Thanks for joining us for Welcoming Others, a short course to help you support families affected by crisis and conflict.
Every day, children and families around the world—and in your own community—are affected by conflict, crisis, and traumatic experiences. In big and small ways, support from providers, peers, and members of their wider community can help welcome them into new spaces and begin a process of healing.
What does crisis mean? A moment of crisis can include any time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. Crises can include a natural disaster or weather event, sudden separation from loved ones, or displacement due to conflict or other hardship, among other circumstances.
It’s natural for a crisis to catch us off guard. But crises can happen to anyone, even to those in your community. The good news is, the caring presence of a trusted adult and empathetic, nurturing interactions with children and families affected by crisis really can make a positive difference.
You can help.
The reality is, no matter your specific role, or how much you interact with children and families each day, it’s likely that at some point you will encounter someone who’s been affected by conflict or crisis. You might know someone right now, and there are simple, manageable things you can start with to help that person feel safer, more understood, welcomed, and resilient.
You don’t need to be an expert in child development to benefit from this course. It is designed to help any caring grown-up—like you—embrace the role you can play in helping children and grown-ups reconnect and build on their inherent dignity, strength, and resilience.
We’re so grateful and inspired that you have decided to invest your time and energy in learning how to better serve children and families in some of the most challenging moments of their lives. We’re confident this short course will help you feel more comfortable in taking the first steps on this journey. We encourage you to leverage the ideas and resources in this course to complement the role you play in your community to help families feel welcomed and begin to heal and thrive.
By the end of this brief course, you will walk away with new insights, strategies, and a toolkit of resources and activities that you can share and practice with families.
NOTE: While developing this course, we included themes and resources that would be particularly helpful to children and families who’ve been uprooted from their homes or country of origin, whether due to natural disaster, conflict, or some other reason. Because of that, you’ll see and hear references to “newcomers” or families “joining your community.”
More often than not, the strategies mentioned for this group of children and families are broadly applicable to families who have experienced other types of traumas or crises as well. As always, keep an open mind, engage your curiosity, and ask yourself, “How can I apply what I’m learning here to my own relationships, workplace, or community?”
Throughout this course, you’ll hear from a few key experts. These individuals have varied and extensive experience helping young children and families cope with conflict, crisis, and traumatic experiences. We are so grateful for their contributions to this course.
Ann Thomas, LCSW, RPT/S
President/CEO of The Children's Place
Stephen Cozza, MD, COL, U.S. Army Retired
Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics
Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Department of Psychiatry, USUHS
Rebecca Ford-Paz, PhD
Clinical Child Psychologist
Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health & the Center for Childhood Resilience
Co-Director of the Forensic Assessment for Immigration Relief (FAIR) Clinic
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Stephanie A. Gonzalez-Martinez
Las Cruces Children's Coordinator
Save The Children | Border Servant Corps
