Remote Intern at Community Resilience Initiative

Mia Lowy, Connecticut College

Abstract

As someone who is interested in the up-and-coming field of trauma and resilience education, I spent my summer as a remote intern with Community Resilience Initiative (CRI). Based in Walla Walla, WA, CRI is a non-profit committed to helping communities and individuals heal from trauma by sharing science-based insights in order to promote and cultivate resilience. I was tasked with making the brain science behind trauma and resilience more accessible for the general public (AKA, those who have no knowledge of the topic) -- being trauma-informed is not just important for educators and social workers, but it is important for all individuals, especially parents. My various assignments required me to complete CRI’s courses and consequently, take the vast amount of information I was provided with and narrow it down into shorter, digestible scripts that can be utilized for future community engagement events and educational videos. This not only enforced my background knowledge in N.E.A.R science (neuroscience, epigenetics, ACE studies, and resilience), it also taught me new information about the predicting brain, learning networks, sensory input, and how trauma-informed strategies can be utilized in the classroom. In addition to revising on-demand trauma and resilience trainings before publishing, I also established a social media presence for CRI on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In order to create consistent content for social media, I had to find a way to make trauma and resilience education accessible and interesting for those who have no prior experience while still avoiding retraumatization for followers.