Resource Library

Discover Innovative Community Action Initiatives at Community Action Showcase!

The Center of Excellence is a national training hub, engaging Community Action Agencies coast-to-coast to share innovative, high impact strategies. This platform shines a light on Community Action success stories to inspire. Here you can access resources to strengthen services, build community outcomes, and create family and community change in your local area.

Becoming a Healing Organization – Part 2

In this webinar, community psychiatrist Dr. Shervington reviews the key elements of trauma-informed systems for organizations. Viewers will gain insight into the implementation domains of a trauma-informed approach, considerations related to COVID-19, and actionable recommendations to maintain self-care and prevent burn-out.

Becoming a Healing Organization – Part 1

CEO & Co-founder of the Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies, Dr. Denese Shervington, explores the process of becoming a healing organization. In this workshop, community psychiatrist Dr. Shervington reviews the basics of trauma, its connection to health disparities, and the key elements of trauma-informed systems. Participants gain insights into the implementation domains of a trauma-informed approach, considerations related to COVID-19, and actionable recommendations to maintain self-care and prevent burn-out.

A Trauma-Informed Agency Response to COVID-19

This brief, as the second installment in the National Partnership’s Community Action COVID-19 Resource Series, highlights practices that local CAAs can engage in to support mental health and self-care for staff as they continue to go above and beyond to serve communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief also includes relevant resources for additional information and learning.

Fireside Chat with Vu Le: Equity in Nonprofit Leadership and Navigating Barriers to Justice in the Current Climate

Is it possible to make 2020 suck any less? During these difficult times, Vu Le, who knows how to bring a sense of humor to the nonprofit world, joins the National Partnership CEO, Denise Harlow, to discuss equity among leadership and navigating barriers to justice.

Coming Home To Self And Each Other During The Age Of COVID-19

Community Action Agencies all across the country are on the front-lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing critical services for your communities in the midst of a life-threatening situation. Being a highly-responsive social service professional in these times can cause a considerable amount of personal stress, and both acute and secondary trauma, while working with our communities experiencing their own long-term and COVID-related traumas. This Part 2 webinar continues our conversation with Denese Shervington, MD, MPH who will lead us in “A Deeper Dive Into Caring For Self” providing strategies for stress management and self-care tools, and informing the planning for working with traumatized customers and communities.

Start With Yourself: Tools and Strategies for Coping With Stress and Trauma During the Pandemic

Community Action Agencies all across the country are on the front-lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing critical services for your communities in the midst of a life-threatening situation. Being a highly-responsive social service professional in these times can cause a considerable amount of personal stress, and both acute and secondary trauma, while working with our communities experiencing their own long-term and COVID-related traumas. In this webinar, Denese Shervington, MD, MPH leads us in “Start With Yourself,” providing strategies for stress management and self-care tools, and informing the planning for working with traumatized customers and communities.

Healing is the Revolution: Why Trauma Work is Equity Work

This webinar features Dr. Dense Shervington who illustrates the effects of structural oppression, societal disfranchisement on communities of color and discusses the importance of trauma-informed care for this population, providing insight on how community-based organizations can work to help create steps and opportunity for healing on the individual, family, and community level.

Accelerating Postsecondary Success for Parents: Identifying and Addressing Mental Health Needs

With 22 percent of the undergraduate student population comprised of parents, policymakers and institutions must explore the unique needs of this population and address the challenges that may prevent parents from attaining their degree. This includes determining what systems, services, and approaches best support their mental health needs. This brief examines opportunities for policymakers and academic institutions to adapt existing mental health services in order to meet the unique needs of students who are parents and help them complete their degree. (April 2019)

Five Ways Foundations Can Help Protect Children from Adverse Experiences and Trauma

Recent research has increased attention on the wide-ranging and serious consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Over 45% of children in the United States – 33.3 million children – have experienced potentially traumatic events that impede their chances to be healthy, productive adults. ACEs can range from neglect or abuse to substance misuse by a parent, and they are a shared root cause of many of society’s most challenging problems. Elementary school success and school success rates, juvenile incarceration, challenges in the workplace, and numerous physical and mental health challenges are all associated with ACEs. Foundations focused on issues such as education, economic opportunity, youth development, health, or community revitalization are beginning to recognize that ACEs are at the root of many of societies’ challenges.

Shifting the Paradigm Why CAP Agencies Should Be Engaging in Trauma Informed Care

Research from various sectors continues to build the case for the pervasive and damaging effects of trauma across the lifespan – but especially on children. With a reach into some of our nation’s most vulnerable populations, it is of critical importance for the Community Action Network to be informed and prepared to address this issue in our efforts to help all Americans achieve wellness and stability.

Watch this webinar for an introductory conversation on defining trauma, its impacts, and tools that CAP agencies can use to ensure that a safe and trauma-informed approach in their work.

Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey

This bulletin provides an overview of children’s exposure to violence is pervasive and crosses all ages. The research findings reported here are critical to informing our efforts to protect children from its damaging effects.

Understanding the Impact of Trauma and Urban Poverty on Family Systems: Risks, Resilience and Interventions

This white paper reviews the clinical and research literatures on the impact of trauma in the context of urban poverty on the family system including the individual child or adult, adult intimate partnership, parent-child, siblings and intergenerational relationships, as well as the family as a whole.

Adverse Childhood Experiences: National and State Level Prevalence

In this brief, we describe the prevalence of one or more ACEs among children ages birth through 17, as reported by their parents, using nationally representative data from the 2011/12 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH).

Trauma-Informed Organizational Toolkit for Homeless Services

The Toolkit offers homeless service providers with concrete guidelines for how to modify their practices and policies to ensure that they are responding appropriately to the needs of families who have experienced traumatic stress.