Understanding Childhood Trauma, Stress, and Heart Disease: Building Trauma Informed Programs for Community Health and Healing

Co-sponsored by the UI Health, Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships (OCEAN-HP), AKARAMA Foundation, Inc./Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc, Theta Omega Chapter presents “Understanding Childhood Trauma, Stress, and Heart Disease: Building Trauma Informed Programs for Community Health and Healing.”

Emerging evidence has found an association between trauma, toxic stress, and heart disease. Much of this work has focused specifically on the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). This workshop will provide information about the impact of childhood adversity, trauma, and toxic stress on heart health and ways to use trauma-informed approaches to promote community health and wellness.

 There are two workshop sessions.

Featured Speakers: Morning Session (9:30 am to 1:30 pm)

Audrey Stillerman, MD, Associate Director of Medical Affairs for the University of Illinois Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Initiative and medical director for its Mile Square-affiliated school health center program, which includes both medical and behavioral health services. Dr. Stillerman is board-certified in Family Medicine and Integrative Medicine. She also serves as a steering committee member of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative and co-chair of its Health Committee.

Michelle Day, JD, MDiv., Restorative Justice Practitioner and Founder and CEO of Nehemiah Trinity Rising. Ms. Day is a minister, attorney and certified mediator, with more than 25 years of experience in conflict transformation, dedicated to the healing of community. She is employed as Program Administrator for the Juvenile Justice and Child Protection Department of the Circuit Court of Cook County, developing restorative justice collaborations between court, community, public and private agencies, to meet the needs of court involved children and families. Ms. Day facilitates courses in Restorative Leadership, Conflict Transformation, and Christian Conflict Transformation throughout the city and nationally, assisting businesses, churches and other organizations in transforming difficult situations through development of conflict transformation skills and processes.

Jacqueline Garlock, MSW,  Program Manager, Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY). Ms. Garlock joined ICOY as Program Manager in January of 2017. Jackie helps coordinate and deliver ICOY’s capacity building, training and technical assistance services and oversees ICOY’s child and adolescent trauma initiatives. Prior to joining ICOY, Jackie worked as a therapist serving trauma-exposed youth and families. Jackie received her Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service and Administration and her Bachelor’s degree from Tufts University. Jackie is passionate about improving outcomes for children and youth, and believes that helping youth-serving professionals to develop a trauma informed approach is a key part of social justice work.

Karriem Watson, MD, DHSc, MS, MPH, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and the Director of Community Engaged Research for the UI Cancer Center at UIC and the Mile Square Health Center, a group of Federally Qualified Health Clinics (FQHCs) affiliated with the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System. Dr. Watson is a faculty member at the UIC School of Public Health in the Division of Community Health Sciences and is an Adjunct Faculty at DePaul and Northwestern University. Dr. Watson is also the Core Co-Lead of the Community Engagement Core for a 5 year NCI funded multi-institutional grant with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Cancer Center and Northeastern Illinois University to address cancer disparities in Chicago, he also serves as Co-Investigator for a 4 year NCI funded grant to develop a partnership with the UI Cancer Center and Governors State University to increase the number of faculty and students from underserved communities who engage in cancer disparities research. Dr. Watson is also a Co-Investigator of the Illinois Precision Medicine Consortium that was funded by the NIH Precision Medicine Initiative, now called the All of Us Initiative and a newly awarded NIMHD Center of Excellence in Health Disparities at UIC.

Featured Speakers: Evening Session (6:00 pm to 8:00 pm)

Marlita White, BSW, MSW, LCSW.  CDPH director for the Office of Violence Prevention and Behavioral Health. Ms. White is a seasoned crisis responder with experience in conflict mediation, psycho-spiritual bereavement counseling, and peace circle facilitation. She is certified to administer the ACE Interface curriculum on Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) and is a frequent trainer on childhood trauma, teen dating violence prevention, community engagement, and childhood exposure to violence prevention. Her violence prevention work spans managing federal demonstration projects, collaborating on program evaluation and action research, strategic planning, and multi-year/multi-site program implementation efforts. Marlita routinely leads and/or participates in interdisciplinary collaborations related to issues that influence the safety of young children, youth, families, and communities and the systems that serve them. As the CDPH director for the Office of Violence Prevention and Behavioral Health, her current portfolio includes violence and substance use prevention and response programs along with mental health support initiatives. She is one of the leads in the citywide, Trauma-Informed Transformation project.

Sara K. Schneider PhD.  Dr. Schneider completed her undergraduate education at Yale and her masters and Ph.D. at New York University in the field of Performance Studies, which brings together the arts and cross-cultural studies. She is a veteran creator of unique experiential learning events that draw on her performance and anthropological backgrounds to engage participants and expand their worlds and skills. Her original workshops and presentations cultivate the performance and cross-cultural skills needed by professionals in education, healthcare, law enforcement, and spiritual leadership. Arising out of public attention to her book on undercover work, Art of Darkness, The Art of Undercover,  has been responsible for the training of law enforcement officers across the country anticipating or working in undercover assignments. She also teaches working teachers how to improve their teaching by looking at their classrooms as living cultures in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at National Louis University, and people of all shapes and ages how to practice yoga.

This is a Pink Goes Red for Heart Health Community Impact Day hosted in collaboration with the American Heart Association.