The Community Awareness and Impact Program: Bridging and Healing the Violence, Trauma & Grief Divide

We live in a real and social media world saturated with sources of aggression, weapons, and violence, – whether random or “home-grown.”  Almost daily, media headlines affirm this grave reality…with another and another, and yet another tragic loss of life.  In addition to societal forces and pressures, the “home-grown” battlefront may involve:

a) intense family stress or breakup along with reintegration of a family member, e.g., a returning Veteran,

b) peer bullying – whether in a schoolyard or workplace, or gang-related activity,

c) cyber-bullying: with greater isolation and anonymity, with the loss of genuine human connection, empathy decreases, aggression increases,

d) substance and/or domestic abuse and its spiraling tension on family members, friends, colleagues, etc.

In such a volatile culture and work-life-cyber space, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish vulnerable from “it can’t happen here” communities, schools, playgrounds, shopping malls, workplaces, etc.

What is truly critical in such volatile, TNT – Time-Numbers-Technology – Driven & Distracted times is for individuals, couples, families, businesses, organizations, institutions, and communities to dismantle these “us vs. them” perceptual walls.  Such mind-culture barriers prevent seeing our vulnerable space-time as a “human ecology” problem that transcends cultural diversity, ethnicity, or financial disparity.  (Alas, sometimes with more money we just build higher and more rigid, seemingly “impregnable” walls.)  These mental blocks make it harder to empathize with our neighbors – whether “inside or outside a beltway” or on the “right or wrong side of the tracks.”  Such ideas also feed the illusion that one community’s “life and death” struggles can be quarantined or isolated from surrounding communities.  And sadly, such a mindset, as Lincoln noted many score years ago, impedes our reaching “the better angels of our nature.”

So, if you are wondering whether this is a time of breakthrough or breakdown…There’s a multifaceted team on call:  Dr. Charles Hicks, acclaimed Baltimore Psychologist and Personal Empowerment Life Coach and Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, the “Stress Doc” ™, acclaimed Speaker, Workshop Leader, and Critical Incident/Trauma Intervention-Debriefing Consultant.  Let this Dynamic-Diverse Duo help you and your social and work groups, institutions and neighborhoods engage in “Community Bridge-Building as a Healing Response to Violence, Trauma and Grief.”  In this workshop, engage with lively "Get FIT" -- FUN-Interactive-Thought-provoking – “on-point” presentation, powerful social-psychology-communication concepts, tools, and techniques, along with real, “hands on” group exercises/role plays, and care-griever/caregiver strategic discussion.  Expanded awareness, dialogue, and collaborative action planning, will help us design a “One Human Touch Relationship:  Community Bridge-Building & Healing – Model and Method”:

Ø  Be part of the emerging and integrative community conversation

Ø  Collaborate and develop tools with individuals and families, colleagues and groups

Ø  Develop stress resilience and trauma/grief/anger management and creative adaptation skills for emotional intelligence maturation and personal-organizational recovery and growth

Ø  Build psychological and cognitive agility to respect tradition and think out of the box

Ø  Learn how other families, organizations, companies and leaders grapple with emerging challenges and opportunities

Ø  Identify and begin to repair and overcome communication-culture barriers

 

Ø  Experience challenges and benefits of conflict thru creative thinking: building bridges and designing your personal Grief Rejuvenation/Stress Resilience Tool Kit.  (Remember, your mind is the most creative psycho-social medium!)

And, of course, this half-day workshop is only the first step.  There will be a follow-up program to discuss, plan, and launch community action initiatives.

Program Objectives

A.  Community Bridge-Building as a Healing Response:  Overview

1.  Provisional Vision/Mission Statement:  educate and sensitize, increase and inspire the public's knowledge and awareness of those persons, families, and organizations that have been impacted by the random and societal acts of violence, trauma, and grief!

2.  Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress:  Is it a personal illness and/or a societal issue?

3.  Do we know enough about "human behavior" to advocate a frame work of understanding that generates opportunity to provide programs/services of relief-help-healing-resiliency-recovery?

4.  How do mental, emotional, psychological, (age), developmental (including early childhood/family experiences), environmental, and social maturity factors, along with access to supportive and healing resources, influence one's vulnerability to violence and rage or one’s capacity for managing anger, trauma, and grief?

5. Who are the caregivers?  Who are the care-grievers?  How best to support each group?

6.  The criticality of professional and public as well as communities wide-recognition of the impact of social-cultural violence and aggression, trauma and grief on individuals, families, schools, workplaces, churches, and an array of institutions

7.  The collaborative challenge of building interpersonal-group bridges within and between communities and social-cultural-religious institutions for “Bridging and Healing the Violence, Trauma & Grief Divide.”

B.  Rage, Trauma, and Grief:  A “Crisis” Model

1.  Definition of “Crisis” and “Crisis Stages Model”

2.  Key components of the “Vulnerable State”:  Threat, Loss & Challenge

3.  Time-limited “Crisis Window of Danger and Opportunity”

4.  Different types of trauma/grief situations:  “Fight & Flight, Freeze & Flow”

5.  Link between past and present pain and loss in traumatic stress reactions

C.  Violence, Loss, and Trauma (VLT):  Overview

1.  Defining the VLT Sandwich (and each of its ingredients)

2.  What are key personal-situational precursors to Violence? Self-Defeating Conflict? Domestic Violence, Bullying? Workplace Disruptions? Road Rage? and Suicide, etc;

3.  The special cases of Violent Death and Loss of Young Life

4.  Stress-Trauma Assessment:  Holmes-Rahe Life Change-Stress Index

5.  The critical issue of sense of control of one’s emotions and one’s environment; “You Can’t Make Me” and “You Fumbled the Data” Exercises

D.  Nature of Trauma

1.  TNT Trauma:  Overwhelming Crisis or Chronic Condition; Illness or Socio-Cultural Issue?

2.  What is the nature of trauma? Why is it so devastating?  Can the process be reversed?

3.  Situational Trauma:  "homicide trauma," "war trauma," "rape trauma", "discrimination trauma," "socio-economic/job loss trauma," "domestic violence trauma," "oppression trauma," etc.

4.  “Bad Kids or Traumatized Kids”:  Understanding the person-situation context

5.  Dr. Hicks’ “Trauma:  Twenty Questions”:

6.  Witnessing Violence or Second-Hand Exposure:  PTSD contexts and reactions

 

 

E.  The Nature of Grief and the Grief Process

1. “Unfinished Grieving,” “Grief Ghosts,” and the multifaceted types and dynamics of loss and grief

2.  Classic Stages of Loss and Grief, including Shock, Denial, Rage, Helplessness, Guilt, Ambivalence, etc.

3.  Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, and Social-Cultural Methods of Grieving

4.  Difference between “Feeling Sorry for Yourself and Feeling Your Sorrow”

5.  The Magical Healing Path of Grief

6.  The Stress Doc’s Recipe for Group Grieving the Loss of a Vital Member

F.  Violence, Loss, & Trauma Interventions

1.  Once the rage or anxiety (or depression) trigger has been engaged…how can I press the pause button?  How can I steadily moderate my intensity?

2.  Basic self-regulation and constructive conflict resolution mindsets and communication skills and strategies; the “Four ‘R’s of PRO Relating:  being Respectful-Real-Responsible-Responsive

3.  Building the the TnT Relationship:  The Power of Trust & Transparency

4.  Gaining a basic understanding/application of “Emotional Intelligence” for self-regulation and empathic emotional connection

5. The Power of Psycho-Drama:  enabling participants to act out these emotions/reactions in a safe environment, more effectively managing emotional and cognitive-behavioral responses and social interactions through support, guidance and shared experiences

6.  The “Power of “Creativity” and “Engaging with Nature” for expressing grief and healing trauma

 

G.  Save the Retreat Wrap-up

1.  Brainstorming “Community Building & Healing” next steps

2.  Forming action plan/task groups

3.  Choosing a “Stress/Battlefield Buddy” and the Power of the Stress Doc’s TLC

4.  Go round:  What will I take home, what workshop seeds will I plant:  on a personal-professional, family, organizational, and/or community level?

5.  Stress Doc will close with a “Healing Humor” Shrink Rap ™

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Presenter Bios

Dr. Charles Hicks

Charles’ professional career started as a Public School Teacher, evolved into Teaching in Academic Departments at various Universities – Howard University, Duquesne University, Morgan State University, Towson State University, the University of Baltimore, and The Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Hicks was also a staff member in the Student Affairs Department at the California Polytechnic State University where he served as a Career Counselor and Career Center Coordinator. He was an Industrial Social Psychologist in the Human Resources Department of Gulf Oil Corporation, a Sr. HRD Consultant at Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and a Staff Consultant at Personnel Decisions, Drake Beam Morin, Lee Hecht Harrison, and Right Management - Career Outplacement Firms. In addition, he has been an executive coach with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) for 25 years and has staffed programs at the Greensboro facility and also at the National Leadership Institute – a CCL Affiliate at the University College, University of Maryland. Roles have included facilitator of experiential team activities in the program modules and as also as a developmental assessment feedback coach, delivering 1 on 1 client assessment feedback, and follow-up coaching services. In addition, Charles has extensive adjunct affiliation (25 years) with the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, VA. Currently he is affiliated as a Personal Empowerment Coach with the Inspirit Counseling Services of Baltimore, Maryland.

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Mark Gorkin, “The Stress Doc” ™

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is an acclaimed keynote, kickoff and webinar speaker as well as "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring, and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations.  The Doc is a Training and Stress Resilience Consultant for The Hays Companies, an international corporate insurance and wellness brokerage group.  He has also led “"Stress and Communication,” as well as “Managing Change, Humor, and Team Building" leadership retreats for a variety of units at Ft. Hood, Texas and for Army Community Services and Family Advocacy Programs at Ft. Meade, MD and Ft. Belvoir, VA as well as Andrews Air Force Base/Behavioral Medicine Services.

A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, the Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress and of The Four Faces of Anger.  The Stress Doc blog appears in such platforms as HR.com, WorkforceWeek.com, and MentalHelpNet.  His award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.