Injury & Violence Prevention INdepth
Injury & Violence Prevention INdepth is a podcast brought to you by Safe States Alliance staff and members to discuss and share injury and violence prevention (IVP) topics and trends. Each episode is a conversation between host, Mighty Fine, and featured IVP professionals who are members or partners of our organization. We come together to discuss the basics of injury and violence prevention, but also the tough topics that relate to anti-racism, health equity and more.
Injury & Violence Prevention INdepth
Innovative Approaches to Injury and Violence Prevention Through Safe States Seed Grants
In this episode, host Mighty Fine along with cohost Deltavier Robertson speak with guests from the Future Healers program from Kentucky and Sources of Strength program from Wisconsin that received seed grants from Safe States this year for injury and violence prevention programming.
The Future Healers program is focused on building stronger bridges between the Louisville health care community and our city’s youth most impacted by gun violence. Our goal is to introduce more youth to the field of medicine while helping them navigate through the emotional trauma that stems from the increasing violence currently plaguing their communities. Through compassion, mentorship, and advocacy, this program will do its part to uplift and empower our city’s young individuals to aspire for better futures for themselves and for the communities in which they reside.
Social Media:
futurehealersky@gmail.com @futurehealersky (Instagram)
Healing2x@yahoo.com https://www.instagram.com/2xgamechangers/
The Sources of Strength program at CESA6 equips students with trusting peer networks that create a mentally healthy atmosphere while also providing suicide, violence, and bullying prevention methods to best support student well-being. It allows staff to grow in awareness of strength-based solutions to enhance student resilience.
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/cesa6/ https://www.instagram.com/cesa6wi/
Member Feature: Mac Parkman Foundation
Our Mission
The Mac Parkman Foundation is committed to raising awareness on the impact that Repeated Head Impacts (RHI) and Repeated Blast Exposure (RBE) have on the brain and mental health of children, athletes and veterans.
We aim to improve societal brain health by promoting education, early diagnosis, and innovative treatments to reduce and mitigate the long-term effects of subconcussive trauma to include mental illness and suicidality while promoting brain health as a priority for medical as well as psychological education and care.
Through advocacy and community engagement with parental, scientific, medical, psychological, sports and legislative communities as well as non-profit organizations focused on brain and mental health, we strive to create a safer environment in sports and military service, improving treatment for those athletes and veterans affected, and to ensure a healthier future for all.
Welcome to the IVP INdepth podcast, the Safe States Alliance production. I'm your host, Mighty Fine, and I'm thrilled to have you here. This is a space where injury and violence prevention professionals come together to share ideas, spark conversations, and dive into some of the most pressing topic, shaping the field, whether you're here to stay in a loop find inspiration, or to be part of a community that wants to make a difference, you are in the right place. I'm super excited because on today's episode, we'll be profiling an initiative that's administered by Safe States, the innovative and upstream approaches to injury and violence prevention, seed grant program, Safe States funded four grantees for a nine month period, and these grantees were selected based on their upstream or innovative approaches, including integrating the shared risk and protective factor framework and cross sector partnerships. Today, we'll get to hear from two of those sites, first that we'll have Future Healers, which is out of Louisville, Kentucky. It's a program for underserved youth populations impacted by violence. This program aims to introduce affected youth to medicine while helping them navigate through emotional trauma stemming from the increasing violence plaguing their communities. Through this program, youth are exposed to topics such as medicine, guts, nutrition, heart, mental health and wellness, and also the brain and trauma. Future healers is a novel approach to community violence intervention. They offer primary prevention through known protective factors such as education, positive relationships, positive out of school, time, mentorship and parent engagement. Once we wrap with Future Healers, then we'll get a chance to learn about a program out of Wisconsin, Sources of Strength, an elementary program focused on preventing school violence and promoting social and emotional skills. This work includes an elementary coaches training course for school staff in multiple districts throughout Wisconsin, and also convening of a community of practice for implementation, support and collaboration with school teams. So without further ado, let's get started. Hi folks. As I mentioned, I'm so excited to be with you all today, and even more thrilled that I have a cohost today, Deltavier. I'll ask her to introduce herself to our listeners.
Deltavier Robertson:Yes, thank you, Mighty. I'm Deltavier Robertson. I'm a Program Manager at Safe States Alliance, and I am team lead for the seed grant program that we'll be highlighting today. Greatto have you, Deltavier. And we are also joined by a bunch of guests today, so I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves as well, so our listeners can get a feel of who we have on today, starting with you, Stephanie,
Stefanie Upton:Hi, I'm Stefanie Upton. I am the trauma and Future Healers program coordinator, U of L health, U of L hospital, J David Richardson, trauma center. I have been in the trauma field for a little over 10 years now, I've been with the Future Healers program since it began, I coordinate family engagement efforts, manage community and institutional partnerships and advise medical students.
Unknown:All right, next up, Keith, how about you? Would be great to hear from you.
Keith Miller:So my name is Keith Miller. I'm a Professor of Surgery. I'm a trauma surgeon at University of Louisville and the Division of trauma and surgical critical care, and excited to be here talking to you today. Been in the field of trauma for about 15 years now, and the Future Healers is a program that we're extremely proud of, and we're glad we get to sit with you all and talk about today. So thanks for having us.
Mighty Fine:Great to have you here next up. Jess,
Jess Brown:Hey. My name is Jess Brown. I am the injury prevention manager at U of L health, U of L hospital, JDR, Trauma Center. My job is to be the program manager for the Future Healers program.
Mighty Fine:Great to have you. Coach Fowler.
Coach Fowler:All right, so my name is Coach James Fowler. I am a PE and health teacher in Jefferson County public schools located in Louisville, Kentucky, and I this past year, implemented the Future Healer program for the first year.
Christopher 2X:I'm Christopher 2X the Executive Director of 2X Game Changers organization and CO partner in the Future Healers Medical program.
Unknown:Awesome. So excited to have you all with us today, and I'm even more excited to jump right into this conversation. So my first question is, it'd be great for you all to tell us a little bit about the community that you serve with your program. We are interested in learning about the demographics, where it's located, or anything else that you think is great for our listeners to learn about.
Keith Miller:Yeah, so I think I'll take this one to start, and then others can chime in with some added context. But so Louisville, Kentucky, you know, it's a large metropolitan area, about 1.2 million people, depending on which census you follow and which where your numbers come from. But I. Our particular community saw a substantial and significant increase in firearm injury and fatality around the time of the pandemic. We're talking about record numbers in this area that we hadn't seen before. The incidence of injury got as high as 129 for 100,000 so over one in 1000 people in our region were injured by firearm, which is, which is a staggering, sobering number. And so it Louisville, Kentucky is a wonderful place to raise it, to grow up, to raise a family, but we do have many of the similar issues that you see across the United States in large metropolitan areas. So out of that, sort of came the concept behind future healers, which everyone's going to kind of discuss today. But in addition to that, I think it's worth noting that, you know, we did a study where we looked at just the exposure that Louisville Ian's feel to firearm injury, firearm discharge and over a four year period, we saw in a six square mile region, 55,000 shots fired over a four year period, which, again, we're talking about the numbers of people that are hit and killed by firearms. But this is the exposure factor, where you can't even begin to imagine studying for a test tomorrow or getting ready for basketball practice or just everyday activities. That even if you're not hit by a firearm, it impacts your ability to function on a daily basis. And so really, that's just the context with some background that helps to understand where maybe the future healers program started.
Unknown:Yeah? Dr Miller, that's so great to hear, because I do think sometimes there's an an emphasis on mortality, right, and we don't focus on all of the other contextual factors around shooting and thinking about secondary trauma, community level trauma. So I or even moral injuries, as I've sometimes heard them referred to as. So it's great that you all are weaving that into the work that you're doing.
Keith Miller:Yeah, I mean, I think it's it goes without saying that in that six square miles are schools, places where communities gather, obviously, families, homes. You're talking about churches, all the places that we carry out our activities of daily living are all within that six square miles. And when you talk about a 55,000 shots fired during that period of time, that helps to understand what our young people are dealing with in many of the metropolitan regions across the United States,
Mighty Fine:Absolutely. And thank you for reiterating that, because I think it's important for us that are engaged in this work to really think about that number. When you think of 55,000 shots, and you think about within that small radius that you've mentioned, that's quite astounding. And I, you know, I want folks to just take a second and really internalize what that means and sort of the cascading impact and effects of that. So thank you again for elevating that
Deltavier Robertson:Yes. And I want to sort of piggyback off of that and think about our overarching goal for the seed grant program, right, which was to be more innovative and upstream in our approach to injury and violence prevention, and why future healers really stood out to us because of what you're talking about. You know, some of the aces and the exposure right and thinking beyond just the downstream effects of gun violence. And so if you would tell us a little bit more about future healers and how you are specifically working within that context with your community to address this issue
Stefanie Upton:So I'll go ahead and answer this. Future Healers is a program that introduces youth who, like we said, have been impacted by violence to wellness, education and also healthcare career pathways, while also supporting them and processing the emotional trauma that is caused by the violence that affecting them in their community. So through that combination of education mentorship, we want this program to empower young people to envision brighter futures for themselves, but also for their neighborhood. So with support from Safe States, we successfully launched an in school extension of the future healers program in partnership with our local school system, which is Jefferson County Public Schools, JCPS. So this initiative brings future healers directly in the classroom, and it's delivering educational content to fourth and fifth grade students. So the schools that we are at is King Elementary, foster Elementary, which is where coach valor is from, and those were fourth grade students at King and foster, and then fifth grade students at Whitney Young and all of those schools are located in high risk neighborhoods. And so the future healers, educational curriculum is delivered by physicians, medical students, community leaders, and this curriculum, it covers a wide range of topics. So we've got mental health, we've got nutrition, overall wellness, and so those students are actively engaged. In learning. They're building meaningful relationships with the medical students, with mentors, and they're also gaining early exposure to like the Health Science medical careers through their involvement in the program. So due to that growing interest in high demand, we have had additional institutions express interest in adopting the future healers model, which is wonderful. We've got, I'm in Nashville. The future is now Nashville in Tennessee. They've adopted the future healer program. We're now expanding into the rural county of Bardstown, Kentucky. So they're adopting our workbook journal into their in school curriculum. So the future healers is just growing tremendously. So we're just really excited for that. But also, like I said, our partnership in collaboration with Safe States, like we this wouldn't be possible without Safe States and their partnership and support.
Deltavier Robertson:That's awesome. Stephanie, thank you for sharing more about future healers. I'm curious if young people, people with lived experience or community partners, are engaged in the planning or the evaluation of future healers at all.
Stefanie Upton:We partner with Christopher 2X. He's the executive directors of game changers. Chris has been in the community as an advocate for decades. He's been working directly with families in high risk neighborhoods, so he plays such a crucial role in the success and also implementation of the future healers program. So he has relationships with the community that, like I said, date back to decades, and he's just a cornerstone of our work. And so he's been very instrumental in building the trust with the community and our students with our program to continue the program growth. But we also partner with like various clinical departments, like within U of L hospital within the U of L health system, which it varies from like neurology to mental health. We also work closely with like local fire departments, and we also have an ongoing partnership with the Louisville Zoo. So we also have a program that meets on the last Saturday of every month. And Chris can share more about that, but it is the zoo puts on this program the last Saturday of every month, and the students get to go and get you know real time interactions and learn more about the animal aspect of healthcare. So it's a really cool opportunity. And we're also going to have the Louisville zoo come in and partner with us during our curriculum session this curriculum year. So we're super excited about that. We have involved a lot of community partners, but our special one that holds near and dear to our heart, of course, is Chris.
Mighty Fine:Shout out to Chris. I love the name Chris 2X as
Keith Miller:I just wanted to back up and provide some well. context, because I know we talk about the program like everybody kind of already knows what it is. And I think maybe, you know, I think it's important the model, really, the violence reduction model, is improved safe, personal safety and reduced firearm injury through improved general health and well being. What does that mean? I mean, I think, you know, if you look at the socio ecological model, when you're thinking about firearm injury, you're looking at individual levels, community level issues, society all the way up to societal level issues. And so obviously we would all love for the single solution to this problem to pop up and us, but the complexity of this is such that that's not going to be the reality, and we have to be able to acknowledge the institutional and structural issues that have contributed to where we're at today. And so that's why, when you say, Well, what does nutrition have to do with reduced firearm injury? Well, it has everything to do with it, just like so many other issues that we find that overlap and sort of pile on to the same same vulnerable communities across the board, in our area and many others. And so I think the idea is that through all the things that Stephanie and Chris and everybody's gonna Jess are gonna talk to you about Coach Fowler are gonna talk to you about throughout the course of this, it's really just acknowledging that we want to improve your general health and well being, and that, in and of itself, will downstream reduce the number of firearm injuries that we're seeing in our community, particularly amongst young people. And so that's the model or the strategy, I suppose. And I don't know that it's innovative at all. I don't think it probably is. But, you know, you put the but the people on this call in our community is committed to working towards that, but maybe that helps to provide some context for the listeners just as to, what are you trying to do? What's the point about this kind of thing?
Mighty Fine:Yeah, I thank you for for bringing that up, because, to your point, when you look at it holistically or in totality, you could argue, even if you remove the firearm, some of these issues will still persist, right? So if you're addressing some of these underlying primordial factors, you're thinking about it in a comprehensive manner to get folks to self actualization, living healthy, you know? So I thank you for sort of reorienting us to that and the importance of looking at these issues, particularly looking at the social determinants of health, and seeing how violence itself really could be looked at as a social determinant, and how introducing or having a firearm accessible, how that exacerbates the other social determinants of health. So yeah, thank you so much for. Elevating that to that point, and sort of what Stephanie was mentioning as well, and you've already identified some of the non public health partners that you all work with. I don't know if there are others that you want to sort of highlight or shine the light on and discuss how you are actually collaborating with some of these non public health partners. Mentioning the zoo, I sort of like, oh, wow, that's so different. You know, it's not something that would come to mind immediately, but I think to the point of this conversation today is that we have to think about this in a very comprehensive manner and figure out where all the touch points are that provide opportunities for us to sort of shift the etiology of Firearm Violence and Injury. So if any of you can talk to any of the other non public health partners that you think are worth mentioning, that'd be great.
Christopher 2X:So Future Healers, to me, and I think what it's become, hopefully, in its journey four years going into its fifth year, kick off on August the ninth as it relates to its sessions run from 25 to end to 26 for 11 months, and then it takes a break in July. So it starts August, and it goes to June of the next year of 26 to me, it's a hope delivery among the challenges of what neighborhoods that unfortunately, who are bombarded with negativity, reckless gunplay, and everything that that entails future healers offers a hope lane as it relates to this medical collaboration, and the medical collaboration brings the hope to future healers by having this beyond a doctor patient relationship and bringing it right to this close interactions with surgeons like Dr Miller, other doctors, and especially the medical students from the University of Louisville School of Medicine, who create the curriculum for the kids and drive this whole deal, if you will, and by them having that opportunity with their parents and guarding to have that close interaction coming from the spaces they come from, instantly brings the energy of hope, and that's been part of the growth spurt, just for the whole sake of this conversation, to give you all kind of some of the hope angle of growth. This was conceived in the fall of 2020 it was worked on and then had a target date, and it was launched in July of 2021 it started with 25 participants, four to 13 years old. So let's preschool into late middle school right now, as of August, 2025 in that time frame, with expansions with the outside program, the growth now is 800 plus kids, 25 kids to 800 plus and still growing. There's something going on beyond the whole idea of them wanting to come and learning about gun violence prevention. It's, I believe, them being so attracted to this medical component that is starting to just be like fallen dominoes with the neighborhood, that there's hope in this to balance the negativity that they're subjected to. So if that makes sense, now I'll turn it over to coach Fowler so he can hopefully make some sense on why he loves it within a visit health base, and that's the beautiful thing we created with the school deal, not only the classroom delivery, but this whole idea that foster traditional Academy had with their wonderful principal, Leticia young, along with Coach James Fowler, the phys ed teacher, we and the medical students specifically work with them to create a model for phys ed health, which I truly believe is going to be a hot item once we start to roll out more examples of what phys ed health is in the gym, besides just the physical activity and kids getting a chance to have fun with individuals like Coach Fowler, to engage in the health sciences part of this wellness part, and learning more about the anatomy of the body while they're having fun with Jim coach Fowler, you.
Coach Fowler:Thank you very much. Mr. Christopher 2x so just to talk about the future healer program, as far as it's involved in the school, it is a very in depth and almost advanced program that really grabs the attention of young adults and makes them interested in more ways than one. We this past year have been working on several different wellness tips and specifically within the human body. So we were able to break down each section or unit per se into things like the heart, the lungs, vitamins, eating healthy germs. And it even took it to the next level, as far as body mapping, self care and even just talking about safety in general. When you have kids, you have to keep them interested. And sometimes, whenever these things arise, I feel like we are lecturing the students a little. Too Much like, let's be honest, I just sat in a meeting yesterday for seven, seven almost hours, because we're getting ready to start school, and we are talking and talking and talking, and we're just not interacting a lot. And what's very cool and very unique about this future healer program is the kids not are involved from the moment it starts. We are learning about body parts. We have live experts like Dr Miller there and other medical students working with the kids. We have manipulatives and all kinds of just things that I would Oh, I wish I could have had when I was in elementary school. So it is. It is very, very cool to see kids who really maybe not sure about what they're learning about, become more and more curious about it. And some of the participants that Mr. Christopher 2x was talking about in the future healer program, some of the original members were from my school. So another cool factor is it is I have children that have been in this program longer than I have, teaching me how to teach them, and ultimately that is the biggest goal as a teacher, that summative assessment, we like to say where they are teaching us about the content, and so it's just been very exciting. I look forward to taking it to the next level. And I just really think in one all classrooms should be involved with this somehow.
Deltavier Robertson:Thank you, Coach Fowler, I second that I remember when I was in school, but I was in high school when I had the opportunity to be exposed to some of this medical, interactive, medical education, and it just changed my entire perspective. I was one of those kids too that came from, you know, quote, unquote, at risk neighborhoods. So hearing about and having the privilege to work with you all has really just made me feel so excited about what these kids are being exposed to, and the possibility, the hope, as you said, Christopher, 2x that you all are delivering, is just really evident, and it just touches my heart so much.
Keith Miller:Is the medical students. You can't say enough good things about them, because what's the great thing about medical students, well, it's a new group every year, right? We get old. We get stale. We bring the same old. You know, what we think are tried and true lessons to the classroom and the medical students and the teachers. They bring fresh. They bring it fresh. Every time they bring it, they look at it and say, how would I want to absorb this? How would I like this to be presented to me? And so the medical students are a key cog in this, because they're rejuvenated every year. They have the passion for this. They can't wait to get in the community and do this and share what they're learning. It always impresses me. I tell Chris this all the time, it just amazes me that anyone's interested in anything we do on a daily basis. That's one rule that I always org. That's one thing that I stick by. The other second thing is, we talked about our non public health partners, that I've learned that the hospital should never compete with the zoo. The zoo always wins. That's that's a take home message that I've learned. I can't over emphasize the impact that the teachers like Coach Fowler and the medical students have, it's just incredibly rewarding to have any part in that. And so I want to blow their horn as often as I can, guys,
Christopher 2X:I just want to jump in real quick. I didn't finish the part about the zoo, and I'll do this very quickly. I really appreciate just doc reminding me about the zoo again. Yes, so let me tell you guys how this came about. So when I was describing that when we first kicked this off in July of 21 we had the 25 participants the very next month the Louisville zoo through, of course, media stories and interaction with them out there, with some of the kids. Heard about this kiddos MediCal program launching right and they came and asked about, how could a zoo get involved in being a part of impact these kids lives based on the whole idea of negativity and reckless gun violence were the first or secondary trauma that they experienced. How could they get involved? And so in October of the same year, in 21 when had a conversation with them, basically let them know we didn't really have recreate, excuse me, the will on this. And so the idea was, what about letting some of the chosen ones that we would choose from the medical program, kiddos wise, travel into the animal kingdom. And when I say traveling to the animal kingdom, come in their medical scrubs and start to have this relationship beyond just taking a walk through the zoo looking at exhibits, but get closer, just like the model with the medical students and the doctors. Let's get them closer with. Keepers and veterinarian who treat these animals and let them get educated behind the scenes as it relates to animal care equally at the same time, since they're learning from doctors and medical students about the Health Sciences and Health and Wellness and learning about the anatomy of the body, what about let's learn about the anatomy of animals at the same time. So what we did was, was said, Okay, let's get started on that. And we were so lucky that the Louisville zoo, usually what they do is, when they have a group of kids, they create, of course, tours, spring camps, summer camps, fall camps and winter camps that last up to four to five days within a weekday. They took an exceptional jump, if you will, with us, and says what we're gonna do is kind of follow you all's model, and let's create something 11 months out of the year, instead of the norm that we do. And out of the 11 months out of the year that was a special program, and the kids named it, and they named it Future Healers, gotten Zoo buddy. So it's a continuum from the medical program into the animal kingdom again. Lastly, for them to learn about animal care equally at the same time conservation and at the end of the day, we want them to learn about more empathy, right? Because that's the key to gun violence, and turning the table in a neighborhood is having more empathy towards each other, instead of the hate and the whole idea of revenge related to gun play. And so Zoo Buddies is going four years strong. We're starting off our fifth year, and it has been a great compliment to the MediCal program, and it's grown also not as big as the MediCal program, because the zoo staff can't handle that kind of volume. But equally, we started with 17 kids, and now I've grown that to almost 40 that show up. Now. Love it. That's fantastic.
Deltavier Robertson:I wanted to just circle back real quick, because I know Dr Miller was saying it's not innovative. It is innovative. It's like we know this theoretically, right, but we don't often see it in practice in public health, and so that was something that just really struck us as like, No, this is how it is done. It can be done, right is we know that empathy and hope and all of these things are protective factors. They are way upstream. But sometimes it's hard for us to imagine or get creative and thinking about how to actually develop a program that does that. So I just wanted to kind of circle back to that point earlier, and then let's talk a little bit about the success and how you are defining and measuring success in your program. Like, what kind of data are you collecting? You know, qualitative, quantitative. How do you know that you you talked about some numbers, so we know that it's growing, right? But are there other measures of success that you all are looking at?
Stefanie Upton:So we track attendance at all of our engagements as well as at all of our sessions, but we also get a lot of feedback from the parents, from our students in the program, which I believe is so important, so imperative for our program and for the students to know that they're also helping. And when I say students, I don't mean medical students. I mean like the students in our program. So they feel value. They feel that they are helping this program grow too. They're not just students in the in our, you know, quote, classroom, the parents come to every single session, and they don't just drop their kid off and they go sit down, and they're not engaged. Like some, most of the parents sit at the table with their kids while we do these sessions. So it's not only engaging the young students, but it's also engaging siblings, but more importantly, the parents, like they are very engaged. And so they are also giving us ideas and other topics that we could, you know, include in the sessions that might be good for our students. They are so integral in the planning efforts of our program. And so we also partner with the medical students. So they are also conducting research as well, had published papers in the American College of Surgeons, and so that's how we're tracking attendance on that part. But then also for like Coach Fowler and the public school initiative, specifically, we've developed pre and post test for each of those lessons. So before each lesson, it's like three or four questions, they'll fill it out, and then at the end, they'll fill out that same form. So this, you know, measures the students uptake of the educational material, but it also helps us inform the content and also the delivery of us in the classroom delivering that. So we're also working on developing more measurement that are geared towards protective factors for gun violence, but that's some of what we're doing for tracking. But I don't know if coach power has anything else to say about like the pre and post test and how that's going at the school, but that's how we're kind of on through the grant purpose. That's how we're tracking data on that part.
Coach Fowler:Yes, Stephanie and. Uh, one of the best things that you guys do, but besides the free and posted testament is each kid gets one of these. This really in depth, Future Healer workbooks. And what's great about this, from a teaching standpoint, is all of the standards are aligned with the national standards, all the teaching learning targets, and I can statements per se. We're all aligned, so I'm able to use that language in my classroom. I can also use it outside of the classroom and with other teachers as well. At the end of every lesson, there's usually some type of, I wouldn't say, reward, but we usually give some kind of real cool manipulative to the kid. When we got done learning about the brain, the kids were able to get a stress ball that went just like a brain, that also had hats for them. We had a heart shirt that showed all the different parts and chambers of the heart. And the kids wore these with a lot of pride. So even though everything you don't want your kid coming home from school with something cool that really took the conversation at home to the next level. So that lesson we learned that day kept on, you know, growing, getting better and spreading into their home life as well.
Christopher 2X:But really quickly, I just wanted to touch on what Coach Fowler said about the workbook. So when the medical students, year plus ago, created the future healers journey to wellness workbook, just to give safe state a quick understanding on how the expansion explosion also occurred, that workbook is driving the expansion. It's almost 100 pages, around 100 pages. And most educators that see it like himself and others, especially from the elementary school level, their words, not mine, they're blown away with and I tell you all U of L health is and U of L hospital is a awesome institution, but the mere fact that somebody like Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the School of Medicine is incorporating this workbook in Nashville, in our Nashville expansion, tells you a lot about what's been happening for a very prestigious institution to want to take something out of Metro Louisville and incorporate it with the Nashville kids. That's saying a lot.
Mighty Fine:Absolutely. Thank you all for that insight. It was great to hear how involved the family members are. I would imagine there's some learning that's happening with them as well. And it sounds like, from what I'm at least piecing together, that the data is currently telling a story. Certainly, there's a knowledge transfer, as I'm understanding it from what you all shared, and there also seems to be an appetite and an interest based on the consistent engagement of families and the youth themselves. I'm just curious to hear from you all. Is there anything else that the data are telling you, or is there anything that has been surprising so far?
Stefanie Upton:So like we had said earlier, the data is showing us that we have excitement and that there's a demand for excitement for our program that exponentially has increased. So as we said earlier, the first year, we had 25 kids in attendance, and now we've just completed our fourth year. We're going into our fifth year, and we have close to 100 kids that come to our session every single month on that second Saturday session. But also it grown over 800 kids through the public school initiative, through Vanderbilt, through barge town. We also quickly partner with our local YMCA here in Louisville. So we also are teaching and collaborating with our three and four year olds at the Chestnut Street YMCA center. So our medical students go in there on the second Wednesday of every month, and they are teaching the three and four year olds curriculum as well. So this program is not only reaching the young three to four age group, but then we're also in our main curriculum session, which is a ranges anywhere from ages four or five to 12. Then we have our mentorship program, which is ages 12 to 16, and then we have our internship program, which is a paid internship program through the hospital, and it is ages 17 to 20. So we're trying to provide a pathway for the kids to grow in the program, and then if they get to that point in mentorship where they're like, you know, I'm really excited about healthcare. I really want to get into the healthcare system. I want to be a nurse. I want to be a tech, you know? I want to be a doctor. We help them get into that internship program, which then provides them like real life experiences, like they've shadowed Dr Miller, they've shadowed places in the hospital that I've never even been in. So they're getting like real time experiences, seeing live surgeries. I just don't saying it, you know, I don't think that we would have ever imagined that this program would provide that sort of experience to the kids when we thought about that back when we had 25 kids in our auditorium at U of L. It's really, really exciting. But also, I mentioned earlier about the staff. That we had published in the American surgeon, we did a research study with the medical students, and we surveyed the parents, and it confirmed that a high percentage of our families, of course, have directly and indirectly been impacted by gun violence, but it showed that a high percentage of the families viewed the healthcare community with trust, which meant we have the potential for having a positive impact, not only from families, but coming from the healthcare setting, and then having that collaborative partnership,
Mighty Fine:That's fantastic. And I'm, you know, I even feel the excitement coming through and your responses, so I can only imagine what it's like to be there in person and interacting, and then, to your point, being surprised that this program has taken off in the way it has. And even with Chris talking about how it's been able to expand by use of the tool and folks requesting it, I think it really just speaks to the overall impact of the work that you all are doing and how critical it is. And even thinking about the young age that you all are working with too going back to deltavier, sort of uplifting, how this is innovative. I think that's something worth highlighting. So thank you for sharing that and acknowledging the importance of getting to folks early on in their development,
Christopher 2X:That that was essential, just really quickly on that. You know, when we when this was conceived, again, in the fall of 20 you know, one thing that we were adamant about is that, you know, we've seen these kind of healthcare or health science examples with, you know, med students or doctors in high school STEM programs. Right? What we had never seen, though, not in Metro, Louisville, and you might be hard to find it across the country. We never seen it tried from a preschool to elementary to definitely sedgwang into the middle school level, and that's why we purposely did it like that. You know, a lot of people were asking us early on, you know, why aren't you guys starting out with a teenage age? Stephanie just covered that on how we came back over a year ago and said when these kids turn 12 and 13, they're gonna be asking us about next steps. And that's when everybody quickly went to work and created the mentorship internship component to this. But essentially what we're covering now is preschool all the way up until 18 and a few years over that and I think that's a special deal.
Deltavier Robertson:Special it is. Thank you for that perspective. I want to direct this next question specifically to coach Fowler. We've heard so many great stories right about the great work of this program. I want to hear from you being that you're in the classroom delivering it to students. Please share a highlight from your work with young people in delivering this program. If you have a specific example of a student or something that you want to share with us,
Coach Fowler:yeah, absolutely. A lot of things come to mind, but probably the most special day we had was the future healers wellness day, and we had a big group of medical students, nurses, doctors there. We had several stations set up for the for the children, some of them being how to give a physical exam, how to stop the bleeding, different stations for the kids to learn at. And what was so interesting about it, and what I, you know, never really thought about in this program. I think learning about health can be intimidating for some of our youth, you know, let's think of some of the words or stigmas you gotta be smart. You can't be afraid of anything like blood, you know, I don't know, there's just sayings like that. And the first thing I really noticed with this program is even the students that maybe you would think they'd be a little shy about learning it, they dove head first into it. It was so entertaining to them. And then when they really started thinking about what we were teaching about they were able to make that connection with either something they have done in their personal life or at home. And just to see some of them really take that next step, I always remember the first lesson we give out stethoscopes, and I had some fourth grade students that held on to that stethoscope for nearly four to five months. And let's be honest, kids lose stuff, damage stuff, but if it's very special to them or importance of them, they're going to take care of it like it's their own. And so ultimately, that's what I think it is. And hearing them on Career Day at the end of last year and hearing how many wanted to possibly be involved with the medical field, that was just, I think ultimately, that's what we want to hear. That's the data we're looking for, is who is interested in doing something like that.
Unknown:Absolutely, that's so great to hear. Refreshing as well. And we touched on this a little bit of, sort of about expansion and growing the work that you all are doing. So I'm curious, what are you all putting in place to sustain your current efforts? So obviously, thinking about scaling and sharing and broadening the reach, even with partnering institutions and the like. I'm just curious from the work that you all are doing, what efforts are you incorporating to sustain the work?
Stefanie Upton:So we have been privileged to have support from the Department of Justice through Project safe neighborhoods. We receive a grant through them. So they have been our supporters for years now, so they are helping us continue our efforts in the public school system this coming fall. But also, you know, we have to have a big thank you to Safe States as well, because I don't think that this whole thing could have been possible without the funding from you all. So the DOJ, having them come in for the second year is going to help us just continue these efforts, continue the relationship and the partnership with Coach valor and with our other schools that you know we're impacting. So we're really excited about that, but we're also very lucky because we have leadership support from U Bell health, from our institution. They've always had a commitment to community health, violence prevention, so we're really thankful to have support from them. We just want to make sure that this remains a free and inclusive community program. We are hoping to develop more philanthropic relationships as well. But, yeah, we're just extremely privileged to be able to get funding through grants and so forth. So without those grants, this, you know, wouldn't be possible
Christopher 2X:And from a national perspective, beside DOJ cosairs for kids or CO stars, Shriners have been a big supporter through the 2x game changers organization in regards to, you know what we're doing with this specific platform. And so when you take that whole combination of U of L health, then you talk about Safe States. Then, of course, Stephanie was talking about the DOJ. And then, you know, the Shriners mission is about kids. We think we're in pretty good hands and sustaining this for some years to come.
Deltavier Robertson:That's what we want to hear. Very excited about updates and just where this goes and grows. I'm sure our listeners are also very excited to stay connected and to get those updates. So how can our listeners connect with you about this work?
Christopher 2X:Stephanie, you can give our information,
Stefanie Upton:Yeah. So we have an email address, which is futurehealersky@gmail.com, so and then on Facebook, Instagram. Our handle is @futurehealersky so it's just consistent across the boards. We would love for anyone to reach out if they're interested in in adapting this program where they are, or are interested about the workbook journal or whatever the case may be, please feel free to reach out to us.
Unknown:That's fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation today. I learned a lot as someone who's been operating in the violence prevention space, I get excited to hear about the great work that folks are doing on the ground, especially sort of working at the national level. Now, sometimes I'm removed from those pieces of the work, and it's always great to hear about it, and also it sort of spurs ideas and other ways for me to think about how to get involved and to promote the work that folks like you all are doing. So again, just a virtual round of applause for this critically important work that is happening is certainly not lost on me, and I'm for sure, the same for our listeners. So before we close out, I'll turn it over to you all again, if there's anything else you'd like to share.
Christopher 2X:I'll just say this really quickly. I think at the end of the day, people always asked about, how do I get involved in violence prevention causes? And I tell individuals all the time, this is my 24th year in the work of slash, focus and hope for kids, teens and violence prevention. One thing I tell individuals consistently is that violence is a very ugly, not so flattering issue and business to try to address, but at the end of the day, everybody can help from the hope angle and the encouragement angle, and you don't have to get so close to the front line issues that you're not comfortable with, but be about supporting those who are in the efforts, and equally, at the same time, do your part to encourage hope over negativity on a daily basis. And then hopefully we flip this mindset for a way that's in a challenge neighborhood, for a way for children to live more safe and thrive in a more habitable environment that you can help create through your own effort.
Unknown:Yeah, Chris, I think that's the perfect way to punctuate this conversation, letting folks know is, even if you don't have direct connection or interaction with the work, you still have a role and and I love that. I think that's the perfect. Way to end our time together. And again, thank you all for this critically important work that you all are doing. And this is a call out to other folks, is to find ways for you to get involved as well. Thanks again, everybody. Now that we just heard from future healers, it's our opportunity to hear from another program. And before we get started, Elizabeth, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself and tell us what organization you're representing today.
Elizabeth Langteau:Thanks for having me here today. My name is Elizabeth Langteau. I am the Director of the Student Behavior and Wellness Center at CESA 6 in Wisconsin. We are located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and if you're not familiar with what a CESA is, every state has some sort of educational service provider whose job it is to provide either low incident or highly specialized services to support schools.
Mighty Fine:Great. Thank you for that. And just to extend a little bit more on that, tell us about the community that you serve with the program that we're here to talk about today, and you can highlight demographics, location, anything that you think will be useful for our listeners to hear, to learn more about the community you serve.
Elizabeth Langteau:So our CESA serves 39 schools that are in our region, but you can secure services from any CESA. And so we are in every CESA region in the state of Wisconsin, and we are also in about 40 other states across the nation, so we do have a pretty broad reach when it comes to supporting schools with mental health and upstream prevention kinds of activities. The specific demographic that we're working with on this project are implementers of sources of strength, so people who are looking at upstream prevention based programs to support mental health and wellness in schools.
Deltavier Robertson:Thank you, Elizabeth and you already talked a little bit about sources of strength. Can you share a little bit about the sources of strength approach that you all are taking with the seed grant, and also how you are working with your community to plan, implement or evaluate
Elizabeth Langteau:Definitely. So Sources of Strength, as I mentioned, is an upstream prevention program specific to the seed grant. We were able to provide a training for coaches at the elementary level. So we have quite a stronghold of sources of strength in our region, at the secondary level, so middle school and high schools implementing sources of strength, but we definitely saw the elementary schools as a place where we might be able to gain a little bit of traction with the seed grant funds. So that was really our focus, supporting those coaches. I forget what the other part of your question was.
Deltavier Robertson:I was curious about how your community or your partners in their community are helping to like, plan or implement or evaluate Sources of Strength?
Elizabeth Langteau:That's also a really great question. So CISA six is a continuous improvement organization. We are always seeking feedback. When we were planning this training, we reached out to schools who were kind of in queue, who had been reaching out to us, saying, Hey, this is something we need. Can you provide it? And so we worked with them on, you know, what time of year is best? What kind of support do you need? Is it better to do during the summer or better to do it during the school year, back to back days, things like that? So it definitely was an area of need that was lifted up to us, that we were responding to, that the community said, Hey, this is something that we need, and it's it's prohibitive to send people out of state to different to trainings and to pay for all the travel costs and things. And it would be just great if we could have somebody, if we could have that hosted here in Wisconsin.
Mighty Fine:Thanks. And I know programs like this require sort of an all hands on deck approach, at least in my experience, so I'm curious to know, are you working with any non public health partners, and if so, how are you collaborating or engaging them,
Elizabeth Langteau:Yeah. So specific to sources of strength, we have worked with quite a few non public health partners in our broader work in terms of supporting the implementation of sources of strength. So we are part of a collaborative that includes Healthy Teen minds, which is a regional group who support suicide prevention efforts in a Tri County area that was identified in Wisconsin as having a statistically higher rate of suicide attempts. We also and non public health. So also, we've worked with Children's Hospital, we've worked with the Office of Children's Mental Health. We've really found those relationships to be really rich. In terms of getting the word out about the work that we're doing, we've also connected with other groups that are implementing sources of strength across the state, and as we do that, more and more groups are reaching back out to us. We have quite a large consortium in a tribal region of Wisconsin, and then another region north of there, reached out to us, another tribal region, and asked if we would be able to support their implementation. So certainly, the more, the more work we do, the more people talk, and the more we're able to do.
Deltavier Robertson:That's a great model, I think, just continuously working with community partners to enhance the program and then to continue to offer it to. Different communities. So I love that. And I was wondering a little bit about how you all are engaging youth and or families. And specifically, I think in this in injury and violence prevention, a lot of times, we can do better, a better job with working with youth and families. So I would love for you to share if you can like the unique qualities and perspectives that they bring to the work from your perspective.
Elizabeth Langteau:Yeah, so specific to the seed grant where we are working with elementary students in that population. So that model does include some of the elements of the secondary models of sources of strength are really youth led, and the primary model, the elementary Sources of Strength, is really meant to kind of prime that pump and get kids ready and get kids used to being advocates and identifying areas of strength, things that they can lean on. It really equips a whole school community to have strength based conversations. So if a child comes to you and is struggling, they're able to both have conversations with each other. So to support each other. They have the language for it. Hey, I know you're, you know, heading home to like, what could be a rough weekend? What is a strength you might lean into this weekend in order to make sure that you stay strong and healthy and well, um, so it's really paving the way for a lifetime of health and wellness.
Unknown:That's fantastic. So I'm curious about how you are measuring success in any data that you're currently collecting.
Elizabeth Langteau:So specific to the Seed Grant, we collected data on just we were looking at number of participants our reach, how many students were in the schools where they're going to be implementing sources of strength at the elementary level. And beyond the sea grant, we have other pieces that have kind of come to light. So we know that one and done trainings are not the most effective way to support implementation. So starting in the 2526 school year, we'll also be hosting collaborative series, so an opportunity for coaches who are implementing sources of strength to come together to share what's working, to troubleshoot what's not working. So we're really looking forward to to measuring how many people we have showing up for those kinds of events we have for our secondary sources of strength. We're also measuring some we're taking some perception data, both from the youth and from the adult advisors around feeling comfortable having strengths based conversation, having the knowledge that they need to have strength based conversation, being able to connect either their peers to resources or for adults that they feel confident and comfortable, connecting youth to resources in the community that they might need to lean into in times of stress or crisis.
Deltavier Robertson:That's so interesting to think about, and all of the different types of data that you are collecting about perspectives and reach, and I'm curious to know what story is your data currently telling you, and has there been any surprises so far?
Elizabeth Langteau:Our data is definitely telling us that kids want this work, that kids are motivated to kids are much more comfortable talking about mental health than adults are than adults maybe think they are. They're much more savvy and literate in terms of mental health and what their needs are and that we really need to listen to them. It's also telling us that focusing on strengths is important. So you know, not just like, what resources do you have when you're stressed or struggling, but what kinds of things can we do to prevent that? So things like connection to extracurricular activities, we know how important relationships are in school, so that the significance of just having positive relationships with supportive and capable and competent adults is the most significant protective factor that that we have for kids. So listening to kids talk about. You know, asking kids like, do you have somebody at school that you feel safe with? Do you have somebody that you feel you can go to is a really important thing to listen to with kids.
Mighty Fine:For sure, I'm curious about and certainly, what you've shared so far are highlights. And if there's anything else you can add there that'd be fantastic, just something that you've done through this grant, that I'd say really made you smile, or that you were really happy about.
Elizabeth Langteau:Yeah, we did have really a pretty fun, a fun incident that happened early on we were working with our alt our alternative education programs that our CISA runs two of, so they're elementary through high school, and the first time that our, somebody from my team went in to start working with the youth on sources of strength. It was kind of like, you know, grumble, grumble, grumble. And then I think the second time she went back, they were like, Oh, is that lady here again? And fast forward, like, three or four months, and she went there for a different purpose, and the kids found her in the hallway and said, Are we going to have another one of those meetings, and even though she didn't have one planned, she said absolutely. So it was just really cool to see the kids starting to make connections, to to how it made them feel, and to having the opportunity to really feel listened to in authentic ways, and to be able to share their voice. It was just pretty cool. And. She was pretty excited that day when she reached out to me at the end of the school day.
Deltavier Robertson:I love that. And it just goes to show that this is being this is meeting a need, right? That they are absolutely receiving it, that they want it. And it's just, I definitely is a highlight, for sure.
Elizabeth Langteau:It is, if you kind of flash forward to the end of the school year. With that group in particular, they held an end of year carnival, and the older students created some games that were strengths based and sources themed for some of the younger students. And one of the activities was to enter a raffle. They had to identify a source of strength and how it shows up for them. And the kids just started to like, spontaneously, like, burst into applause for each other. So just seeing them, like, root each other on and, you know, really just, it was just, it was so heartwarming to watch.
Deltavier Robertson:Yeah, I bet I believe that, because we do need a strength based approach for that. So I love that, that story. Thank you so much for sharing that and with all this great, you know, information and progress that you all are making. How are you hoping to sustain your efforts?
Elizabeth Langteau:We are, as I mentioned, going to hold a community of practice starting in the 2526 school year. So we know that we have to support this beyond offering a single training. So we're really hoping that this seed grant does exactly what its name implies, that it plants a seed that allows us to build off of and continue to layer in supports for those who are implementing sources of strength, to continue to offer training opportunities and collaboration opportunities, so that people really feel like they're wrapped around and supported in doing this work in schools.
Unknown:Fantastic. And before we let you go, Elizabeth, it'd be great for you to tell our listeners how they can get in touch with you, or connect with you about this work and or learn more about this. SOS program, yeah.
Elizabeth Langteau:So if you're interested in anything, sources of strength. So from elementary through high school, CESA 6 has a website. And so if you just search CESA 6 Sources of Strength. We should come up there, and there will be a button in the corner that says, start the conversation. That will connect you with somebody who who has kind of the bird's eye view of everything that's going on in the agency, and will be able to connect you with either that free community of practice. We'd love to have people from across the country join us. We've already had people from other regions of the state reach out and say, Hey, can we join that community of practice? The more the merrier. Or if there is anything that we can do to support your training or implementation needs, that would be a great starting point. And just a reminder this whole seed grant idea started from people reaching out to us and telling us what they needed, and that planted a seed for us to say, like, Hey, how can we do this? How can we bring this to our community? There's a need. So reaching out and asking for help and wondering and getting help on on Getting started is just a great way to continue to elevate the work.
Mighty Fine:Well, I want to thank you not only for sharing what you all are doing with us today on the podcast, but more importantly, thank you for the critically important work that you're doing in helping to shape and reshape the lives of the youth that you all are engaging with. So virtual round of applause for you and your other folks that are doing that work and just thank you again for taking the time to chat with us about it today.
Elizabeth Langteau:Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity.
Deltavier Robertson:Thank you, Elizabeth.
Mighty Fine:Today we're adding something new to the show a member feature. This is where we take a few minutes to shine the light on a fellow organization and highlight some of the amazing work that they're doing. Today, we're featuring the Mac Parkman Foundation, and you'll hear about their impactful projects, including their very own podcast. So be sure to check them out. Give them a follow, and when you do, let them know that I sent you
Stacy Bayton:This episode's Member Feature is on the Mac Parkman Foundation. Our mission is to raise awareness on the impact that repeated head impacts or RHI and repeated blast exposure or RBE have on the brain and mental health of children, athletes and veterans. The Mac Parkman Foundation aims to improve societal brain health by promoting education, early diagnosis and innovative treatments to reduce and mitigate the long term effects of sub concussive trauma, to include mental illness and suicidality, while promoting brain health as a priority for medical as well as psychological education and care through advocacy and community engagement with parental, scientific, medical, psychological sports and legislative communities as well as nonprofit organizations focused on brain and mental health, we strive To create a safer environment in sports and military service, improve treatments for those athletes and veterans who are affected, and work to ensure a healthier future for all. Please visit us@www.mpfact.com to learn more or listen to our podcast, Broken Brains on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast.
Mighty Fine:Well, folks, that's a wrap for this episode of IVP INdepth, and thanks, as always, for listening. Special thanks to all of our guests today for helping us to have an enriching conversation. A special shout out to Deltavier for being our cohost for today's episode. I'd also like to take a second to thank our sponsor, the Society for advancement of Injury and Violence Research, or SAVIR. We appreciate them for supporting this episode and overall their commitment to injury and violence prevention. Learn more about their outstanding work by checking out their website, the savir.org that's thesavir.org, if you're not already a member of Safe States, now is the perfect time to join be a part of a community working to create safer, healthier communities for everyone. Check out our website@safestates.org for a range of resources, including toolkits, training opportunities and other useful information designed to support your work in the field. And please don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode, whether you're streaming us on Apple or Spotify, and while you're at it, leave us a review. Let us know how we're doing again. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. Until then stay safe and injury free.