This month, nearly 100 Boys & Girls Clubs of America trained trauma-informed staff were invited to its Atlanta headquarters for the organization’s first mental health and wellness summit. Complete with an awards ceremony and activities to help them recharge, the summit celebrated the initiative to bring trauma-informed practices to all 5,400 BGCA locations across the country.
“We’re gonna be the number one largest youth-serving organization in the world that has trauma-informed therapy,” Jennifer Bateman, Ph.D., senior vice president of youth development at BGCA, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to Bateman, the initiative launched about five years ago after the organization spent about a decade working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on following the data surrounding youth mental health. After seeing a worsening decline over time, the BGCA decided to step into the space…