Trauma, trauma-informed care and the connection between traumatic exposure and mental health are hot topics. The growing discussions across the spectrum of research, clinical practice, community and service systems – mental health, education, criminal justice, child welfare, etc.—and increased awareness of the role trauma in peoples’ lives is creating a paradigm shift. Approaches for creating optimal conditions for mental health and well-being are emerging trends within communities.
As the promotion of trauma-informed programs and interventions expands, it is critical to learn how communities—often those experiencing higher rates of violence and associated trauma—understand the impact of trauma, the roles of resilience and community assets, and the development of community-driven and community-embraced programs and interventions.
This NNED virtual roundtable highlighted perspectives from diverse racial and ethnic community leaders to illustrate how trauma shows up in their communities and how culturally responsive, trauma-informed, holistic services and supports provide appropriate opportunities for healing and resilience. This NNED virtual roundtable was held on July 25, 2019, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EDT.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe how the intersection of culture, trauma, and behavioral health can present in different communities and systems.
- Share culturally responsive, trauma-informed strategies and policies for community-based organizations that support systems-level change efforts to reduce health care disparities.
- Identify ways that community-based organizations can advocate for or implement culturally responsive, trauma-informed strategies or policies in their own communities.
Join the NNED virtual roundtable discussion on Twitter! Between 2:00 – 3:30 pm EDT on July 25th (and for the rest of the month), tweet @nned_net and use #MinorityMentalHealth to share your thoughts and get your questions answered!
To join or observe the Twitter chat:
- Log into your Twitter account during virtual roundtable and for the month of July
- Access http://www.tchat.io/rooms/minoritymentalhealth in your browser
- You’ll be asked to log in and authorize the app with your Twitter account
- Remember your tweets have to be under 118 characters including spaces (the other 22 spaces are reserved for #MinorityMentalHealth which will be added automatically for you)
- Follow @nned_net
Panelists:
Beverly Watts Davis
Chief Officer, Program Support and Resource Development | WestCare Foundation
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Beverly Watts Davis is the Chief Officer for Program Support and Resource Development for WestCare Foundation. She also serves as the Program Coordinator for a $5 million prevention of community trauma grant for Bexar County. She has served as a Senior Executive Service Member of the federal government (equivalent to the military rank of a General Officer in the military) as the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) with budget oversight of $3 billion dollars as well as the Director of The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) Federal Agency with budget oversight of $200 million dollars. She served as the Executive Director of San Antonio Fighting Back, Inc., Senior Vice President of the United Way of San Antonio, State Director for the Corporation for National and Community Service, and an elected official in Austin/Travis County, Texas for 11 years. She also was a business owner of a technology company and selected as the Outstanding Minority Business Owner by the Austin Chamber of Commerce and an Outstanding Small Business by the Small Business Administration.
Ms. Watts Davis has received numerous local, state, and national recognitions. She was selected as a Distinguished Alumni from her alma mater, Trinity University in and received three Secretariat Awards for Distinguished Service from the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While at SAMHSA, she co-Chaired the development of the National HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy and served as the lead for Tribal Affairs and Military Affairs. Prior to federal service, she was selected by the Attorney General of the United States as the first Texan to receive the Volunteer of the Year Award. She was also awarded with the National Faith-Based and Community Leadership Award, the PRJDE National Youth Leadership Award, and the National Prevention Network Achievement Award. She has been inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame and was honored by the San Antonio Bar Foundation with the prestigious PEACEMAKER Award. She received the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director’s Award for Community Leadership, the Department of Defense (DOD) Commander’s Award for Outstanding Leadership, and National Crime Prevention Council’s “Outstanding Citizen Advocate Award.”
Ms. Watts Davis has served in many leadership capacities to include service as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Austin Community College and the Board of Directors of the Ella Austin Community Center. She served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, National Prevention Partnership, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), the National Crime Prevention Council, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, the National Family Partnership, the National Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Higher Education, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Texas, and the Texas Mental Health Association. She has also served as an Advisory Board member of the National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention, the National Center for State Courts, Youth Crime Watch of America, the Center for Public Policy & Political Studies, and the One Star Foundation.
She served on the Texas Task Force for State and Local Drug that created and funded the first 12,000 treatment beds in Texas prisons and was instrumental in developing and helping pass the Drug-free Communities Act legislation which has funded over 5000 communities to prevent drug abuse and its related harm. She also served as the Co-Chair of the White House Disparities Subcommittee to develop the National HIV/AIDS Strategy under President Barack Obama.
Bruce Purnell , Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director | The Love More Movement
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Dr. Bruce Purnell is the founder and executive director of a community based non-profit organization called The Love More Movement. He is a psychologist, author, artist, speaker and community activist. Dr. Purnell is a direct descendent of Underground Railroad conductors and Station Masters. Like his ancestors, he has dedicated his life to creating a world where Love, Joy, Peace, Equity and Transformation are lifestyles.
Through Dr. Purnell’s journey he has instructed at The University of Cincinnati and The University of Lagos, Created a Legacy Foundation at Howard University, Conducted Academic and leadership Boot-Camps at Bowie State University, created the Transformative Life Coaches (TLC) initiative and The Transformational Indigenous Leadership Team (T.I.L.T). Dr. Purnell has also worked on Blueprints for alternative schools, written culturally focused youth engagement curricula, built an Arts and Recording studio and founded an international, grass roots movement called “The OverGround Free-Way”. Dr. Purnell is currently working with over 300 youth, 100 parents and 50 seniors in 7 “Love-More” communities in the Washington Metropolitan Area with international sites in Southern Ontario and Nigeria. He is also finishing a book entitled “Finding My Eagle” about the process of self-discovery, genealogy and transformation and he is in final edit of the Transformational Indigenous Leadership curriculum (T.I.L.T.) He currently serves as a subject matter expert for SAMHSA, The American Psychological Association for Community and The Department of Justice for topics concerning Trauma, Boys and Men of Color, Self-Efficacy, Youth, Trauma and Suicide Prevention, Victims of Violent Crimes, Gangs and Crews and Healing from Trauma.
Dr. Purnell has developed a process for strategically activating social entrepreneurs and architects with the purpose of bringing a creative culture of Love, Hope, Healing, Health, Resilience and Trust to the most vulnerable communities in the world. The Love-More Movements’ universal hashtags state that #HealingPeopleHealingPeople, “#WeLoveMore” and “#WeRedefineCool” because Dr. Purnell intends to demonstrate that the combination of Love, Hope, Resilience, Positive Motivation and Transformation is a social panacea.
Daryl Blacher
Program Manager, ReCAST Baton Rouge | Office of the Mayor-President
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Daryl Blacher currently serves as the ReCAST (Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma) Program Manager within the Office of the Mayor-President. She currently leads, manages and coordinates ReCAST Baton Rouge grant activities to address the stress and trauma due to the civil unrest experienced in Baton Rouge, during the summer of 2016, following the shooting of Alton Sterling, the police ambush and the August floods.
Daryl earned a Master’s in Public Administration, during December 2015, from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA. She also earned a Certificate of Completion in Community Development from the University of Arkansas at Conway during 1992.
She has worked in program and grants management for more than 20 years for various state, city and federally-funded projects in addition to nationally known entities such as AARP and Public Broadcasting Service. As a former associate state director for AARP Louisiana, she previously administered various AARP and AARP Foundation community outreach and service programs, including Voices of Civil Rights, African American and Hispanic Membership Development Initiatives and its Diversity Council. One of Daryl’s tasks included serving as the Community Development lead in helping the New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove recover from the devastation and trauma experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
She has been instrumental in envisioning various ReCAST Baton Rouge initiatives while leading the community collaboration efforts through its Community Coalition.
She is a mother of one son and currently serves as the Goodwood Homesites Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Improvement District Chair and a member of the McKinley High School Alumni Foundation.
Joyce Plummer, J.D.
Project Director, ReCAST Baton Rouge | Office of the Mayor-President
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Joyce M. Plummer, JD, is the Federal and State Grants Manager for the Office of the Mayor-President, City of Baton Rouge-Parish of East Baton Rouge, and, serves as the Project Director for ReCAST Baton Rouge.
An experienced attorney, civil and domestic mediator, Dr. Plummer earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois; and, her Juris Doctor from Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Dr. Plummer is an ordained minister with a Master of Divinity from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. In 2010, Dr. Plummer completed the course of study and was certified by the International Institute of Human Rights as a Human Rights educator. More recently, she completed training as a Facilitator with Dialogue on Race Louisiana.
Committed to promoting awareness of the effects of historical and contemporary trauma on vulnerable youth and adults, Dr. Plummer is a mother and grandmother.
Melanie Plucinski
Program Manager, Division of Race and Equity | City of Minneapolis
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Melanie Plucinski, M.P.H., is a Program Manager within the Division of Race and Equity for the City of Minneapolis where the focus of her work is on shifting policy and practice to create more racially equitable outcomes, a root cause of individual and community-based trauma. Melanie is originally from Northern Wisconsin and is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She holds a Master of Public Health degree in Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health with an interdisciplinary concentration in Health Disparities Research. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Social Justice.
In her previous role as the Prevention and Policy Manager with the American Indian Cancer Foundation, Melanie managed staff and programs with a focus in policy development, community engagement, facilitation, and data analysis. She has also worked as the former Legislative Director of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and for the Department of Human Services as the American Indian Liaison.
Xiomara Owens, Ph.D.
Director, Behavioral Health Aide Training | Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
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Xiomara “Xio” Owens, PhD, grew up in Wasilla, Alaska and currently lives in Anchorage with her wife and 3 sons. Xio obtained her bachelor and master degrees in psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage and recently graduated with her PhD in Clinical-Community Psychology. She completed her pre-doctoral internship as a clinician in Bethel, Alaska and has worked at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium for nine years, serving tribal partners throughout the state. Xio’s professional interests focus on issues related to behavioral health in multicultural populations, mental health literacy, behavioral health training, and workforce development. As the Director of Behavioral Health Aide Training, Xio seeks to understand statewide behavioral health concerns, align training needs and resources, and assist in the continued development of a culturally sensitized behavioral health workforce to serve rural Alaskan communities. In her off time, Xio enjoys being with her family, biking, cooking, and playing games.
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