For this episode of Passing Notes, I met with Casey Gwinn and Dr. Rick Cobb. Casey Gwinn is an attorney who led the nation in the creating the concept for Family Justice Centers. He is the current president of the Alliance of Hope, developed the model for Camp HOPE, and is the recent co-author of the book Hope Rising. Dr. Rick Cobb is the superintendent of Mid-Del Public Schools and is working to shift they dynamics within the school district and the larger community to support families through a trauma-informed lens.
On January 7, 2019, Dr. Cobb and his leadership team brought Casey Gwinn to speak to the entire district in the morning and community members in the afternoon. Dr. Cobb invited me to join the afternoon session and I wasn’t prepared for such an incredible afternoon of learning. Very thankful that both took them time to visit with me afterwards for this interview!
Below are the questions I prepared for the interview:
- Introduce yourself
- What work do you and the Alliance for Hope International do?
- Why is being trauma-informed an important community-wide endeavor?
- What role does hope play in trauma-informed care?
- What resources exist for teachers, principals? Communities?
- What is happening today in your district?
- What do you hope to accomplish with this work?
- Where did the idea start? What preparation took place? What data was collected?
- Why do you believe that this work is important for your district?
- How has trauma impacted your district? Individual schools?
- What strategies have you put in place throughout the district to ensure that trauma-informed care is taking place in individual classrooms?
- In what other ways do you plan to include the community on your work focused around trauma?
- What would happen to the overall mission of our work if ACEs were radically reduced in the population as a whole? What does a low-ACEs culture look like?
- Resources that have impacted the work that you are doing in the Mid-Del District?
Passing Notes* 