Preventing and Treating Trauma, Building Resiliency: The Movement Toward Compassionate Schools in Watauga County, North Carolina.

Trauma affects the brain in many ways, including impairing one's ability to learn, creating psychological and emotional issues, and contributing to poorer health outcomes. This is not only true for children but for adults as well, contributing to social issues such as erratic job performance, increase in homelessness rates, addiction rates, and higher rates of domestic violence and child abuse. We must be more effective at preventing and treating trauma and promoting resiliency in order to make the members of our societies as safe and productive as they can be. In Watauga County, North Carolina, an initiative is taking on that very challenge.