child wellness and early brain development.
Resilient Georgia combats mental health stigma and supports trauma-informed practices through partnerships with 16 regional coalitions spanning 120 counties. We discuss the varied mental health challenges across urban and rural areas, emphasizing innovative strategies to prevent mental health challenges. Emily and Audrey provide a comprehensive look at the organization's mission, highlighting successful initiatives across Georgia.
We discuss the transformative power of shared language in trauma care and the significance of building resilience through positive childhood experiences. Emily and Audrey stress the importance of community partnerships, accessible resources, and the role of social connections and play in trauma work.
Guest Bios
Emily Anne Vall became Executive Director of Resilient Georgia where she leads the creation of a statewide coalition of trauma-informed organizations by convening diverse private and public partners to create a birth through 26 year old integrated behavioral health system. The statewide coalition includes over 700 stakeholders working to prevent adverse childhoodexperiences (ACEs) and supporthealing through integratedbehavioral health resources andservices. Vall earned her PhD in Physical Education and Health Pedagogy with a cognate in Diversity Studies from the University of South Carolina. She completed her undergraduate teaching degree at Florida Southern College before attending the University of South Florida focusing on physical education and special needs populations.
Audrey Idaikkadar has worked with communities to strategically improve health
and wellness for more than a decade. She believes coalition building and elevating the voices of those most impacted by disparities can help create thriving communities for all. Audrey supports grantees in their coalitional work to prevent and heal childhood adversity, advance trauma informed awareness and care, and promote resilience with children and their families in their communities. Idaikkadar earned her Bachelor of Arts in American Studies with highest honors from the University of California at Berkeley and her Master of Public Health from Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. She is also a trained oral historian and recently completed her master’s degree in history at Georgia State University.
Resilient Georgia's website.
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Thank you well, hi everybody. Welcome back to community possibilities. Today I have on my show not one, but two guests. I have emily ann ball and audrey itik. See, I did it, audrey Itikata.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 2There we go, audrey Itikata. So I practice and there I go. So anyway, welcome, welcome guys. So we've been talking about all things like how we all don't tell their board work on Fridays they're bored work on Fridays how we're wondering about how AI is going to change the world and how much we hate expense reports. So those are all the things that you missed before I hit record. But anyway, guys, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4Thank you, we're excited to be here.
Speaker 2Awesome, so double trouble today. Thank you, we're excited to be here. Awesome, so double trouble today. I am so happy that you guys said yes and that you're here on your summer Friday recording this today. So we always start with an introduction and I always tell folks tell us how you came to be who you are.
Speaker 3So I don't know who wants to go first, emily, anne or Audrey Sure, I could dive in. So I've been working in public health for a while and I've actually wanted to work in public health since I was in high school when I first saw Outbreak, a movie where Dustin Hoffman plays an epidemiologist, and I didn't go that route, but it really sparked my interest. So in college I was a part of a peer education program that used theater to share HIV prevention messages, and then I was also, I volunteered and worked for a long time at a collective free clinic and I was trying to think about the threads of like that time in my life, the rest of my career and now and I think what it really is is a focus on community health and really my belief that some of the most innovative solutions come from community. So that's, that's a little bit about me. I could go on, or I could hand it off to Emily Well.
Speaker 2Audrey, I love that because you know I'm a community psychologist and I'm super happy when I'm out and about community, so I love that we have that in common. So, yeah, let's toss it to Emily Ann. Tell us about yourself.
Speaker 4Sure, so I wasn't going to go this early, but since Audrey did, I will share. When I was younger, younger, sport and physical activity was my refuge. It's how I escaped things that I needed to escape from. So I got originally into children's wellness and with the focus on physical activity, but I also worked with a lot of very talented dietitians and educators. And so I started out in education and I went to grad school, and in grad school I focused on teacher expectations and what was then called diversity studies was my cognate and my degree was pedagogy and I loved it.
Speaker 4And then I taught for a few years for my program. You had to teach for a few years before you were accepted and I quickly realized I love teaching. But the burnout factor and my love for what I had learned about research wasn't quite there. So I finished school, came to Atlanta because I miss being in a big city, and started developing a love for public health, like Audrey, and so I worked in a healthcare setting for years and I learned a lot there about wellness. And then, at the Department of Public Health which actually Audrey and I were both at the Georgia Department of Public Health together for a while we started a lot of projects both around child wellness and early brain development. So that's when I started learning more about trauma and toxic stress and early brain development in general and the intersection of all of these different things, and so that's kind of how I landed here.
Speaker 2That's great. I did not know that you you both had worked together before.
Speaker 4Yes, yes, yeah. When we were, when we were talking about the Decatur, we were. That was long ago, many years ago, when I first met Aji oh that's fabulous, all right.
Speaker 2Well, and now you're both at Resilient Georgia, so let's start there. Why don't you guys kind of tell us a little bit about Resilient Georgia, what you're trying to do? You know whether that be, you know your mission, you know a little. I'd love to hear a little bit about the history of resilient Georgia before we kind of dig into, like, your different strategies, because you all have a lot going on.
Speaker 4Sure, so we. I'll start by saying we turned five this year, so we're very proud and excited about that. Actually, this month, no, next month, on the 19th, is our official 501C3 birthday.
Speaker 2Was there cake involved?
Speaker 4Not yet because it's July 19th. Ok, All right.
Speaker 2Will there be cake involved?
Addressing Mental Health Challenges in Georgia
Speaker 4I think so for sure. Cake is one of my favorite foods, so, yes, we'll have to have cake delivered to our team and board. So, yes, we'll have to have cake delivered to our team and board, but we, so we got started. I was very lucky in the fact that the board was already assembled by the time they hired me and they had.
Speaker 4Our two co-founders are from the philanthropic community and they were seeing a lot of asks and conversations that either were not aware of each other, so a lot of siloed work, a lot of work that was going uncelebrated, that was happening here in Georgia, and then a lot of barriers just to getting work done.
Speaker 4So their idea was to create an organization based on collective impact where we could really celebrate the children's mental, behavioral health, trauma, informed care work that was going on in Georgia, break down barriers, micro and macro, and then be a real, a true connector and convener.
Speaker 4They also saw, thanks to a lot of the work other philanthropic organizations had done, that there are definitely two Georgias, so urban and rural and starkly different, and so they wanted to create kind of roadways. So you know, most of the dollars reside here in Atlanta and they wanted to really build and bolster relationships across the state. So when different leaders or funders or whomever wanted to do work in rural Georgia, they could have a trusted way to get whether it's, you know, supports like we think in terms of funding or supports in terms of expertise or so forth, and it also, at the same time, create a two-way communication stream so everyone could learn about what's happening in some of these different areas from the subject matter experts that live there and we could celebrate that a little bit louder and just create that two-way shared language and communication stream. So our mission is to create a truly integrated mental zero to 26 year old mental and behavioral health care system of care for Georgia by making Georgia trauma informed.
Speaker 2Very good, and you know, I realize that we haven't talked about your roles there. Maybe we should do that before we talk about like strategies and what that actual work looks like. So, emily, do you want to tell us what your role is, and then maybe, audrey, you can go?
Speaker 4Sure, so I'm the executive director, I don't know, just period, and then I'll share.
Speaker 3Throw it to Audrey, ok throw it to Audrey, okay, yeah, so I'm the regional program director and I support our regional coalitions and I think this would be a good time to share a little bit more about them. So we began partnering with regional coalitions in the fall of 2019 and as we were getting started, we realized it was also really important to support regions and the work that they do. So we began with a cohort of four and now we work with 16 regional coalitions that cover 120 counties in the state. So each coalition has developed robust private and public partnerships in their regions. They work to connect organizations that support children and families in their mental and behavioral health, but also those organizations that interact with children and families every day in their daily operations. So coalitions work to bring awareness, positive and adverse childhood experiences. They reduce mental health stigma. They also support different work sectors in becoming trauma-informed and they also support children, families and communities in becoming more resilient.
Speaker 2Right, thank you, and you know I'm all about coalitions, so I love that Right. And working with coalitions is not for the pain of heart, because it's complicated and it's messy and it's not linear. It goes up and down. So, yeah, it's definitely challenging. So you guys work in coalitions but it looks like you've got some other things going on. You've got some workforce development, some you know, some advocacy work, some training.
Speaker 4Did you want to talk about those things too, before we kind of dig into the weeds? Sure, so since we got started we've been talking a lot about workforce and one thing I didn't mention soon after we became a 501c3, our board chairperson, dr Brenda Fitzgerald, who is the former CDC director and state health officer and commissioner of public health, was appointed to the governor's behavioral health commission. So we also helped before that was a staffed commission. We helped a lot with that, gathering testimony from our regional partners and so forth. And throughout that work, throughout our work with the regions and that work, throughout our work with the regions and, you know, throughout the work with our different peers across the state, one of the common themes was workforce.
Speaker 4Whether it's actual clinicians you know mental and behavioral health clinicians whether it's nonprofits, you know the burnout when you're working in this space, the stress that you're dealing with all day, and then you know then the pandemic hit and the burnout it was almost like it was just ignited in terms of teachers, first responders, and the mental and behavioral health needs were just so much stronger once the pandemic and even after the pandemic.
Speaker 4So that's one of our huge priorities right now. We're currently. We recently hired one of our first board members she became our Director of Workforce Innovation, dr Andrea Meyer Stinson Through the licensure process when they're a mental and behavioral health clinician. About 57% of the folks that graduate with a master's degree as a clinician don't go through the full licensure because it's so difficult and there's so many barriers around that and, as well as the work that Audrey does with um and her team with the regional coalitions, we really talk about burnout and at that in that space too, because it's just, it's hard talking about this all day, every day, and most people that are passionate are often quite selfless, which is a great trait, but also a dangerous trait when you don't take time for yourself and we kind of on our team have to call each other out a lot, because it happens with our team too a lot.
Speaker 2Yeah, I gotcha. You know, and I'm thinking back to some of the conversations I've had in rural Georgia in terms of just lack of providers there just aren't. There was one of our counties in North Georgia that actually got some funding to place a mental health worker in the county one for the entire county but then that became a housing issue because there was no place they could afford to live. So these you know, these issues are so complex. Right, we've got kids in care and their families that are having to travel out of the county to get the mental health services or behavioral services they need.
Speaker 1So yeah, it's a tremendous problem.
Speaker 2So is one of the hopes to to kind of, you know, work on some of those issues so that we've got mental health providers or telehealth providers.
Speaker 4You know, when the pandemic hit, for example, we helped the Department of Education create an RFP for telehealth, you know, so different school boards could opt in without being, you know, with a trusted source, rather than what happened at the beginning is some were kind of getting you know providers that weren't the greatest. That was very early on. We've worked very closely with the Behavioral Health Commission and now the project with Dr Meier-Stinson. We're creating cohorts of early professionals that are working towards licensure and we provide the supports for them so they have a learning collaborative amongst themselves, so they can, you know, talk to each other. Dr Andrea Meier-Stenson acts as a mentor and somebody they can lean on. She knows all the intricacies of the licensure process, the program and the partnership with the National Council and Kaiser Permanente pays for a portion of their salaries as well as their supervision hours. So that's one of the kind of like direct things that we do.
Speaker 4And then the other piece, which is kind of popping down to advocacy a little bit, is we work very closely with the Georgia Mental Health Policy Partnership and try to be true advocates to break down some of the barriers. We have pretty regular calls with Representative Mary Margaret Oliver, who's the chair for the subcommittee that focuses on workforce with the Behavioral Health Commission, and we provide information that we learn from the regions and you know different rural areas and what they're experiencing. We provide information about what we're learning from the candidates and our programming. We share and make connections with different peers and so forth. So we're trying to do a lot of things to kind of get at workforce issues.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's important, and you're right, that licensure process, the training and the supervision hours, it's a lot. Supervision hours, it's a lot.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's a lot for sure it is and as a state, a lot of our policies are very outdated and, thanks to the commission, a lot of them are being updated now. So hopefully it will help soon. But it's still very difficult and we talked to a lot of early professionals and they'd say you know, I finished school and took my exams and I had to be a barista or wait tables for six months, because that's how long it took to get my paperwork back.
Speaker 2Yeah, right, yeah, anything we can do to reduce those barriers. So you guys have a lot going on. Is there anything else that you kind of want to highlight your work before we move on to some other topics?
Speaker 3I would love to talk about education and training, because I feel like that's so important to our work.
Speaker 3Okay, so, so we want in our work, we want to be as preventative and intervene as early as possible, and so a part of that is also helping to establish a shared language and understanding of what is, what are positive and adverse childhood experiences and why that matters and why trauma informed approaches and care are important.
Speaker 3And one of the ways we've done that is through training and education. So we work with partners across the state and our regional coalitions to provide mental health related resiliency building and trauma-informed trainings, and we've worked with our partners in our education and training committee to develop a trauma-informed training roadmap, which consists of over 100 trauma-informed trainings that are categorized by the Missouri level of whether a training is trauma-sensitive, trauma-aware, trauma-, trauma aware, trauma responsive or trauma informed, and also the map is organized by sector so, depending on where you might be in the workforce or if you're a community member, you can click on the part of the map that you relate to and see what trainings might be available to you, and these trainings really help to create that shared language and understanding and bring people along to understand why this work is important and prime them to really want to access mental health providers if they're available, and want to access those resources.
Speaker 2So, audrey, why is having a shared language so important and who needs to have the shared language?
Speaker 1Yeah we all do.
Speaker 3So one of the things is that we want to make sure that we are all speaking the same language and understanding that adverse childhood experiences can have an impact on your whole life in terms of your health, your educational outcome, your economic prospects, but that is also. It doesn't determine your life, and there are positive childhood experiences that can really buffer these traumatic events. And also everybody, every adult that interacts with children and families, can have a role in supporting positive childhood experiences and building up resilience. And that understanding will help folks understand why trauma-informed care and approaches because it doesn't just have to be, you know, in a medical system. We're talking about trauma-informed approaches across sectors in faith communities, in juvenile justice, in law enforcement how that can really support healthy child development and support young people in into growing and thriving and building resilience.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm. That makes me think of, you know, a group that I was in last night. So I'm part of a small faith group and one of our group members is a teacher and I remember asking her whether or not their, their county, had done any trauma informed training and they hadn't. But last night she was talking about she's. She's out right now. She's been struggling with cancer and hopefully she'll go back to teach next year. But she was talking about a student that she had, and she teaches largely, you know, special ed, pretty much kids with, you know, different kinds of mental health or behavioral health challenges really is a better way of saying it. But anyways, there was a student and she said you know, he talks a lot, he talks a lot and he has to walk a lot in the room he's. You know, some teachers would look at that child and think, oh, they're just disruptive and why don't they just like sit down and send him to the office and even without trauma, informed training? And I think it speaks to the heart of my friend that she just recognized that that child just needs to do what he needs to do. He needs to walk around the room, he needs to get that energy out. He needs to get listened to. And it was only kind of later that she kind of found out his backstory and I won't share it. I won't share it here, even though I'm not sharing his name, but I think that's kind of what you're talking to, audrey.
Speaker 2When we have that common language, that common understanding, we have a base training in what ACEs is all about and the effect of trauma, not just on the body but you know, particularly the brain and behavior later on. It helps us to understand each other. In that case it helps a teacher know. Oh, that's what that child needs. This child does not need me to tell them to sit down and to be quiet. This child does not need me to send them to the office. This child needs me to kind of accept where they are and just through that she was able to make progress with them.
Speaker 2And then she talked about you know the things that kids are going through when they go home, right, so they may be responsible for other siblings, their parents might be out working, and just the understanding that you know you can pile on the homework, but that doesn't mean it gets done and you can punish that child for not doing their homework. But that's not really, that's not what that child needs, right? And I think that I think that's kind of the heart of it, right, that that through this training and through this shared common language, it's really a shared understanding and helping us, you know, understand each other and how to kind of treat each other. I don't know.
Speaker 4That's what I think, and it decreases the stigma too. You know if, if everybody has that language in their back pocket and everybody's using it, then it's not as scary to talk about.
Speaker 2What does Robin Roberts say? Everybody's got something. I think that's what she says. Everybody has something, yeah for sure. So let's dig into this trauma informed approach and the prevention of child adverse experiences, which is really the heart of the work. We've had folks on the podcast before that have talked about trauma-informed approaches, but I really want to kind of talk about more specifically what you were all doing, especially with these coalitions, and maybe how you know, COVID has really kind of made you kind of focus in on that work absolutely so.
Speaker 4Um covid kind of just pushed us into overdrive. We were pretty young when the pandemic hit as an organization, like you know, six months old. And then the pandemic hit and we already had built these relationships with the first round of our regional partners and we just had so much work to do and it was almost and at that point there was only two of us it was myself and Neha Khanna, our director of strategy, and it was. I almost had a violent response when people were saying how nice it was to have downtime when the pandemic hit, because that was absolutely not the case already been working with regional partners. They already had all these great plans in place. And then the world stopped and the mental and behavioral health need and toxic stress and just extreme stress for every single person in the world really happened. And so we rewrote a lot of plans, we figured out how to do a lot of things on Zoom and we talked a lot about, you know, social isolation and loneliness and how those contributed, and also that you know going through this pandemic was an adverse childhood experience that everybody in the world was going to have. So that was stressful but a wonderful learning experience for us and it was a really a nice way to lift up creativity.
Speaker 4A good example is we were in Augusta, the two of the main partners one's the medical school and the other the family connection and over there.
Speaker 4And you know they had all these great plans to weave trauma-informed care into the medical school and into the curriculum and do all these different projects, and then suddenly their students weren't allowed to go into the medical school and they weren't you know the liability factor during COVID and so they realized their their suicidality rates had also spiked and they wanted to do something for um, adolescent kids and teens. So they created a mentorship between so a near peer, which is now resilient teens and that enabled medical students to pair with young students and they were still deemed very cool because you know they're close in age, they're in medical school. It's an exciting thing and they were able to provide support really for each other because you know, the medical students had never seen anything like this. The teens needed this content more than ever, and so going through COVID and trying to think about what trauma-informed care and ACEs prevention looked like really created many, many examples. That's just one.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's so important and you're supporting up to I think you said age 26, correct Kind of with your work and if you just think about what these, that especially those later teens and early 20s, have been going through. I know for my 25 year old, who's going to be listening to this podcast when he produces it, and for my friends kids who are about that age. I mean, it was, it was a lot, it's still a lot. I think there's still.
Building Resilient Communities Through Collaboration
Speaker 2They're still kind of bearing the scars, just like we all were that we want to think that, well, we've turned that page, but you know that that experience comes with us for sure. So let's talk a little bit about this network. Audrey, maybe this is where you can kind of jump in. Oh my gosh, georgia's a big state, folks. You can take 45 minutes close to an hour to drive from one of our counties to another, and we have 129 counties, and I think I heard you say you've got 120 covered, so you're not just trying to like do work in individual counties, though you've got this regional approach, so let's talk about that. I'll just throw that out there sure, yeah, no, I.
Speaker 3So it's been incredible to work with so many regions that serve so many counties and I think what I've learned from the work has really been that it's so important to meet people and connect with people and learn about what they're doing and also celebrate their work and help share it across the state.
Speaker 3And celebrating is really one of the pillars of our work and I think one of the superpowers of the coalitions is that they're connected with each other so they share initiatives that they've worked on in their communities and they can also lean on each other when they might feel alone in the work and they realize that there's other people that they can talk to all the time that are doing similar work in different places, that they can talk to all the time that are doing similar work in different places, and then they can tailor.
Speaker 3They could take what they've learned from others, tailor and remix it. So the Resilient Teens program that Emily-Ann had shared. Other coalitions have learned from them and created similar things or borrowed pieces, and it's been amazing to see how something can be shared across the state and since we connect with so many organizations and learn about so much of the work that they're doing. We're able to partner, bring partners together, help broker meaningful relationships. So it's just really been incredible and I think that we have created lots of different ways that we communicate and support, and we're also a growing team, so that's fantastic that we get to support these coalitions and their work.
Speaker 2So what are you learning about creating systems change across these regional networks? If you were to kind of think about you know, lessons learned, or advising maybe other states who don't have anything like regional coalitions, what would you say? Well, this and you are young, you're still getting your, you know your baby sea legs under yourselves right, you're still, you're still learning. So what would you share?
Speaker 3under yourselves. Right, You're still learning, so what would you share? I think going back to creating that shared language is so important because one of the things that coalitions, or many of the things, one of the many things that coalitions do, you know, they help create the shared language. But the shared language establishes a foundation for them then to create policy systems and environmental change. Really helping to create this shared understanding primes the organizations that they work with the regional partners to create this change. So one example that I'd love to share is a small PE policy change example.
Speaker 3So our partners at Resilient Coastal Georgia policy change example. So our partners at Resilient Coastal Georgia. They've supported lots of different organizations and sectors in building, in resiliency building, training for staff as a part of onboarding. So that includes emergency management systems, the juvenile court, school district staff, library systems. They're all building in resiliency building training for their workforce. But this could not happen without the shared language established and providing training to organizational, organizational and community leaders. So that has been I think that foundation has been so important in this work.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think I'd add also, the access to expertise has been incredibly helpful, because you know so many of our regions, because the model we've created has allowed us to meet the regions where they are.
Speaker 4They're able to create change immediately and then create their own. You know smart short-term goals, smart long-term goals, and it's real clear to us that are in those of us that are part of the learning collaboratives. Who is an expert at what? And so we lift up those people and make them accessible to all of the regions, whether it's through our Speakers Bureau or we have several committees. Some are ad hoc committees that work on specific things. Others are like we have an education and training committee that meets quarterly and that's chaired by Tiffany Sawyer at the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy, and Deborah Chosewood, who is at DFACS and now DOE, and so and filled with brilliant academics that a lot of these areas of the state would not have access to deep systems, change trajectories as well, Even the small P's that Audrey mentioned. Without the expertise and the learning collaboratives, it would be really hard to get done.
Speaker 2Yeah, and for folks who are not quite sure what a small P is, we talk about big P's, like changes that maybe the federal or the state level, and and little P's are things that can be done kind of on a smaller scale, maybe maybe a city or a county or something like that.
Speaker 2So we talk about small P's and big P's changes and I think that policy systems and environmental change is tough for people. It it's really tough If we were to talk about challenges and I'm not talking about challenges that Resilient Georgia has, but just challenges in general, and we all have like an interest in public health and social change certainly that's the thing that I find on the ground that folks just don't get right which brings into that training and brings into that shared language. So what do we mean by policy systems and environmental change? What are we really talking about? We're really not talking about programs, right? We're really talking about how things work differently or how things could work differently if we put a little creativity, imagination and harness all of these you know resources that you're talking about. So I don't know if you guys have tips and tricks, because me and I'd love to hear them. I'm still trying to figure out how to talk about policy systems and environmental change in a way that people can get you know. People can really understand.
Speaker 4It is very difficult, and one thing that we've done in response to that, once a coalition is formed, we've hosted Days of Learning and we partnered with Dr Chris Parker and Debbie Kibbe at the Health Policy Center at Georgia State and we host one Dr Chris Parker and Debbie Kibbe at the Health Policy Center at Georgia State and we host one day where we just talk about the first session with them.
Speaker 4We just talk about policy systems and environmental change and look at what they've done so far and how they can really keep that in mind, and we have all kinds of interactive activities as they go forward with their plans. We also have days of learning where and we're all working together in real time looking at their plans, so that's super helpful. And we also have days of learning around justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. We call it JEDI for short, and so that's been really helpful. With regards to kind of what I said before about access to subject matter expertise that you might not have, you know, in your smaller rural areas, and we try our best to make it more accessible for folks to understand, learn from each other and really create.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's so important. So I was with one of your coalitions a couple of weeks ago You'll probably enjoy hearing this because I told the county leader like, oh my gosh, you guys need to write a success story on that Workforce housing. I think is probably a better way to talk about that. Just, they really struggle because you know, we have some beautiful lake towns that people love to have their second homes at but they're expensive. Then for other folks who are doing the service work right, who are working at McDonald's or working at the Walmart or in whatever industry is in that little town, it's very difficult, right, getting back to. That whole mental health worker couldn't afford this. It wasn't the same county but it's close, anyway. So they were really struggling with, you know, just housing, the cost of housing. It was a real issue for them. So they did a study, they got, you know, they got some funding to do a study and, lo and behold, they are building workforce housing in this little county in North Georgia.
Speaker 2So it just goes to show how you know thinking about policy systems, environmental change, understanding. You've got a challenge in your community gathering the right people together. It took a couple of years, but they're on the road to, you know, making some positive change in their community. I just thought it was fabulous Like, oh my gosh, good for you. We need to write a success story on that?
Speaker 4Absolutely, and that's exactly what you said Like. The success stories need to be celebrated and it's hard for decision makers in some cases to hear the success stories that are all over the state. You know, if it's in a local newspaper that doesn't get picked up by a metro area newspaper, it's not going to get very far and it's not going to be celebrated as much. So that two-way communication street is very, very important to us.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and getting back to your shared, you're talking about these calls where you have shared learning right. Other counties who also have that issue because I do talk to a lot of our communities and they talk about lack of you know just how expensive housing is. They talk about not having access to medical care or mental health services or whatever. So just having these creative examples helps other people know oh, it's possible, change really is possible. We don't have to stay stuck. We might try something and we might try something and it doesn't work. We might try something and we failed, but we learned. Or we might try something and it doesn't work. You might try something and you know we, we, we fail, but we learned. Or we might try something and it's beautifully successful. So I don't know, we'll see, we'll see. So what is next for you guys? You're about to have your fifth year birthday there. There will be cake somewhere. What? What's the plan for you guys? There will be cake somewhere.
Speaker 3What? What's the plan for you guys? Yes, so in the near future we are excited that to cover the whole state. So in our fifth year, by the end of the year, we will have identified a fifth cohort, so really covering all 159 counties by the end of this year. And that's what's exciting me particularly.
Speaker 4That's what's exciting me particularly, yes. And then we're also, you know, like, as I said, we're thinking about workforce in many different ways, whether it's, you know, getting different sectors, trauma-informed, attacking, burnout, as well as the mental and behavioral health you know, access issues. So, in terms of that, we are in strategic planning mode to build out some more of our strategies around workforce and formalize them a little bit, because, same thing like when we got started, we've been running towards workforce and trying to do as much as we can, and so we're really going to build out our strategic map around workforce by the end of the year, awesome, well.
Speaker 2I can't wait to see what you all are able to accomplish Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to bring up?
Speaker 4like to bring up Just the opportunity to partner. You know folks listening that haven't heard of us before or are interested in our work. I encourage everyone to head to our website. We've tried to make a lot of our resources very accessible. We have learning cards about some of the topics that we've spoke of. That will cover the cost of co-branding for any organization that's interested. We have, like Audrey spoke of, our trauma-informed roadmap. If you're interested as an individual or as an organization in some of these trainings, we encourage you to head over there. Trainings, we encourage you to head over there, and if you want to get more engaged with us or in your region, we would love to make introductions. Oh and lastly, we do have a Monday memo in addition to our newsletter that goes out every Monday and it's filled with different resources that Nikki Warner from Audrey's team put together and synthesize. So it's real quick blips with hot links of different funding opportunities, different reports that come out, all kinds of different things in this space, and it's just one email and it's really, really helpful.
Speaker 2Great. Thank you so much and I'll be sure and link to your website in the show notes so that people can go to that very easily. So before I let you go, I've got to ask you two questions. One how can people get in touch with either one of you is the best way to do that through the website through the website.
Speaker 4It is on our website. We have a link where you can sign up. It pops up automatically for our newsletter and you can also info at resilientgaorg. Send us a note there and just let us know who you want to talk to and we either Audrey, myself or somebody else from the team will respond and connect with you.
Speaker 2Oh, awesome, all right. So the last question I wanted to ask you and Audrey, I guess I'll start with you and then we'll flip it over to Emily. And when you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?
Speaker 3That's a great question. You know, I'm really hopeful for the future. So many of our coalitions have been working with young people and helping to create spaces where young people lead and really think about the solutions for themselves, and these initiatives have been really successful and have really resonated with youth in their community. Young people have shared that they deeply care about their mental health and their well-being and they're identifying their own solutions. So, for example, our Resilient Southwest Georgia in Albany, they have a youth united group and they borrowed some elements from resilient teams and they've also created events to help create a space for young people to gather in Albany and in the region. And they recently did their very first sneaker ball no hoodie ball, which is a twist on the sneaker ball and they're reclaiming the hoodie as an item. That is affirming to themselves and celebrating their community of young people. And it's just, it was just so fantastic to see young people lead, create the space for themselves and really share how important mental health is for them.
Speaker 2And Emily.
Speaker 4So I think you know that, and maybe it's because I just got back from the social isolation and loneliness coalition summit in dc last week or the week before, my weeks are getting jumbled um.
Speaker 4But learning from others and the model that we've created with our peers and you know different leaders and decision makers from around the state and boots on the ground, it's fun learning and talking to each other and I think sometimes we lose sight of how meaningful those interactions can be.
Speaker 4We had one of our cohort calls this morning, right before we jumped on the call with you, and I think all of us genuinely look forward to it every month because we've become such good friends that share the same passions and interests and we learn so much from each other. And it's just been such a we have, we've created so many wonderful relationships like that and it it does give you hope for the future. And when we have, you know, really stressful days and things like that, quite honestly I know at least one of my sometimes very many Zooms during the day, I make new friends and it's fun playing with each other on the playground, doing good work, and so and I think that you know, the regions have echoed those sentiments, not just with Audrey and I, but between each other too. At the local level, they've really formed deep partnerships while doing important work, and it's helpful when you're talking about trauma every day.
Speaker 2Yes, it is, and play and those social connections are just so important. Well, I just really want to thank you both for taking the time. I know you're super busy, but congratulations on all the work you're doing and on your five year anniversary.
Speaker 4Thank you so much for having us in. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Hi everybody. Thanks, as always, for joining me on today's episode of Community Possibilities. I hope you were inspired by something you heard and are ready to get out and do that hard work that is community change. As always, if you have been inspired, please like and share this episode with someone else you know who works in communities and be sure to leave us a review. That just helps so much. Before I let you go, I want to share some big news.
Speaker 2At Community Evaluation Solutions this week we have launched our course. Yes, I finally got done with my course for non-evaluators. It's called Powerful Evidence Evaluation for Non-Evaluators and it is designed just for you, my community leader friend, and you can join the course now. In our launch early bird special Yep, you can get 50% off the rate. Limited spots are available. Only the first 10 people who enroll in the course will get that 50% off discount. Be sure and use early bird as your promo code at checkout.
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Speaker 2Now, this course is really designed for folks who don't know a lot about evaluation, so it's going to help you decipher the language of evaluation. You know I try to speak in a very accessible way so it is not full of evaluation jargon. You definitely will not be lost and I hold your hand throughout the process. So the course is really going to help you navigate through the essentials of things like data collection and thinking about how do we measure the thing that we need to measure, whether that be something we are interested in or our funder is interested in, or likely both. It's going to help you think through tools and methods and really streamline your process to get to the must-collect information, more importantly, the most important information for you to use to really make a difference in your community, because isn't that what it's all about?
Speaker 2And then we're going to talk about you know, how do we tell that data story? How do we use that data to really communicate our results. So again, I invite you to enroll now into Powerful Evidence. You can go over to our website, communityevaluationsolutionscom. Slash resources and you can sign up. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 1Thank you ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.