Living Self-Healing Communities

Velshonna Luckey, Director of Outreach and Partnership Development, United Way and Kimberly Green Reeves, Director of Community Impact, Beacon Health System

Self-Healing Communities is the answer to the “now what?” that people often ask after learning about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Please join us to learn more about Self-Healing Communities of Greater Michiana, an initiative dedicated to helping all members of the greater South Bend community heal from intended and unintended traumas. This approach embraces NEAR Science, a combination of current scientific research in Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACEs, and Resilience. This session will focus on the origin and mission of Self-Healing Communities of Greater Michiana, including opportunities to join in this community healing movement. The conversation will also highlight what is most exciting about this work: celebrating the ways our community has been resilient! If you are unfamiliar with ACEs, please consider signing up for an ACE Interface Training using this link. 

Unleashing Local Living Economies: From Trickle-Down Problems to Bottom-Up Solutions

Adam Gustine, Social Concerns Seminars Director, Institute for Social Concerns; Anthony Flaccavento, community leader in Abingdon, VA

Anthony Flaccavento is a farmer and rural development consultant from Abingdon, Virginia in the heart of the Appalachian Coalfields.  The Founder of Appalachian Sustainable Development, Flaccavento has focused most of his work over the past four decades on building healthier food systems and more diverse, locally rooted economies in Appalachia and around the world.  His consulting firm, SCALE, Inc, works with communities across the nation to evaluate, plan and build healthier farm and food systems and local economies.

Flaccavento is the author of Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up:  Harnessing Real World Experience for Transformative Change (University Press of Kentucky, 2016).  He writes and speaks regularly on rural development, bottom up economics, overcoming the rural-urban divide and a range of political and cultural issues.  He has taught courses on these topics at Future Generations University, Emory & Henry College and community colleges.

The Just Wage Initiative: Enlisting Stakeholders in Search of the Common Good at Work

Daniel A. Graff, Ph.D., Director, Higgins Labor Program of the Institute for Social Concerns; Professor of the Practice, Department of History, University of Notre Dame

What makes any given wage just or unjust?” That’s the foundational question a group of scholars and students at Notre Dame set out to answer, and they’ve come up with a new Just Wage Framework and Online Tool.
Join us for a presentation by members of the Just Wage Working Group—Dan Graff, Director of the Higgins Labor Program, and Kelli Reagan Hickey, Research Associate at the Institute for Social Concerns—as well as responses by representatives from community organizations that serve and/or advocate for low-income and vulnerable workers in our area.
 
Designed to engage stakeholders from across the economic spectrum, the Just Wage Initiative promotes discernment and dialogue in the hopes of fostering a fairer, more inclusive economy. In that spirit, we welcome feedback on its applicability and usefulness to businesses, workers, labor unions, and non-profit groups.