Participants completed activities designed to get them thinking about how trauma affects themselves and others.

Trauma 101 continues to be a hit.

The program, part of the Systems of Care and Behavioral health Alliance of Rural Pennsylvania (BHARP) grant, was presented at Beacon Light Behavioral Health’s outpatient recovery center in North Warren on Monday. Offered last October, the program was a repeat based on a large number of requests to bring the presentation back for those who missed it last fall.

According to Emily Wilton, Assistant Director and Systems of Care Coordinator for Forest Warren Mental Wellness Association, the turnout for Monday’s offering was a full house.

Trauma 101 was offered as a two-hour presentation given by Lakeside Global Institute both Monday morning and afternoon. Open to service providers and consumers, as well as family members, friends, and community members, both sessions of the program enjoyed diverse attendance, Wilton said. Representatives from adult and juvenile probation, children and youth services, the school district, and mental health service agencies showed up to get the primer on trauma.

The program focused on four main tasks: learning what trauma is, how trauma affects children and adults, and how exposure to adverse events in childhood and beyond affects brain development. Participants got a rundown of what brain structures are involved in experiencing trauma and influencing behavior subsequent to exposure to trauma, and also how to be more trauma-informed in their day-to-day interactions not just with consumers and clients but with everyone.

A major portion of the program was an introduction to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a longitudinal correlational investigation into how exposure to trauma and pervasive toxic stress affects health outcomes of the adults who experience it. One of the things that the original study learned is that over 60 percent of the population at any given time is affected by either trauma or ongoing exposure to toxic stress, and that that exposure can change brain development and, thereby, behavior in those who’ve been exposed.

The goal of the presentation was in line with the current trend in mental health nationally, which is to become more aware of and sensitive to the ways that trauma has the potential to influence behavior. A more trauma-informed approach to others, the program stressed, has the potential to facilitate healing that has been demonstrably possible for those affected by trauma and toxic stress.

“We had a great turnout,” said Wilton, who added that not only was turnout good but feedback from program participants has been positive. The goal was part of the overall Systems of Care goal of involving youth and parents who receive local services to become involved in their recovery and the healing process.

One of the things that has been requested in both Forest and Warren Counties have been the Trauma 101 and subsequent trainings to educate consumers and others about issues to do with trauma and healing.

The fact that programs have been so well-attended is part of the reason that they’ve been able not just to continue, but to expand, said Wilton. In the future, more specific and in-depth trainings on particular nuances in the trauma-informed conversation are planned. Among them, trainings on vicarious trauma – experiencing or being effected by trauma through the process of witnessing or hearing about it – as well as trauma and youth are planned.

The training on trauma and youth is one that specifically came out of the county leadership meetings, which gives young consumers and their parents the opportunity to direct what services are offered in their area. Lakeside Global Institute, said Wilton, is developing the trauma and youth training because of the request that came out of county leadership meetings.

Overall, said Wilton, participation and engagement within the community across numerous systems that consumers may become involved with has been active and ongoing, which is encouraging, she said.