Start where we are
What do you think about when you hear trauma awareness and resilience?
Today I think of POWER – how powerless I felt during and after an attack. How powerful it was to encounter teachers who countered violence with nonviolence. How important it is to make spaces for people to build healthy power, both in individual bodies and groups who shape larger social possibilities. One of the core lessons from these teachers: Start with self - start where we are.
In this e-zine, we share multiple examples of starting with self, starting in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We dedicate this issue to Doreen Ruto, who was one of these examples.
In addition to what we've been up to at STAR, you'll find:
Learning forums
EMU Symposium on “Conversations on Sexual Violence: Cultivating Community Resilience" March 19
Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations May 19-27
Body-Mind Practices to Build Resilience June 6-10
Restorative Justice in Education (RJE) Academy June 27-28
Full calendar of STAR trainings and events
More resources
Paper Tigers – documentary on a trauma-informed school
Our current top 5 (link to featured resources)
Online STAR-Basics
Best wishes,
the STAR team (Elaine, Jennifer, Katie and Vernon)
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In this issue
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Teaching with her Life
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Teaching with her life - a tribute to Doreen Ruto
Doreen Ruto from Kenya was a STAR Trainer, researcher, peace advocate, educator, mentor, dreamer and mother. “She taught us so much with her life!” was the testimony of one of her classmates, Charito Calvachi-Mateyko.
Doreen’s early life included schooling, becoming a teacher, entering marriage, and giving birth to two sons. In 1998, she lost her husband in the US embassy bombing in Nairobi. In subsequent years, she courageously continued her education, both in terms of participation in survivors’ groups and in formal education – ultimately coming to Eastern Mennonite University as a Fulbright scholar and completing a master’s degree focused on conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma awareness and resilience. She engaged her own personal journey – including the gifts and challenges of the bigger picture in Kenya, East Africa and the world – and was a sharp and hungry teacher-learner at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
Read more...
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Trauma Informed Organizations
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Barry Hart and Mikhala Lantz-Simmons will co-facilitate SPI 2016 course Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations, May 19-27, 2016. With STAR and the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, they are inviting more people, policy and structure into trauma-informing our own SPI at EMU.
Following the SPI 2015 course in Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations, Barry and Mikhala embarked on a process to apply the course content and learning to our own educational environment. Together, they developed the following definition to represent “our working understanding of a trauma-informed organization.”
According to their definition, a trauma-informed organization:
Read more…
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Body-Mind Practices
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In our STAR Level I and Level II trainings, we explore the impacts of trauma and resilience on body, brain, beliefs and behavior. We integrate many learning modalities, from embodied exercises to art-making to practice in compassionate listening. In this course
we will dig deeply into embodied practices both for the individual practitioner’s well-being and resilience and for use in group facilitation to foster creativity and invite deep learning.
Drawing upon theory from conflict transformation, expressive arts, and trauma and resilience studies, participants will explore in the 5-day course: How do we cultivate possibility by developing new patterns? Can we live in both safety and vulnerability? How do we reckon with cycles and open to non-dualistic existence? How do we spark our own creativity and resilience engaging body, mind and spirit? Read more...
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Paper Tigers & RJE Academy
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The film Paper Tigers documents the journey of a school in Walla Walla, Washington (US), that introduced a trauma-informed approach to discipline and student support in a school environment full of drug abuse, fights, and poor academic performance. In just a few years, they achieved a 90% decrease in suspensions, a 75% decrease in fights, and a five-fold increase in graduation rates.
The film carefully and truthfully focuses on the lives of a few teenagers living in adverse family situations, as well as the initiatives taken by them and their teachers to respond in a trauma-informed way to their learning challenges. The young people and their teachers together engage in learning about the Adverse Childhood Experience study. The school opens a free health clinic. Teachers and administrators look beyond the surface behaviors to try to work with students in deeply humane ways, honoring their dignity and humanity, engaging in loving rather than punitive responses to discipline issues.
The story of Lincoln High School’s success is not one that feels easy to replicate, and there are some missing pieces. Read more...
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STAR Updates
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What is happening at STAR?
Trainings: STAR has facilitated three Level I trainings so far in 2016, and we are gearing up for more STAR at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute. There is still space in some of the courses - for anyone wishing to deepen their understanding of conflict, reconciliation, social change, restorative justice, trauma and resilience and more, check it out.
STAR I Lebanon (March 2016)
Last week, thirteen Syrian participants made their way overland through checkpoints and difficult borders from Damascus, Homs and Aleppo to Beirut, where they joined seven Lebanese colleagues from a variety of places in Lebanon.
Beginning March 4, the group participated in a five-day STAR I seminar... Read more...
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Events
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Mark Your Calendars!
EMU Symposium on “Conversations on Sexual Violence: Cultivating Community Resilience” - March 19, 2016, free and open to the public!
STAR II - May 9-17, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration is available here).
Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations - May 19-27, 2016 at EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration is available here).
STAR I - May 30-June 3, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration is available here).
Body-Mind Practices for Building Resilience - June 6-10, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration is available here).
Coming to the Table Leadership Training & National Gathering - June 6-12, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. There will be some STAR-based training. Contact CTTT for more information.
STAR I - September 12-16, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va.
STAR II - November 14-18, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va.
Online: STAR comes to you! www.PeaceAfterTrauma.com is a STAR-based resource that offers webinars and the first-ever online STAR-Basics classes for trauma-impacted communities.
If you’d like a short STAR refresher, or have family, friends or colleagues you’d like to introduce to STAR, sign up to be notified of future online offerings at www.PeaceAfterTrauma.com. Or contact peaceaftertrauma@gmail.com to arrange a web-based event or class for your organization.
Nearly 500 people registered to listen to a recent series of four webinars on When Terrible Things Happen: Helping Yourself and Others Address Trauma and Build Resilience.
The 6-hour online STAR-Basics Class, packed with practical content and applications, had 36 participants from around the world.
Carolyn Yoder, Founding Director of STAR, created PeaceAfterTrauma in collaboration with STAR/Eastern Mennonite University.
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About STAR
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About STAR
Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) offers research-supported trainings for helping and healing professions whose work brings them in contact with populations dealing with historic or current trauma: mental health, medical and legal professionals; clergy; educators; lay helpers; peacebuilders; humanitarian aid and development workers and more.
The interactive trainings integrate neurobiology, conflict transformation, restorative justice and spirituality. The curriculum is adaptable in many contexts. It provides processes and tools for preventing escalating cycles of violence while enhancing health and resilience.
In addition to the Level I workshops, specialized trainings are available for those working with youth, returning veterans and historical harms. In the last decade, STAR has trained over 7,000 people, and the ripple effects have touched many more. The training has been described as invaluable, dynamic and life-changing.
To learn about STAR, download our complimentary e-book.
To sign up for a training, go to www.emu.edu/star.
To inquire about a training in your organization, e-mail us at star@emu.edu.
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