The Human Toll of Fire Disasters: Helping & Healing Kids & Family
August 2, 2021
Hosted by Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Fires are devastating to communities and to the children, teens and adults grappling to survive and to recover. During the last week in Western United States, over 22,000 firefighters were combating wildfires, homes burned, and thousands of residents fled from the fast-moving flames. The Dixie Fire in Northern California and the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon are being further sparked by very dry conditions and what climate change scientists say from climate change. The stark reality is we cannot expect the wildfire threat to ease any time soon. The "harsh reality" is the nation will continue to see more intense wildfires stated Oregon Gov. Kate Brown last week. We can learn from communities like Butte County’s Paradise, California destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018. Many people lost their lives. The community of Butte County gathered during and after this tragedy to rebuild. Scott Dinits, my guest works as the Human Resources Director for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the North Valley and is also a Co-Director of the Ability First Sports Camp in Butte County. He is a Steering Committee member of Thrive. Thrive exists to support and expand community wide policies and practices that promote resiliency and address the impact of childhood trauma across all generations. Scott will address the impact on children and families caused by the fires and how through working with programs promoting wellness, healing can occur. He is certified in the Community Resiliency Model and as an ACE Interface Master Trainer.
Resiliency Within
Monday at 1 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel
Elaine Miller-Karas will amplify the message of hope, healing and resiliency she has learned from our world community as she has traversed the globe after human made and natural disasters. Hope often springs forth in response to suffering and trauma. Our beliefs and our wellbeing are being challenged during these unprecedented times.
The program Resiliency Within is about cultivating individual and community resiliency. Resiliency is the capacity to lean into our strengths with compassion during the most challenging of times and to remember "what else is true?" about our lived experience.
Her guests are inspiring global leaders actively promoting healing and resiliency from a variety of backgrounds. The goal is to spread wellbeing and give individual and community examples to inspire how wellness skills, including ones based upon neuroscience and the biology of the human nervous system, can be integrated into one's life, family and community during challenging times.
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW, has been called an "ambassador of hope" and a "resilience guru." She is an author, advocate, a social worker, a trauma therapist, a co-founder of an international organization, the Trauma Resource Institute and key developer of the Community and Trauma Resiliency Models.
She is the author of “Building Resiliency to Trauma, the Trauma and Community Resiliency Models(r)” (2015). She is committed to bringing accessible and affordable interventions based on neuroscience and the biology of the human nervous system to our world's community. Her models have been introduced to over 102 countries.
Elaine is a recognized international speaker and has presented at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford University and the United Nations. Her book was selected by the United Nations curated on-line library as one of the innovations that can help meet its Sustainable Development Goals.
Elaine feels passionately about the impact of climate change on our world community. She is a founding member of the International Transformational Resilience Coalition, an organization focused on the impact of climate change on mental health. She is dedicated to the world's children and she has worked with collaborators to develop interventions for children, parents and teachers to help reduce the impact of trauma. Consequently, she is a Senior Consultant to Emory University’s SEE Learning program, inspired and launched by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2019.