Building Better Lives Initiative
Our Mission:
BBL impacts communities by increasing knowledge about regulating the brain and building resilience and equity through training, coaching, and consulting in the context of supportive relationships.
Our Vision:
The BBL team aspires to build resilient, equitable communities empowered and sustained by brain-friendly knowledge and skills.
Our Community Impact:
The Building Better Lives Initiative of Franklin County Family and Children First Council collaborates with local agencies to provide brain-based trauma training, consultation, and implementation support.
The initiative began in 2012 with a focus on increasing trauma-informed knowledge. Using practices from Dr. Bruce Perry and research like the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), BBL is now moving beyond teaching service providers the knowledge of trauma's effect on persons interactions with the world. Our newest training series now also include the Application and Integration of trauma-competent skills that equip service providers to not only respond to the complex needs facing our community, but also build more equitable and resilient systems of care.
Building Better Lives: Annual Impact Report - FY2023
Infant and Maternal Health
Building Resilience in the Early Years
Stress has an impact on the pregnant mother, and therefore the mother’s baby. Home Visitors support parents and caregivers in the community and must have an understanding of the impact of trauma and stress on the parent and caregiver, as well as themselves in their work. Home Visitors must recognize the implications of secondary trauma and burnout in their work.
A brain-based, trauma-competent lens makes the connections between stress and trauma on everyday interactions between the caregivers, parents, and home visitors to enhance strategies and build resilience and competence within the families as well as the home visitor.
Collaboration with Service Providers and Home Visitors
Community Training
Building Resilience in the Community
Through training, we strive to increase the understanding and impact that complex developmental trauma (toxic stress) has on the brain development and behavior of adults and infants as well as discover how to use this information to better engage individuals, families, and children. Need more? We offer post-training consultation as well to better embed concepts into practice and move the needle from "trauma-informed" to "trauma competent".
Trauma Informed Practices
School Based
Building Resilience in Schools
Strategies for teachers
Collaboration with Educators and School Staff
RREACT
An Innovative Solution to a Complex Problem
City Council has worked to establish the:
Rapid Response Emergency Addiction Crisis Team (RREACT).
Bringing trauma informed coordination in partnership with the Columbus Police Division, Columbus Fire, the ADAMH board, Southeast Health, Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging, and the Central Ohio Hospital Association. Over the last year, the team consisted of a paramedic and social worker who responded to the hospital emergency room to engage residents who had just experienced an overdose in hopes of linking them with treatment. The RREACT program is the first of its kind collaboration between EMS personnel, CPD officers, social workers, and treatment facilities to combat the ongoing opiate crisis.
Resource Center
All the Information You Need