Finding a path towards healing through positive childhood experiences
After a 40-year career in healthcare, community outreach and education on behalf of the Fairview Health System in Minneapolis, Ann Ellison is a leader in promoting the HOPE framework, even while retired. She is a HOPE Facilitator and Champion certified to lead training and technical assistance on the HOPE framework. She learned about the framework five or six years ago at a conference held by faith communities in the central area of Minnesota. Robert Sege, MD, PhD, the director of the HOPE National Resource Center, spoke there and she left feeling empowered.
“I’ve gone to presentations on ACEs [Adverse Childhood Experiences] and understood it. But I always left those things thinking, ‘Okay, I get it, but what, what can I do about it now?’”
After hearing Dr. Sege speak about his research on positive childhood experiences (PCEs) that led to the creation of the HOPE framework, she realized that there were steps that everyday folks could take to promote the wellbeing of children and actually counter the long term impacts of ACEs.
In her remaining couple of years at Fairview Health System, she brought the HOPE framework to as many aspects of the organization as she could.
Helping families heal through their grief through the HOPE framework
“I go wherever I’m called to do that presentation. I’ve done presentations in child care centers, with school nurses, with faith communities…and then decided last fall to pursue the next level of [HOPE] Champion certification.”
She now consults for Brighter Days Family Grief Center which provides free resources for youth who have lost loved ones and the caregivers who are supporting them, including a camp for children. Ellison says that PCEs are critical for helping everyone who grief touches, especially when a parent is grieving and trying to support a child. Ellison shared a challenge that a grieving parent she knew was facing.
“I was so enmeshed in all of that there was no way I could even think of what to do next to support my kid.”
Ellison says that at the end of an upcoming 6-week series in April designed to support parents, the plan is to give them a worksheet with positive activities based on the Four Building Blocks of HOPE, or the four key types of PCEs. She says that instead of the pressure of coming up with ideas themselves, “We can give them some place to start, and they can understand the science behind why it’s important to do that…positive, supportive work with their child.”
Examples of activities for the Building Block of emotional growth include introducing journaling, prayer, yoga, meditation, or mindfulness to children, or creating a feelings chart that helps children learn the language of feelings. Activities related to the Building Block of relationships include the parent and child identifying ways they support one another, putting the answers on post it notes, and decorating a place in the home with them. Activities for the Building Block of engagement include community service projects at school or church. Activities for the Building Block of environment include asking the child, “Do you have a favorite spot to play outside our home?” and “Draw a picture of that spot and make note of the things that make it your favorite.”
Implementing the HOPE framework throughout their organization and through community partnership
Brighter Days is interested in implementing the HOPE framework as an organization. One way that Ellison is helping them achieve that is by providing an Introduction to HOPE training to the board in order to get buy-in. There is also a Brighter Days staff person who is currently in the HOPE Facilitator cohort. Once she’s trained, she and Ellison can double their efforts.
Brighter Days is in a partnership with a Minnesota health system program called “Growing Through Grief” which has been providing support in school systems for a couple of decades. Growing Through Grief staff recently approached Brighter Days to team up on grief curriculum development. Brighter Days has now acquired the whole curriculum and plans on modifying it to include the HOPE framework and spread it to schools all over the state. One specific way she’s looking to imbue the HOPE framework is helping Growing Through Grief modify their intake and assessment process to make sure that it includes questions about strengths and supports that already exist in the grieving families.
Brighter Days headquarters is in an affluent, largely white suburb called Eden Prairie. But in recent years, they have taken steps to make their services more accessible by working virtually and in other locations. Because of these changes, the HOPE framework is reaching a wider portion of the population.
What does the HOPE framework look like in your work?
Do you have an amazing story to share on how you are using the HOPE framework in your work with children and families? Are you looking to start prompting positive childhood experiences? Reach out to us!
