Roadmap to Resilience: The Critical Role of Strength-Based Assets in the Lives of Black Youth

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This will be a presentation highlighting the strengths and challenges of Black youth during the pandemic. A strength-based lens will be used to discuss best practices for Black youth in and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The session will demonstrate how to use an empowerment and a culturally responsive lens in working with Black youth following the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as being aware of the potential stressors Black youth face. Stakeholders will be able to acquire skills and create culturally relevant after-school programming and school-community partnerships for Black youth.

Dr. Sheretta Butler-Barnes

Sheretta Butler-Barnes is a developmental psychologist and has expertise and scholarly work on the impact of racism and the use of culturally strength-based assets on the educational and health outcomes of Black American families. She is an Associate Professor at the WUSTL Brown School of Social Work. Butler-Barnes received her PhD and MA from Wayne State University in psychology and a BS in psychology from Michigan State University.

The two lines of her research agenda include 1) Black families and Racial Justice Project, which is a mixed methodological investigation of Black families' vulnerability to or resilience against marginalization, focusing on parenting practices and adolescent developmental trajectories, and 2) Equity for Black Women and Girls Project which focuses on advancing equity for women and girls of color by identifying risk and protective factors in learning spaces and creating culturally responsive programming that promotes resiliency.

Resilient Workers or Resilient Workplaces?

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This presentation will look at an example for the construction industry in Australia where the industry jointly set out to create mental health and suicide resilient workplaces. 

This presentation will discuss how lived experience was central to creating an intervention based on the needs of an industry and the workers in it.  Participants will hear how the barriers to success became the strengths of the MATES in Construction program and how a suicide intervention program became an industry mental health and wellbeing program.

Jorgen Gullestrup 

Jorgen describes himself as a plumber and suicidologist.  He has lived experience as a suicide survivor and of mental illness.  In 2007 he started the MATES in Construction charity, a program that since has become international and spurred sister programs for the Mining, Energy and Manufacturing industry. 

Jorgen is currently the CEO of Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland, Lived Experience Advisor to Suicide Prevention Australia, Suicide Prevention Advisor to LivingWork and Chair of the Queensland Workplace Health and Safety Board. Jorgen holds an Associate Diploma in Labor Studies, A Diploma in Community and Social Work and a Masters in Suicidology.  He is currently a PhD candidate at Deakin University studying help-offering amongst men in suicide prevention.

Break

Breakout > for Clinical & Community Professionals

Shifting the Lens for Childhood Trauma Treatment: Cultivating Resilience

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Exposure to stress is far too pervasive in our young people: chronic exposures such as poverty, homelessness, exposure to violence in homes, schools and communities; systemic and individual experiences of racism; and traumatic losses and separations; have intertwined in recent years with the myriad stressors associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stress shapes developmental course: it influences adaptation on every level and leads to behavioral strategies that help youth navigate their world. And these strategies often become the fodder of treatment: it is not uncommon for the work of those tasked with treating youth and families exposed to trauma to be framed around pathology: stopping challenging behavior and managing crisis. As a result, youth are implicitly and explicitly told that it is their responses to the overwhelming that are problematic, rather than the situations themselves.

A paradigm shift is required in order to truly acknowledge and address the role of trauma in shaping the lives of so many youth. Rather than view our role as pathology reduction, we must instead see our task as the cultivation of resilience.

This talk will highlight the ways that stress shapes developmental pathways; reframe the role and function of problematic behaviors; highlight the critical importance of engaging from a stance of strength and empowerment; and highlight core developmental capacities that support resilient outcomes.

Margaret Blaustein, Ph.D.

Margaret Blaustein is a clinical psychologist whose career has focused on the understanding and treatment of complex childhood trauma and its sequelae.  With an emphasis on the importance of understanding the child-, the family-, and the provider-in-context, her work has focused on identification and translation of key principles of intervention across treatment settings, building from the foundational theories of childhood development, attachment, and traumatic stress. 

With Kristine Kinniburgh, Dr. Blaustein is co-developer of the Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) treatment framework (Kinniburgh & Blaustein, 2005), and co-author of the text, Treating Complex Trauma in Children and Adolescents: Fostering Resilience through Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competence (Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2010 / 2018).  She has provided extensive training and consultation to providers within the US and abroad.  Dr. Blaustein is the founder and Director of the Center for Trauma Training in Needham, MA.  She is actively involved in local, regional, and national collaborative groups dedicated to the empathic, respectful, and effective provision of services to this population.

Panel Discussion > for Employers & Workplaces

Building Resilience Through Community: The Power of Peer to Peer

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In this session, our panel of peer-to-peer experts will discuss the power of a peer-to-peer support model in suicide prevention and substance misuse.

We’ll dive into why these models can offset and complement existing mental health and substance misuse programs, how employer organizations can recognize the value of implementing these models into their behavioral health programs, and how to establish, sustain, and scale these innovative programs. 

Cal Beyer, VP of Workforce Risk & Worker Wellbeing, Holmes Murphy

Michael Bonadio Jr, LMFT, Program Coordinator, MassMen

Leigh Beck, LICSW, Behavioral Health Consultant

Lunch Break

Panel Discussion > for Clinical & Community Professionals

Mitigating the Impact of Trauma for Individuals, Families, & Communities

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Panelists will describe ways in which they help people build resilience, cope and respond after experiencing a wide range of difficult events. 

Carmen Rosa Norona, LICSW, addresses how she and her team help families and children from different ethnic backgrounds manage the daunting challenges of migration and immigration. Kim Bisset, Ed.D. shares her experiences helping young adults, many of whom are adjusting to significant mental health challenges, develop careers- an essential component of resilience in adulthood. Waheeda Saif, LMHC, describes the strategies Riverside Trauma Center uses to help people find strength, resilience and overcome challenges following highly stressful events in their communities.

Carmen Rosa Noroña, LICSW, MSW, MS. Ed., IECMH-E®, Child Trauma Services & Training Lead, Boston Medical Center

Kim Bisset, Ed.D., Founder, Radiate Career Consulting

Waheeda Saif, LMHC, Sr. Program Coordinator, Riverside Trauma Center

Panel Discussion > for Employers & Workplaces

Building Resiliency Through Innovation: Systemic Approaches to Strengthen Behavioral Health in the Workplace 

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In this session, our panel of safety, human resources, and executive leaders will discuss ways their organizations have implemented focused, systemic, and tailored behavioral health programs to both proactively prepare the workforce to manage mental health concerns and provide critical incident support in the face of trauma.

From wide-ranging, multi-modal programs to targeted support at the ready, our panel will share how they’ve developed resiliency-based behavioral health programs to meet their employees where they’re at. 

Maggie Hureau, Head of Social Impact, Harry's, Inc.

Jamie Evans, Director of Safety, Turner Construction

JJ Bartlett, President, Fishing Partnership Support Services

Break

Afternoon Keynote > General Audience

Why Building Safer Communities for LGBTQ Youth Can't Wait

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In this session, Preston Mitchum (he/him) will shine a light on the current state of LGBTQ youth policies and its impact on mental health and suicide prevention.

Using original research from The Trevor Project, he will examine the unique risk factors for LGBTQ youth and share the importance of affirming spaces and inclusive environments for these populations.

Topics will include improving access to resources, including LGBTQ and gender-affirming health services, protecting youth from anti-LGBTQ policies and racial discrimination, and creating safe and accepting spaces.

Preston Mitchum

Preston is a Black queer attorney, advocate, and activist with a focus on the power of Black people, young people, and queer, trans, and nonbinary people.

In his decade of legal and policy experience, Preston has served in multiple roles to center the voices of historically oppressed communities. He has served as the Director of Policy at URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity. While there, he shaped state and federal strategies on reproductive health, rights, and justice in the South and Midwest, with issues on abortion access, comprehensive sexuality education, and LGBTQ+ health equities. He led reports on young people and voting and inclusive sexuality education for young people. Previously, he has worked at Advocates for Youth, the Center for Health and Gender Equity, Center for American Progress, and the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health. In addition, Preston has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center teaching LGBTQ Health Law &Policy and at American University Washington College of Law teaching Sexuality, Gender Identity, & the Law.

He holds a LL.M. in Law and Government from American University Washington College of Law, a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from North Carolina Central University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Political Science from Kent State University. Preston resides in Washington, DC where he actively pushes for safe spaces for Black LGBTQ residents.

Closing Remarks & Discussion