2020 and 2021 have brought new challenges and opportunities for the organizations within Creating Community Resilience.  As each organization adjusts to their “new normal” they have all found ways to ensure trauma informed care remains a pillar of their work.  Not only have our core organizations continued their agency services, but they have also kept the goals and forward momentum of CCR in focus.

In this unprecedented time, Creating Community Resilience has supported several significant projects that help align efforts to better support the health and well-being of our community.  Whether it’s supporting youth, addressing the ever-changing needs of the pandemic, or offering training to the community, CCR keeps resilience at the center of all efforts.

CCR Addresses Youth:

In Douglas County, more than 20% of our teenage youth are not attending school or working.  This is significant because this lack of engagement leads to generational cycles of under-education, under-employment, and negative health and social outcomes.  Several of our core agencies serve this important population and CCR’s goal is to support alignment and strengthen connections so that youth in our community have access to services and supports that meet their needs.

This year, CCR received funding from the State of Oregon's Youth Development Division (YDD) to help connect and explore our community programming and resources dedicated to Opportunity Youth. YDD grants support efforts to reduce disparities in educational success, improve graduation and completion rates, reduce youth disconnection, increase attendance and readiness, and remove barriers engagement, achievement, and success.

Research indicates that intervening to keep young people engaged – and reengaging those who are disconnected or pushed out of school – not only improves future outcomes for these individuals, but offers a significant return on investment to communities, by reducing the risk of justice system involvement, lowering social service costs, and increasing economic productivity and income tax revenue.  All great ways to Create Community Resilience!

Together with our community partners, we held several work groups with representatives across the county to talk about the issues facing youth in our communities, identify areas of success and challenge, and explore ways we might want to work together.  After all our work sessions were completed, we put together a comprehensive report of our findings to help shape the work to come. You can find this report here.

CCR Addresses COVID-19:

The Oregon Health Authority funded Creating Community Resilience as a community based organization to support education and outreach efforts addressing COVID-19.  These funds were shared between our core organizations to help promote up-to-date information about the virus, personal and community safety, testing and vaccination with clients and community members in ways that were culturally and linguistically appropriate.  These dollars also helped fund vaccine events around the community.

In collaboration with OHA and DPHN, we have been working to identify the most vulnerable populations in need of education and outreach.  For example, Peace at Home led outreach to our Spanish-speaking community members while the Douglas ESD supported information & vaccine clinics for educators, staff, and families with school-aged children.  Family Development Center, Douglas CARES, Phoenix School, and Roseburg Public Schools have all been supporting outreach and education around COVID health and safety.

We will soon be launching a new campaign with our partners to help community members hear from local experts on how we can work together to beat COVID 19.  This campaign will center on promoting messages on COVID safety, holding events where people can ask questions and learn about the vaccine, and support testing and vaccination events.

As we continue to move through these uncertain times of the pandemic, we are proud to support the health and wellness of our community in this way.

ACE Interface:

We are excited to partner with Southern Oregon Success and South Coast Together, both regional collaboratives like CCR that are addressing ACE Awareness and Trauma Informed Care capacity in Southwest Oregon. Recently, we worked together to train community members  in ACE Interface, an evidence-based curriculum that helps us understand what’s happening with NEAR Science, ACES, and Resilience Building.  CCR supported 15 community members and staff from our core organizations to participate in this training.  

The ACE Interface curriculum addresses breakthroughs in research on the impacts of toxic stress and trauma on brain development, health, and social skills.  This training covers the latest science related to the progressive impact of adversity and the life long effect of  adverse childhood experiences. It provides an overview of the neuroscience, a bit on epigenetics,  information about the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, ideas on how to build resilience, and an understanding of trauma-informed care in plain language, tied to the experience of the audience. The  training was developed by Dr. Robert Anda, the co-principal investigator and designer for the ACE study, and  Laura Porter of ACE Interface, and has been reviewed and approved by known experts in the field for its scientific content. 

Our team in Douglas County represents a wide range of interests and expertise and all members are passionate about the issues of ACES and Resilience.

If you’d like to request a training for your group, you can follow this link to get started.