Iowans Thrive Blog
Featuring stories, research, and news on Iowa's movement to respond to ACEs
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 The Chicagoland Trauma-Informed Congregations Network is an interfaith table that brings together faith-rooted organizations and others that are interested in using our collective wisdom to respond to the call to facilitate and deepen the role of faith communities in recognizing and creating “safe and brave spaces” that support the healing of trauma experienced by individuals and communities. In May of 2019, we invited Rev. Kirsten Preachy to Des Moines with goal to learn about the development and future plans of the Chicagoland Network, and discuss opportunities here in Central Iowa.  The goal from ACEs 360 is to support the efforts of faith leaders in the trauma informed realm and cultivate opportunities with, rather than to be prescriptive about content that faith networks should do or try to bring a program to them.
Rev. Preachy spoke about how the Network believes that ACEs does not just affect the individual, but the community supporting the individual, thus they focus on in-home and personal trauma plus systemic and health determinates that may be at play. They believe that there is a difference in risk factors and predictive factors - what they call protective factors or elements of resilience. One of these protective factors they emphasized was building relationships with a faith-based lens. We learned three key things:
We were excited to provide a space for the conversation and had about 30 leaders in attendance. We plan to meet again to discuss how this space and continue to support the network and foster their efforts. Interested in learning more about the Chicagoland Trauma-Informed Congregation Network? Find their website here. Comments are closed.
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