Dr. James “Jim” Henry, a nationally known speaker on the traumatic impact of child maltreatment, presents “Building a Resilient Community” at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette Thursday evening. (Journal photo by Jaymie Depew)

MARQUETTE — After a high school shooting in Florida left 17 people dead earlier this month, thousands of anxious citizens throughout the U.S. have pointed fingers at the nation’s mental health system and its gun policies. Others believe the issues run much deeper.

Dr. James “Jim” Henry, a nationally known speaker on the traumatic impact of child maltreatment, presented “Building a Resilient Community” at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette Thursday evening. During the presentation, Henry focused on how community members can collaborate and empower each other to address the impact of trauma — an issue — he says, that’s hidden underneath the “iceberg.”

“Nobody’s talking about trauma. They’re talking about mental health,” said Henry. “We’re not addressing what’s underneath the iceberg (instead) we’re always addressing what’s on top.”

Henry is a co-founder and project director for the Western Michigan University Children’s Trauma Assessment Center. He has 17 years experience as a child welfare and protective services worker and has been a professor in WMU’s School of Social Work for 15 years, where he’s focused on developing and providing trauma-informed instruction in the social work curriculum. Henry has trained more than 50,000 professionals, caregivers, and community members on child maltreatment and trauma-informed practices.

At Thursday’s event, Henry referred to traumatic experiences as “invisible wounds” that need to be taken seriously because “hurt people, hurt people.”

“We need to start talking about the brain,” he said, adding that a person’s brain chemistry changes after a traumatic encounter. The only way to take hold of the situation is through awareness, preventative measures, humanness, professionalism and collectively working together.

A group of around 50 people listened attentively in the library’s community room as Henry explained how it’s easy for organizations to create silos and focus on their own work rather than collaborating with other establishments, even though the outcome isn’t always positive.

“We haven’t created structures in (organizations) to build a sense of safety in order to be able to say ‘We’re in this together … we need each other to do this,'” he said, “Collaboration is one of those words, would you agree, that everybody says ‘yes’ to but nobody does? What really does collaboration mean? It means letting go of my stuff in order to be able to connect to your stuff.”

After Henry answered several questions, Mary Swift, the CEO of Pathways Community Mental Health in Marquette, who was sitting in the audience, addressed the difficulty of making sure everyone’s on the same page.

“I think that it’s really important that so many of us in human services are educating our staffs and looking at how our organizations run. But to me, it’s like, how do you get that message out to the whole community? Because we can’t act in our silos, it’s hard enough for us to collaborate with each other (because) the way that the world is structured right now. You see something happen…a kid does a stupid thing and immediately the community wants that kid punished. If you’re trauma-informed at all, you’re like, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’ That’s a huge shift for an individual to make let alone a whole community,” Swift said.

An audience member asked Henry what he does when people don’t understand the importance of being informed about trauma. He replied: “Just keep talking over and over again.”

Thursday’s event was sponsored by the Superior Health Foundation and Pathways in Marquette. A video of the presentation is available on Pathways’ Facebook page.