Keynote Address: Reducing Trauma's Impact
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Fran Norris
Our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Fran Norris, is a community psychologist who has been conducting research on the psychosocial consequences of disasters for more than 20 years. She also directs an NIH-funded research education project that mentors new investigators in disaster mental health research. Since Hurricane Katrina, she has been serving as the National Cross-Site Evaluator for the federally funded Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program, for which she recently completed an evaluation of mental health services provided across 17 states in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes.
Abstract
Communities have the potential to function effectively and adapt successfully in the aftermath of disasters and other major stressors. “Community resilience” is becoming an increasingly important concept in disaster management, but it is not yet fully understood. The purpose of this talk is to outline current thinking in the field about how community resilience can be defined, manifest, assessed, and created. Research from various studies will illustrate (a) the trajectories of the human stress response, (b) the role of social and community supports in producing positive outcomes, and (3) how the adaptive capacities that yield community resilience can be modeled and assessed. Together, these studies and theoretical perspectives yield important implications for intervention. Broadly, what this conceptualization means is that resilience to disaster and terrorism rests not only or even primarily on traditional preparedness activities but on building economically strong communities whose members can work together and use information to make decisions and act. All of these factors can be influenced by collaborative efforts between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers.
Learning objectives
Attendees will be able to:
- define resilience
- identify the six primary trajectories of well-being after major stressors (resistance, resilience, recovery, delayed dysfunction, relapsing/remitting, and chronic dysfunction) and their relative frequency in populations.
- explain why “rapidity,” “robustness,” and “redundancy” are key attributes of resources for resilience.
- list the four sets of adaptive capacities that yield resilient communities, namely Economic Development (i.e., resource level, diversity, and equity), Social Capital (linkages, supports, and bonds), Information and Communication (infrastructure, sources, and narratives), and Community Competence (collective efficacy, decision-making, and action).
- describe two distinct and complementary methods of assessing community resilience
- name several steps that communities can take to increase their resilience and why collaboration is the key.
The artwork depicted was created by Anna Caroline Jennings. She was sexually abused when she was less than three years old. Anna expressed her abuse vividly and poignantly through her sketches, oil paintings and water colors.
Important Dates
Conference Days
October 20-21, 2008
Discounted Room Rates End
October 6, 2008
Department of Mental Health Law and Policy
Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute