LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church will be holding a series of training events to help members who have experienced any form of childhood trauma.
The training will target experiences like abuse, neglect, drug addiction, and divorce— things that can take a toll on kids and stay with them well into adulthood.
The conference is made up of more than 120,000 members, and there's been a new push to acknowledge, train, and offer resources to those members on how to address adverse childhood experiences or ACES.
According to the group, Arkansas is 9th in the nation for citizens impacted by ACES and they want Arkansas's United Methodists to understand how they can help their church members, community, and themselves in managing stressful and traumatic events.
Mary Lewis Dassigner is a project coordinator of 200,000 More Reasons, a ministry of ARUMC, and she said this training will help build more authentic relationships by making sure they have the tools to respond to others' needs.
"We all bring our experiences, to our interactions with people, whether we know them or not. And in moments, we can get triggered by something," Dassinger described. "So when you can recognize when you're being triggered, or when somebody you're interacting with is being triggered by something in their past, then you can have more compassion and more understanding, and hopefully more healing opportunities."
The training will be held on Saturday, September 9 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for Arkansas United Methodists only and is free if you register before September 1st.
If you miss that deadline, the fee will be $10 from September 1-4. You can find a link to the registration form here.