Experts will gather in Philly next week to discuss trauma and education

Philadelphia University will host the event, which is designed to promote interdisciplinary approaches to the issue.

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

Mental health professionals, educators, and early childhood specialists from up and down the Eastern seaboard will gather here next week for a conference on trauma awareness and education.

The Greater Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference will be held July 19-21 at Philadelphia University, in the northwestern part of the city.

Jeanne Felter, director of the university’s Community and Trauma Counseling Program, said the conference was designed to promote interdisciplinary approaches for dealing with traumatized children by bringing together professionals in mental health, education, medicine, and juvenile justice.

Keynote speakers will include:

  • Sandra Bloom, a psychiatrist, associate professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at Drexel University and an internationally recognized authority on trauma.
  • John Rich, a physician and a professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health, whose work focuses on serving one of the nation’s most ignored and underserved populations — African American men in urban settings.
  • Frank Meeink, whose journey has taken him from being a teenage skinhead, to prison, to his present role as a speaker about tolerance and diversity.
  • Daniel Taylor, of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and Drexel University College of Medicine, who was named Pennsylvania’s 2016 Pediatrician of the Year by the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, will serve as a leader for a trauma training session.

Other workshops include “Philadelphia’s Response to Child Sexual Abuse Cases,” “Dating Violence,” and “Understanding Children’s Bereavement.”

The conference will be presented in association with the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, Lakeside Educational Network, United Way of Greater Philadelphia & Southern New Jersey, and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Major funding for the conference is from the Scattergood Foundation.

Felter said that 250 people have registered, most from the Philadelphia area, with others from New Jersey, Delaware, New England states, and Virginia.

For further information and to register, click here.

The Notebook’s ongoing coverage of trauma and behavioral health issues is made possible by a grant from the Van Ameringen Foundation.