Adverse Community Experiences & Resilience

Community agency—the ability of a community to act on its own behalf—is essential to achieving equitable health, safety, and wellbeing. When harms accumulate through adverse community experiences, including those created through structural racism and structural violence, a community experiences trauma and agency is diminished. Healing and repair are essential toward reclaiming agency and addressing the conditions that produce adversity. This process builds on community resilience—the capacity to adapt and thrive, even in the face of adversity.

While trauma is frequently addressed at the individual level, we recognize and respond to its manifestations at the community level. Our approach supports community-led strategies that acknowledge past and present harms, advance community healing and agency, and strengthen community environments by addressing the root causes of adversity. We work in partnership with communities and across sectors to shift narratives, support local resilience strategies, and build capacity through tools like the Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience (ACE|R) framework and the Pillars of Wellbeing. ACE|R deepens understanding of community trauma and guides action, while the Pillars describe core elements that help people engage and communities withstand stressors, flourish, and build resilience.

We work to create the conditions for collective thriving by transforming the systems and environments that produce community trauma. Success looks like community-wide healing practices; stronger community voice, leadership, and power; increased access to resources and opportunities; and policies and practices that affirm dignity, promote healing, and support thriving.