On April 26 - 28, 2017, Building Community Resilience (BCR), a national collaborative at the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness, convened partners from its five test sites (Washington, DC; Dallas, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Wilmington, Delaware) to share learnings from the project’s second year. The convening, held in Cincinnati, launched a partnership with the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). The group addressed successes and challenges of implementing the BCR framework, including the role of childhood educators and awareness of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), trauma-informed practice in educational and clinical settings, funding and sustainability.
Created and led by Wendy Ellis, BCR seeks to develop resilience through integrated networks of care that foster health system and community-based collaboration to address, prevent and reduce the effects of adverse childhood and community experiences on child health and well-being. Resilience at the community level is a network of buffering supports that helps its members to “bounce back,” and is critical to the health and health outcomes of that community, according to Ellis. Ellis and Dr. Bill Dietz are co-principal investigators on the project.