NRI Announces Resilience Summit Speakers

The National Resilience Institute is proud to announce speakers for the 5th Annual Resilience Summit on September 21, 2018 in Chicago.  The hope building experts will provide presentations, panels, and table top work, leaving you inspired by some of the greatest innovations in community resiliency building and equipped to put actionable strategies to work in your own community!

The Resilience Summit brings together faculty with real world experience to provide tools and facilitate solutions to the most pressing questions you’re grappling with in essential areas of human resilience. Our promise is that you will leave this gathering better equipped to strengthen yourself and others.

equipping hope builders

MEET THE SUMMIT FACULTY

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Leon Caldwell, PhD, Managing Principal at Ujima Community Transformation Developers, is a senior level strategist for community centered social innovation. An award winning scholar-activist and researcher in education, philanthropy, and social innovation, Leon has a track record of moving from vision to execution in multiple settings. His passion is working collaboratively to innovate and design community based solutions to address challenges that compromise the life outcomes of youth and families. His work has catalyzed movements in approaches to Boys and Young Men of Color, education, public health and community based research.

Lisa Cherry is an author and international trainer and consultant in the areas of trauma, attachment, recovery, foster children, and the experience of care givers. She has worked with children and families in social care and education environments in a variety of roles including as a social worker in residential and care leaving environments, as a provider supporting young people not in education with employment training, and as an extended services coordinator for vulnerable youth. Lisa’s personal experience of the care system as a looked after (foster) child colors her passion to create social change, one connection at a time.

Brenda Krause Eheart, PhD, founder of Generations of Hope and Hope Meadows, is fostering innovative models of multigenerational communities. Her passion is creating communities through intentional neighboring. By incorporating seniors into her vision of supporting children and families in the foster care system, she innovated a model of mutual support that has provided a renewed sense of meaning for vulnerable Americans. This model has been replicated within other sectors, including communities for veterans and adults with developmental disabilities. Previously a Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Eheart has earned numerous honors, including being selected as an Ashoka Fellow and presenting at the 2017 Obama Foundation Summit.

Wrenetha Julion, PhD, MPH, RN, Chair of the Department of Women, Children and Family Nursing at the Rush University College of Nursing, is a dynamic advocate for meaningful societal change that challenges health disparities, health inequity and social injustice. She is Principal Investigator of the Building Bridges to Fatherhood intervention grant aimed at supporting paternal involvement in African American non-resident fathers, and co-author of the Chicago Parent Program, a nationally recognized parent-training program for at-risk families living in low-income, ethnic minority communities. Wrenetha is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections program.

Niranjan S. Karnik, MD, PhD, Director of Population Behavioral Health in the Department of Psychiatry at Rush Medical College, oversees the development of Collaborative Care Models and Integrative Care Programs. At Rush, he also is a Senior Advisor for the Road Home Program: Center for Veterans and their Families. His research focuses on community-based interventions for high-risk youth with psychiatric and substance use disorders. In the past, he has worked with refugee children on the Pakistan-Afghan border, street children in India, foster youth in Central Illinois, incarcerated youth in California, and the youth homeless population in San Francisco. He serves on several editorial boards, including as a senior associate editor for Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

Mollie Marti, PhD, JD, is founding CEO and President of the nonprofit National Resilience Institute, the host of the annual Resilience Summit. She is an author, developer of the THRIVE Resilience Model™, and host of the Resiliency Matters TV show. She lectures internationally in the areas of resilience, community-based crisis response, positive human development, and leadership. Prior to her executive duties, she practiced law, held a federal judicial clerkship, directed a business educational company, served as Associate Director of a university research survey institute, and taught as an adjunct professor with the University Of Iowa Department of Psychology.

David Schonfeld MD, a member the American Academy of Pediatrics Disaster Preparedness Advisory Council, is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and professor at the University of Southern California and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He served as a Commissioner for both the National Commission on Children and Disasters and the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, and is Past President of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The author of over 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, and books, he has conducted extensive research involving school-based interventions to promote adjustment and risk prevention, and provided consultation and training on youth bereavement in the aftermath of numerous school crisis events and disasters within the United States and abroad.

Dylan Tête, MPH, an Iraqi veteran, is Executive Director and founder of Bastion Community of Resilience, an organization innovating community-based, whole person supports for veterans. He earned a Bachelors in Economics and Systems Engineering at West Point and a Master’s in Public Health at the LSU School of Public Health. Prior to his nonprofit executive work, he managed the construction of several FEMA housing facilities after Hurricane Katrina and assisted transitioning military personnel and wounded warriors into new careers in the civilian workforce. Tête was selected into the Propeller Social Venture Accelerator in 2010 and awarded a fellowship with The Mission Continues for the creation of Bastion.

Richard Webster, reporter at the Times-Picayune, is co-author of “The Children of Central City” series that followed a team of young boys who played football at A.L. Davis Park, located in one of New Orleans’ most historic, culturally rich and crime-plagued neighborhoods. He spent months with the team, interviewing parents, coaches and families as part of an examination into the often-overlooked public health crisis of chronic exposure to violence and its devastating effects on children. The series culminated in a documentary film and has spawn grassroots efforts for trauma informed youth building in Central City and beyond.

David Richmond, CBE, is Chairman of the Contact Group, a Partner Charity of the Royal Foundation’s Heads Together Campaign, which brings together military charities and governmental agencies engaged in delivering mental health support to veterans and their families. After 26 years of British Army service and a medical discharge for serious battle wounds, he served as Recovery Director at Help for Heroes, overseeing services for over 18,000 wounded, injured and sick servicemen, veterans and families. A Partnership Board Member of the UK Invictus Games and Team Director, he has advised other nations to develop recovery services for wounded, injured and ill servicemen, veterans and families, includes working with the United States Air Force and supporting NATO in advising the Ukraine.

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For more information about the 5th Annual Resilience Summit: Innovating and Scaling Community Resiliency Initiatives – hosted Friday, September 21, 2018 from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (US CST) at Searle Conference Center, Rush University in Chicago, IL visit our Summit page.