Origins of the ETSU Ballad Health Strong BRAIN Institute, By Dr. Wallace Dixon Jr. and the Strong BRAIN Institute.
 
The ETSU Ballad Health Strong BRAIN (Building Resilience through ACEs-Informed Networking) Institute (SBI) was born of a perfect assemblage of many moving parts.  As for my part, in 2015, I was both an ETSU Presidential Fellow and a co-chair of the ETSU Strategic Planning Committee.  We had many discussions in the planning committee about how to recognize ETSU’s unique presence in the Appalachian Highlands and we spent many days brainstorming about how best to celebrate this role.  At about the same time, ETSU President Brian Noland sent me to Nashville as his designee to attend the first Building Strong Brains Tennessee (BSBTN) Summit. The purpose of the summit was to bring together stakeholders from multiple Tennessee sectors to address then Governor Bill Haslam’s initiative to prevent and mitigate the negative impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).  A main goal of BSBTN was to infuse “trauma-informed” practices across the state, across all sectors.
 
As a developmental psychologist, I had a great deal of experience conducting infancy science, but none in preventing or mitigating childhood adversity.  And as Head of the Department of Psychology, I had administrative experience, but only with university students and faculty, who are obviously not children.  I kept attending BSBTN meetings, and kept racking my brain for ways I could contribute.
 
One day the contribution I could make clicked. I could “trauma-inform” ETSU!  Such an effort would fulfill the vision of BSBTN while also addressing the strategic planning committee’s objectives.  The only problem was that I had no experience in trauma-informing anything. Enter my psychology colleague Dr. Andrea Clements who was brought into this arena through collaborations with Becky Haas, a community member who is now a core member of the SBI.  Dr. Clements was extremely knowledgeable about trauma-informing agencies and organizations, and later won the Harold Love Outstanding Community Involvement Award for her work.  Enter another colleague, Dr. Michele Moser from the ETSU Center of Excellence for Children in State Custody.  She was extremely experienced with implementing trauma-informed trainings statewide across child-serving agencies.  We discussed next steps and connected first with other faculty in the Department of Psychology, and then soon added multiple other ETSU faculty who were engaged in the education and science around adverse childhood experiences.  These other leaders included Dr. Karen Schetzina from ETSU Pediatrics, Dr. Megan Quinn from ETSU Public Health, Dr. Judy McCook from ETSU Nursing, and Dr. Julia Bernard from ETSU Counseling and Human Services. In addition, were Drs. Diana Morelen and Julia Dodd from ETSU Psychology, Dr. David Roane from the ETSU Gatton College of Pharmacy, and Dr. Joe Bidwell from ETSU Biological Science.  Soon all of us (and others we found along the way) began meeting regularly to chart a course for our common focus on preventing and mitigating ACEs. 
 
We called ourselves the BRAIN Trust.  We planned curricula and leadership development trainings, identified the need for an Advisory Council composed of ACEs and mental health champions from our community partners, and ultimately landed on the idea of establishing an Institute.
 
Enter President Noland.  From the outset of his tenure at ETSU, President Noland’s professional mission had been to improve the lives of the citizens of the region.  We invited him to a couple of our meetings and pitched the idea of the SBI, emphasizing what the SBI could mean for ETSU and the Appalachian Highlands. It was an immediate sell. He solicited a white paper and a proposed operating budget from us, and we were on our way. 
 
Enter Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine.  Unbeknownst to us, President Noland had strong alliances with Mr. Levine, who was also dedicated to improving the lives of the citizens of the region.  Were I a fly on the wall, I could say more about what happened next.  But one minute the SBI was a twinkle in the BRAIN Trust’s eye, and the next minute it was funded by a 5-year $1M dollar gift from Ballad Health.  We couldn’t have been more eager to being implementing the important work of the SBI.
 
Then came COVID-19, arriving at about the same time as the first installment of the Ballad gift. The world went on hold.  ETSU shut-down.  BRAIN Trust meetings went online. The work of the SBI became 5 times harder.  Yet we persisted.  Our mission was that important. 
 
The first executive decision was to form two “teams,” a Curricular Team and an Institutional Team.  Through the auspices of the Curricular Team, we are focusing on establishing certificate training programs and developing models for infusing ACEs content into higher education.  The work of the Institutional Team is a much heavier lift. Its objective is to devise the means to “trauma-inform” the entirety of ETSU, without any guidelines or blueprints to go by.  To our knowledge, other university in the nation has attempted such a feat.  So, the SBI must rely on the ingenuity of its deeply-talented members for identifying best practices and evidence-based approaches for engaging in large-scale cultural transformation.  It is exciting that every action-step the SBI takes is precedent-setting.  Fortunately, another executive decision was to establish an Advisory Council comprised of area leaders from multiple sectors across Tennessee and Virginia that could guide us along the way.  These allies were well-known throughout their respective sectors as champions of efforts to prevent and mitigate the negative impacts of ACEs.
 
As the SBI implements its multi-pronged mission, which we anticipate will soon include a Consultation Team to lend our expertise to community stakeholders, look to these pages for updates on our progress.  Also keep your eyes peeled for upcoming SBI Town Halls, training opportunities, and podcasts.  We want to meet you and hear from you.  We cannot make an impact without the buy-in and participation of our institutional and community partners.  You can reach out to us and learn more about the SBI at http://strongbraininstitute.org.