A free, certified, trauma-informed training (Course 1) developed by Community Resilience Initiative (CRI) and facilitated by League of Women Voters member Ginny Foote and Lauren Nichols, is being offered to the public to introduce a framework for building resilience in communities. The training takes participants through step-by-step learning from theory to practice and shows them how to implement evidence-based strategies to break the generational cycle of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and the stigmas around trauma, in order to build resilience.

This training is eligible for CEU's from the Lewis-Clark State College Social Work Program. 

Participants will receive a certificate of completion for attending the 6-hour training, provided in three two-hour Zoom sessions held on April 25, 26, and 27. Afternoon sessions: 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm and Evening sessions: 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm are available. Registration is required and is now open. To register for the workshop, email Ginny Foote at ginny [at] footelong.com with the following information: Your Name, Email, and whether you will attend the Afternoon Sessions or the Evening Sessions.

CRI was the first to bring the emphasis on building community resilience networks through exposure to an understanding of the Center for Disease Control's first ACE Study done in 1995-97 and the neuroscience about toxic stress and brain architecture. The training includes three groups of topics: (1) The NEAR sciences, a cluster of emerging scientific findings in the fields of Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACE Study, and Resilience; (2) Beneath behavior, the critical transition from Knowledge to Insight; and (3) ROLES, CRI’s signature training on Recognize, Observe, Label, Elect and Solve, which are core strategies that address the underlying needs. Safety + Connection = Balance.

Ginny Foote, member of the League of Women Voters of Idaho's BRACEs Committee (Building Resilience with ACEs Interventions), is President Emeritus of the LC Valley Resilience Coalition (LCVRC) and has been working with CRI and involved in raising awareness to ACEs and building Resilience since 2015. LCVRC has sponsored four regional Resilience Conferences and sponsored many events over the years. LCVRC is excited to bring a 2023 Conference to the region August 3, 2023 entitled Meet the Frontline of ACEs and Resilience in the LC Valley. LCVRC is a member of Hope Harbor Idaho of Region 2, Idaho, and Idaho Resilience Project.

Lauren Nichols, LCSW, is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Lewis-Clark State College. She has studied the effects of trauma on the brain for the past 40 years and worked with children who had experienced extreme trauma as a clinician in a treatment program for children and adolescents. Over the past decades she has seen the effects of trauma change from being described as an illness that might be managed to a brain injury that can be healed. She provides clinical supervision to new clinicians in the field as well as teaches workshops in trauma, resilience and trauma treatment.