March 6, 2024, Resilient Coastal Georgia (RCG), a collaboration of Savannah-area individuals and organizations seeking to build trauma-informed and trauma-responsive communities that can prevent and heal childhood adversity, will offer a free, three-hour Community Resiliency Model (CRM) workshop on Monday, March 11 for anyone interested in learning wellness skills. The event will be held from Noon to 3 p.m. at the Coastal Health District, 420 Mall Blvd, Savannah. Those interested can sign up at https://resilientcoastalga.org/resilience-and-compassion or learn more at https://www.chathamsafetynet.org/community-resiliency-model-crm/ 

The CRM program introduces wellness skills designed to help adults and children learn how to bring the body, mind, and spirit back into greater balance, and to encourage people to pass the skills along to family, friends, and their wider community. 

The free workshop will be led by certified CRM trainers. Currently, Resilient Coastal Georgia supports 14 certified trainers, representing various public and private sectors across the Chatham County community. This includes nonprofit and youth-serving organizations, public health and behavioral health systems, local governments and public libraries, as well as yoga instructors, a real estate professional, and a chaplain. 

“With this strong foundation and a robust teacher network, the CRM team has been successfully serving the area for the past four years and has provided training to over 1,400 people,” said Tara Jones, Resilience Enhancement and Learning (REAL) Programs manager at the Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council. Jones offers technical support to CRM trainers and works to bring free training to organizations community-wide.

The local group is a subset of Resilient Georgia, a state-wide coalition working toward a united vision to create an integrated behavioral health system for children through young adulthood.

“Moreover, the CRM program has become a permanent feature at multiple organizations, from the Savannah Police Department and Savannah State University to Gateway Community Service Board, Park Place Outreach, and the Coastal Health District, where monthly CRM workshops are offered at no cost to community members,” Jones said.

While Jones and her team work to champion the program to the Savannah community, they are also advancing the program nationwide and around the world, including providing CRM instructor training for the Ukrainian people in war zones and supporting the development of resources in the Ukrainian language. Additionally, they have a Spanish-speaking trainer, Beatriz Severson, who has spearheaded the CRM program in the Hispanic community, and, in partnership with the Parent University, has led the formation of the Parent University en Español 

“We are proud to support RCG’s efforts through the CRM program to help ensure equity, diversity, and inclusion by identifying and creating opportunities for a diverse population to create systems-level change,” said Lizann Roberts, executive director at the Coastal Georgia Indicators Coalition. “The goal of offering this free training in the Community Resiliency Model workshops is that participants can then bring the wellness skills they learn back to their communities.”

Those interested in gaining knowledge about trauma and resilience and learning wellness skills by taking the upcoming three-hour CRM workshop should sign up at https://resilientcoastalga.org/resilience-and-compassion and can learn more about the program at https://www.chathamsafetynet.org/community-resiliency-model-crm/. The event will take place from noon to 3 p.m. on Monday, March 11 at the Coastal Health District, 420 Mall Blvd, Savannah.

For information about becoming a certified CRM trainer, visit the Trauma Resource Institute website [https://www.traumaresourceinstitute.com/crm-teacher-training].

CRM is a training program of the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI), which introduces wellness skills designed to help adults and children learn how to bring the body, mind, and spirit back into greater balance, and to encourage people to pass the skills along to family, friends, and their wider community. CRM serves as an effective instrument to the mission of the RCG by building an understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), explaining the impact and implications of various traumatic events, and providing simple yet effective tools and techniques for re-setting the natural balance of the nervous system.

To learn more about local CRM efforts supported by Resilient Coastal Georgia and Coastal Georgia Indicators Coalition, please contact Tara Jones at [email protected].