Please meet Bonnie Spencer, Program Office Manager for Family Ark in Jeffersonville, Indiana. When Family Ark recently adopted the Traumatic Stress Institute's Risking Connection Change Model, Bonnie was tasked with ordering food and other logistics for the Risking Connection Basic Training late last summer. Prior to the training, she had started reading about what it meant to be trauma-informed and was still unsure of what it actually meant. After participating in the training, she really felt like everything came together and made sense.
Bonnie had previously thought of therapy from the non-trauma-informed space, where the therapist concentrated on your behavior, knew all the answers, and told you how to fix yourself. She shared during the training that within her family and amongst friends, she had seen people experiencing trauma and tended to focus on their behavior. When some of those very symptoms and behaviors were described in the training, she had a light bulb moment and began to connect to the idea that individuals' behaviors could be adaptive, based on what had happened to them – and she came to understand the necessity of considering “the root of the problem."
The Risking Connection Basic training changed Bonnie's perspective on how to support individuals. She stressed the importance of all staff members “being aware of their biases, race, and morals and how they can influence your ability to accept a person as they are.” After the training, Bonnie joined the Family Ark Trauma-Informed Task Force and is now a Risking Connection Champion. She wants to be that “safety net” for individuals experiencing trauma. She recognizes that she doesn’t have to be a therapist or counselor to show “compassion and human kindness” for those “working through their pain on the road to recovery” and providing a place where staff and clients feel safe, seen, and heard. Bonnie has taken the information into her personal life to share those same beliefs with her family and friends. She also highlighted that after the training, she’s noticed two things: more “smiles” in the agency and how her colleagues are working together to make Family Ark more trauma-informed.
Risking Connection helps organizations reach toward their full potential, benefitting both staff and those they serve. Many thanks to Bonnie for sharing her experience and for becoming part of her organization's task force – we greatly appreciate the work being accomplished and Family Ark's dedication to this initiative.
