Whole Child Development: Navigating Trauma, Building Resilience, Optimizing Healing and Well-Being

Denese Shervington Featured

Children live in families. Families live in communities. A community’s vibrancy is impacted by societal laws and cultural beliefs. This presentation will utilize the Social Ecological Model to explore the impact of interpersonal, community, institutional, and societal factors on individual level behaviors in minoritized children, especially those living in poverty and experiencing racial oppression. A Healing Justice framework which expands upon current evidence-based models of screening and treatment to include ancestral and indigenous practice-based evidence and wisdom will be offered as a method of transformational healing for minoritized children and their families. 

Utilizing Family Skills as a Protective Shield for Families Living Through War, Displacement and Other Challenging Contexts

Aala El Khani Featured

Parenting can be challenging at the best of times, let alone parenting children through war or refugee contexts. Global conflicts entail many changes for children and their families, with the potential for acute and longer-term impact on well-being and mental health. What can we do to help? Effective parenting can act as a protective shield against the difficulties that children face in challenging times.

The Promise of the Healing-Centered Paradigm in Education

Acosta Headshot Featured

Drawing on extensive doctoral research and professional practice, this lecture with Dr. Angel Acosta invites participants into an exploration of how practitioners and scholars have deliberately integrated the notion of healing into K-12 curricula and professional education. 

Utilizing Family Skills as a Protective Shield for Families Living Through War, Displacement and Other Challenging Contexts

Aala El Khani Featured

Parenting can be challenging at the best of times, let alone parenting children through war or refugee contexts. Global conflicts entail many changes for children and their families, with the potential for acute and longer-term impact on well-being and mental health. What can we do to help? Effective parenting can act as a protective shield against the difficulties that children face in challenging times. Providing interventions that focus on building strengths in parenting practices can be protective and predict more positive outcomes for children. In this talk, a wide range of open access family skills resources will be shared. As all families can experience highly stressful times, whether it is illness, relationship breakdown or living through a global pandemic, these resources have universal importance and applicability. This talk will reflect on the diverse public health implications of availing family skills resources for the prevention of drug use, mental health, violence and several adverse health and social consequences.