ITRC Supports Black Lives Matter
Calls for Police to Stop Killing Black People and All People of Color and for White People to Grasp How Their Thinking, Practices, and Policies Promote Dominance, Injustice, and Inequality
_________________________________________________________________
Register Now for the Thursday March 25 Free Webinar on the New ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
The webinar will be from 12 noon to 1 pm Pacific Time (3-4 pm ET)
Click here to register for the March 25, 2021 webinar
Click here for a description of the ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy and Webinar
--------------------------
ITRC Releases New Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
The ITRC Seeks Endorsements from Organizations and Individuals for its New Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
Click here to read the ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy.
Click here to read the "Model Policy" for Use by Cities, States, and Other Nations
Click here to personally endorse the ITRC policy proposal.
Click here to make an organizational endorsement for the ITRC policy proposal.
What Does it Mean to Endorse the New ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilence Policy?
By making an organizational or personal endorsement of the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy you are demonstrating support for the need for the approach developed by the ITRC focused on building community-based, culturally-grounded, population-level mental wellness and resilience nationwide. Your endorsement is not a statement of support for any specific legislative policy. Please consider endorsing this important policy framework!
Why the Need for a New Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy?
The ITRC believes a new public health prevention science approach is urently needed to build and sustain mental wellness and resilience for the civilization-changing climate emergency. This is because global temperatures will, in the not too distant future, rise above the 2.7 F (1.5C) temperature threshold scientists say will greatly accelerate destructive climate impacts.
Left unaddressed, the more frequent and extreme disasters that will be intermixed with continual cascading disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, jobs, incomes, health, safety, and other basic needs will produce mental health and psychosocial problems far beyond anything modern society has ever experienced.
The harmful psychological, emotional, and behavioral reactions will profoundly affect daily functioning, and threaten everyone's health, safety, and wellbeing. They are also likely to cause people to withdraw into a self-protective survival mode that makes it very difficult to do what is needed to cut emissions and reduce the climate emergency to manageable levels.
Individually-focused clinical therapy, direct social service, and disaster mental health programs, while important, will not be able to help millions of people prevent or heal from the coming tsunami of climate-generated mental health and psychosocial problems. The ITRC realized that a new vision and new approach are urgently needed to 'future-proof' psychological and emotional wellbeing, and organized a team of over 20 mental health, trauma treatment, and resilience professionals to help craft a new approach.
The ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy
The ITRC policy calls for establishing community-based culturally-grounded initiatives that build population-level mental wellness and resilience for a wide range of climate change-generated traumas and pileups of toxic stresses. The enabling infrastructure of the new approach is the formation of a Resilience Coordinating Council (RCC) in every community or region. Its purpose is to bring together a broad and diverse set of uncommon partners to co-create, implement, and continually improve innovative age and culturally appropriate actions that:
a) teach everyone--all adults and youth--mental wellness and resilience information and skills and discover and build personal and community strengths;
b) establish and connect quality social support networks across boundaries;
c) empower residents to take responsibility for resilience in their neighborhood;
d) engage local organizations of all types in the adoption of principles and practices that enhance mental wellness and resilience;
e) build collective efficacy for altering social norms and creating a local culture that enables people to safely overcome distress and find meaning, purpose, and hope in the midst of the long climate emergency.
RCC members should also identify and refer people to mental health clinicians who, after participating in community-based mental wellness and resilience building activities still cannot function or are at risk of harming themselves or others.
The methods involved with building mental wellness and resilience were developed for non-climate related psychological and emotional traumas. The new ITRC policy will therefore help prevent and heal many types of mental health and psycho-social-spiritual problems beyond those generated by the climate emergency, including human-caused disasters such as school shootings or community violence, as well as non-climate related natural disaster like the COVID-19 Pandemic, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
Go to the links above to read--and endorse--the new ITRC Mental Wellness and Resilience Policy.
Slides from Spring 2020 Free ITRC Webinars on Building Transformational Resilience for Climate Traumas, Toxic Stresses
ITRC Issues Recommendations for Preventing and Healing Pandemic-Generated Mental Health and Psychosocial Problems
The recomendations begin with utilizing established networks, or organizing a new "Resilience Coordinating Council" (RCC), in every community/region to collaboratively plan and implement interventions to prevent and heal pandemic-generated mental health and psychosocial problems.
The goals of the RCC include:
o Develop ongoing communications and decision-making among multiple organizational and individual stakeholders focused on building psychological wellness and resilience.
o Continually assess mental health and psychosocial conditions, develop needs assessments, and identify gaps in support services.
o Use the analysis to develop an action plan that closes the gaps and builds population-wide psychological wellness and resilience, with a special emphasis on high-risk groups.
o Establish protocols to ensure fairness and social equity and community-owned and managed engagement in all interventions.
o Implement interventions including disseminating both Presencing and Purposing information to the public, psychological wellness and resilience skill-training for first-responders & local leaders, neighborhood and block-level social networking, and more.
o Regularly evaluate progress, improve interventions, and advocate for local needs.
After the pandemic ends, integrate the approach into local culture, programs, and policies.
Click here to see the complete recommendations.
ITRC Says Global Warming is a Mental Health and Psycho-Social-Spiritual Emergency
Issues Call to Action for all mental health, public health, education, social justice, climate, faith and other leaders to rapidly build psychological and psycho-social-spiritual--or transformational--resilience.
To read the 1 page summary of the Call to Action click here
To read the complete Call to Action click here
--------
In response to the personal and collective traumas caused by Hurricane Dorian, and as a follow up to the U.S. Call to Action in Climate, Health, and Equity priority 9 to build resilient communities, the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC)* today called on mental health, public health, ACEs, education, social justice, climate, emergency response, faith and other leaders to rapidly build psychological and psycho-social-spiritual--or Transformational Resilience--to prevent climate traumas.
The ITRC said that swiftly slashing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to a clean renewable energy economy, protecting and restoring forests and other ecosystems that sequester carbon, adapting physical infrastructure, and strengthening disaster mental health programs must be top priorities.
With the disasters and toxic stresses generating by the climate crisis accelerating, however, it is equally important and urgent now to help all individuals, groups, and communities learn Transformational Resilience information and skills to build their capacity to constructively cope with climate adversities and use them as powerful catalysts to increase personal, social, and ecological wellbeing.
"The horrific destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian is yet another example of how climate disasters are producing widespread childhood, adult, cultural, and intergenerational traumas," said Bob Doppelt, ITRC Coordinator. "Even if emissions are rapidly reduced, the number of individuals and groups traumatized by climate disasters and toxic stresses will accelerate for decades to come.
"Prevention is the only viable solution given the scope and intensity of the mental health and psycho-social-spiritual impacts that lie ahead. We must quickly make preventative Transformational Resilience education and skills-training available to all adults and youth.
"We ask individuals and organizations to endorse our Call to Action, get informed, and become involved in building universal capacity for Transformational Resilience," concluded Doppelt.
Webinar on Integrating Climate Trauma into ACEs Prevention
On November 9, 2019, ITRC coordinator Bob Doppelt ran a webinar for the ACEs Connection Network on how to integrate Transformational Resilience into efforts to prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
Click here to see and listen to the webinar.
ITRC Releases Major Report Calling for Transformational Resilience Education & Skills Training to Become Universal by 2025
Coalition Report Says People on the West Coast Must Be Prepared for the Rising Psychological and Psycho-Social-Spiritual Impacts of Climate Change
Click here to see the January 8, 2019 media release for the report with quotes from ITRC members
Click here to see the Executive Summary and full report
Click here to see examples of human resilience building programs underway on the west coast
ITRC Completes Inventory of Human Resilience Programs in California and the Pacific Northwest
During the summer of 2018 the ITRC inventoried human resilience building initiates underway throughout the west coast. The goal was to identify the goals of the programs, their locations, populations they serve, resilience information and skills they focused on, and other information.
Click here to see a sample of the survey.
The ITRC will release a major report in January 2019 summarizing the findings and offering recommendations for ensuring that by 2025 every adult and child residing on the west coast has the opportunity to learn Transformational Resilience information and skills for climate change enhanced traumas and toxic stresses--and many other adversities people experience.
ITRC Coordinator Bob Doppelt Interviewed by Awakening Joy Founder James Baraz
James Baraz has taught mindfulness meditation since 1978 and is co-founder of the world-reknowned Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. He is co-author of two books Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness and Awakening Joy for Kids. James has taught the Awakening Joy course to over 15,000 people. James and Bob Doppelt have known each other for over 30 years and lead retreats together at Spirit Rock. James Interviewed Bob as part of his "Conversations with the Wise" series. The interview can be found here: https://awakeningjoy.info/conversationsDoppelt.php
Slides Available from ITRC January 24-25 2018 Conference on Preparing People for Climate Change in California
The slides used by speakers and panelists at the ITRC January 24-25 conference in Oakland are now available at: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/california-2018-conference/
Slides Available from ITRC November 15-16, 2017 Conference on Preparing People for Climate Change in the PNW.
The slides used by speakers and panelists at the November 15-16, 2017 ITRC conference on Preparing People for Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest are now available at: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/pnw-2017-conference/
Slides Available from ITRC Nov 3-4 2016 International Conference on Building Human Resilience for Climate Change
Transformational Resilience Book Available
Bob Doppelt's book, Transformational Resilience: How Building Human Resilience to Climate Disruption Can Safeguard Society and Increase Wellbeing is available from many booksellers. The book has received praise from dozens of climate, mental health, spiritual and other leaders.
Read the accolades just 2 weeks after its release!
The book describes the adverse personal mental health and psychosocial impacts of climate disruption. It clarifies that unless major preventative efforts are quickly launched in the U.S. and globally, the negative human impacts will undermine the safety, health, and wellbeing of individuals, families, organizations, communities, and entire societies. It also outlines how individuals and groups of all types can use the Resilient GrowthTM model to avoid or minimize maladaptive responses and use climate adversities as catalysts to learn, grow, and thrive.
CRS World Congress Honors TRIG Director Bob Doppelt as one of the World's "50 Most Talented Social Innovators"
Dr. Limaye accepted the award for BobTRIG Executive Director Bob Doppelt was honored by the World CSR Congress as one of the “50 Most Talented Social Innovators” at World CSR Day in February 2015 in Mumbia, India. Bob’s acceptance speech included, “For over thirty years I have been working to promote economic, social, and environmental equity and sustainability. For the past 10 years I have devoted much of my time to climate change. This is the greatest threat to the health and wellbeing of humanity today. Individuals, families, and organizations of all types need resilience building tools and skills to help them cope with the adversities created by climate change in ways that actually increase their wellbeing.”
Participants Say: Transformational Resilience Workshops Provide Valuable Skills
Surveys given to participants in five Transformational Resilience (TR) Program workshops in 2014 show an extremely positive response from participants especially in terms of how much they learned and the usefulness of this information from the workshop. TRIG’s Research Director, Dr. Jean Stockard, analyzed surveys taken by attendees at the beginning and end of the five TR Leaders Self-Care Workshops (now called Building Your Personal ResilienceTM); note that a total of 108 people filled out the pre-workshop survey and 87 the post-workshop survey with 80 completing both.
American Psychological Association & ACEs Too High Cover ITRC
TRIG was instrumental in launching the International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC) in early 2014 and currently coordinates the Coalition including more than 160 mental health, mindfulness and resilience building professionals. ITRC Coordinator and TRIG Executive Director, Bob Doppelt are the focus of a January 2015 article in the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology entitled: "Adapting to a warmer world: Psychologists can help people and communities prepare for the psychosocial effects of climate change." In July 2014, ACEs Too High News published "What's missing in climate change discussion? The certainty of trauma...and building resilience." ACEs Too High is a news site reporting on research about ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, and sees the work of the ITRC in raising broader awareness about the mental health effects of global warming and building resilience as having potential to reduce ACEs.
TRIG E.D. Bob Doppelt Awarded Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship
In 2014 Executive Director Bob Doppelt was awarded a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residential Fellowship. The Fellowship provide time for Bob to complete his new book Transformational Resilience. We thank The Rockefeller Foundation for this unique opportunity.
Can Buddhists Come Together on Climate Change?
In the Summer 2014 edition of Buddhadharma magazine, TRIG Executive Director Bob Doppelt discusses the involvement of the Buddhist community in the issue of climate change.
Climate change, however, is unquestionably a dharma issue. The roots of the problem are ignorance and delusion: ignorance about how it is that life exists on our planet, and the delusion that we can continue unbridled fossil fuel and material consumption without grave consequences. Since we strive as Buddhists to cut through ignorance and follow a path that can relieve suffering, the path by which climate change can be skillfully confronted is, by definition, an expression of dharma practice. Read the full article
TRIG Takes New Direction
After a year of planning, in December of 2013 the TRIG Board of Directors decided to refocus TRIG’s work on two core areas: 1) Proactively building the capacity of individuals and groups to cope with and use climate change-related adversities as catalysis for growth and renewal; and 2) Promoting unified climate solutions. Find out more.
Thinking as if Climate Matters
TRIG Executive Director Bob Doppelt talks about the shift From Me to We in Organic Gardening Magazine. Read the article.
Buddhists Respond to Climate Change
TRIG Executive Director Bob Doppelt is working with Buddhist dharma teachers on climate change. The Oct 2, 2013 article in the Huffington Post "Green" section describes how the teachers have responded by engaging in Earth Care Week.