Michigan State University Trauma Services and Training Network - MSU TSTN

In addition to being an outstanding social worker and educator, Kelley is deeply committed to trauma informed practice. Kelley is a founding member and serves on the Steering Committee of the TSTN.

The MSU School of Social Work would like to congratulate Kelley Blanck for being awarded the MSU Provost Educator Award!

“As an alum who came to back to MSU after a career in organizational social work practice, being recognized for my academic teaching work is a significant honor for me,” said Blanck.

“I feel fortunate to be able to teach and mentor soon-to-be social workers, while also collaborating across the university to build my own skills in the process.”

School of Social Work Trauma Informed Care Fall Courses

“Robert “Bob” Burgess, a distinguished 1966 Michigan State University alumnus, esteemed business leader, and dedicated philanthropist, passed away on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. He was 79.

In 2005, the Broad College established the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which Bob contributed to help launch. A decade later, he made an additional, significant gift that fully established his namesake, the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The Institute has grown into one of the leading national undergraduate entrepreneurship education programs in the country.

Today, the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation empowers students to learn through action by providing programs, courses, and resources to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and create new ventures.

Over 1,000 Spartans have engaged in the Burgess Institute’s venture creation programs, creating more than 800 startups. Since 2016, student entrepreneurs have raised more than $160M to fund their ventures and keep growing.”

https://entrepreneurship.msu.edu/

Framing strategies that work when talking about trauma.

“To build a broader constituency for trauma-informed approaches, the story we tell must deepen understanding, spark a sense of collective responsibility, and offer a sense of realistic hope. The seven recommendations below offer ways to do this.”

The following link will take you to a brief with more information on each frame.

https://www.frameworksinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Framing_Adversity_Trauma_and_Resilience_Guide_1.pdf

Have you heard of “fight, flight, or freeze?” During trauma, our body’s fight-or-flight response can be triggered. A series of hormones driven by our sympathetic nervous system can lead us to experience this stress response. According to the Cleveland Clinic, during the stress response, a variety of reactions can occur in your body. The stress response helps us survive in dangerous or traumatic situations. You can read more about the stress response at the following link:

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-happens-to-your-body-during-the-fight-or-flight-response

Sustainability at MSU has adopted a framework that utilizes four pillars of success in order to move forward in meeting energy goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The four pillars and sustainability goals are as follows:


Campus – Create a Smart Campus for a just transition to a sustainable future

Curriculum – Invest in sustainable, cooperative education and research innovation

Community – Serve as a global leader in sustainability and climate change

Culture – Embed a sustainable culture throughout the university


You can learn more about the Sustainability at MSU goals and practices at their website.

https://sustainability.msu.edu/

“Before we craft a message, it is helpful to think ahead to what we do not want to communicate – and why. We can start by anticipating how people will interpret our message based on what they already think or believe. If we can predict a communications problem, we can prepare for it.”

Below are some patterns of thinking and framing that we should be careful to not reinforce when talking about adversity, trauma, and resilience. Using these frames might make it more difficult for individuals to see how approaches at the community level would work.

Sharing our lived experience has numerous benefits. Sharing lived experience in an effective and safe way is important to take care of ourselves and those around us.

Check out this link for a Guide for Sharing Lived Experience:

https://www.mamh.org/assets/files/PsychHub-Guide-for-Sharing-Lived-Experience.pdf

Have you heard of ‘moral injury?’

“In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs and expectations. Moral injury is the distressing psychological, behavioral, social, and sometimes spiritual aftermath of exposure to such events. A moral injury can occur in response to acting or witnessing behaviors that go against an individual's values and moral beliefs. In order for moral injury to occur, the individual must feel like a transgression occurred and that they or someone else crossed a line with respect to their moral beliefs.”

You can learn more about moral injury at the National Center for PTSD website listed below.

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/moral_injury.asp

Last week was the TSTN Summit - At the Intersection of DEI and Trauma Informed Practice.

A tremendous thank you to the nearly 100 individuals who attended. It was wonderful to have so many individuals from a variety of departments and roles at MSU coming together.

Thank you to our amazing keynote speakers and break out facilitators. Your words impacted us greatly, and we can’t wait to take what we learned into our various roles and units.

Pictured above are a few members of the TSTN Steering Committee.

Dairy manufacturing has a long tradition at MSU.

1867: First cow brought to campus
1894: First dairy short course offered
1913: First building containing a plant dedicated to dairy manufacturing built
1955: Anthony Hall built
Late 1980s: MSU receives $5.5 million from Animal Agriculture Initiative to renovate Anthony Hall, MSU Dairy Plant and build a new meat lab
1996: New Dairy Complex facility opens

Today, the MSU Dairy Store makes ice cream and cheeses for Spartans. As of now, the Dairy Store serves 13 different flavors.

https://msudairystore.com/

For the next few weeks, TSTN will be sharing information from this brief, which was developed to support the Maryland State Commission on Trauma-Informed Care on how to “translate what is known about adversity, trauma, and resilience into efforts to strengthen related policies, programs, and public agencies.

The story we communicate about trauma, resilience, and adversity matters. Our framing about these important topics can impact the way that efforts at community and policy levels are implemented, as well as the ways that communities view the possibility to recover from adversity.

You can find the brief to read more at the following link:

https://www.frameworksinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Framing_Adversity_Trauma_and_Resilience_Guide_1.pdf