The Human Race: How Bob Doppelt and the ITRC Are Making a Difference in the Climate Emergency
World Humanitarian Day 2022: Bob Doppelt & ITRC
Bob runs a workshop for the City of Tacoma Office of Sustainability (October 11, 2012).
by Winona Koldyke, Communications Coordinator, Trauma Resource Institute
This year for World Humanitarian Day, we are highlighting Bob Doppelt and the International Transformation Resilience Coalition (ITRC) who work to build human resilience for the climate emergency. The Trauma Resource Institute is a founding member of the ITRC.
Before coordinating the ITRC, Doppelt directed the Climate Leadership Initiative in the Institute for the Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon for almost a decade. They were funded to help public and private entities develop climate action plans and engage in other activities such as organizing the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP). During this time, his staff traveled to Southeast Florida and organized a coalition that brought together counties to prepare for climate impacts. This was at the time Superstorm Sandy hit.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Doppelt started to see the lingering mental health effects of climate change on communities. As they continued to see the devastation of Hurricane Sandy hitting other areas in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, he couldn’t ignore the mental health and psychosocial problems that were co-occurring.
Doppelt was originally trained as a counseling psychologist and worked in the mental health field before transitioning to work in the environmental field. His previous experience allowed him to see the mental health issues that many others didn’t because they weren’t trained to at the time. They were geologists, scientists, and technical people. From Doppelt’s experience, he knew that the mental health impacts were only going to worsen as the climate crisis accelerated.
He also noticed that people and groups impacted by the mental health and psychosocial impacts of the climate crisis often retreated into a self-protective survival mode that led them to oppose solutions for the same problem as they cost money or enforce a change in lifestyle. This is what led Doppelt to begin the ITRC. He aimed to find cost-effective solutions that prevented and healed mental health and psychosocial problems amid the environmental emergency. Doppelt sought to make individuals, families, groups, organizations, and entire communities more resilient.
But what was so unique about the ITRC?
Bob Doppelt speaks to the Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado in Denver June 8, 2012.
During Doppelt's earlier experiences with the Climate Leadership Initiative, he saw a ton of money being spent on external physical climate preparedness and adaptation activities that, unfortunately, were not likely to be all that effective. Almost nothing was being invested in building the resilience of individuals, groups, and communities. But, Doppelt knew that it was possible to prepare people for the traumas and toxic stresses generated by the climate emergency. We can invest in the human dimension of this problem. At the time, however, no one was doing this.
This is what the ITRC would focus on.
How was the ITRC going to accomplish this?
The main problem Doppelt and the ITRC had to overcome was having other organizations and professionals recognize that there were direct and indirect correlations between the climate crisis, mental health, and psychosocial problems. To do so, Doppelt brought together numerous organizations, that had been separated and siloed for a long time, into a dialogue with each other. For example, they brought together a diverse set of people from the American Psychological Association, American Public Health Association, National Association of Social Workers, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, and many others to focus on preventing and healing the mental health and psychosocial problems generated by the climate emergency.
People began to grasp the connections as more frequent extreme disasters continually impacted locations across the US and worldwide. The impacts were accelerating which were added to other toxic stresses and traumas people everywhere were experiencing.
The ITRC helped communities respond to the traumatic stresses by running resilience-building workshops, trainings, and educational programs.
Why is this important?
Bob Doppelt speaks to Northern Wyoming and eastern Idaho sustainability practitioners at the Teton Science School in Jackson, Wyoming on August 16, 2012.
Doppelt believed that community-based mental wellness and transformational resilience-building are among one of the most important approaches to combat widespread harmful mental health and psychosocial problems generated by the climate emergency. Even though Doppelt believes professional mental health treatment will remain important, he also knows mental health systems in the US are overwhelmed and will be incapable of assisting the millions of people who are and will be impacted as the climate emergency worsens. He realized that the prevention of individual and collective trauma by enhancing the capacity for, what he calls transformational resilience, not individualized post-trauma treatment, must be the top priority. So, this is what the ITRC is focused on.
So what is the ITRC doing? And, what can I do to help?
ITRC works on multiple levels. At the policy level, the ITRC is working on getting the Resiliency For All Act introduced in the US Congress, which you can read more about here. With support from over 80 organizations, including the Trauma Resource Institute, they are calling on Congress to enact the Resiliency For All Act, which uses a public health approach to prevent and heal traumas through whole-community approaches. Doppelt and his team know implementing a new approach and policy is difficult and takes time. Despite all the ups and downs, he stays committed by remembering words from a former colleague who said that the only way to make a change in politics is through “endless pressure applied endlessly.”
They are also working at the educational and trainings levels through ongoing conferences, workshops, webinars, and media campaigns to raise awareness. The ITRC is launching the Community of Practice in fall 2022. The CoP will focus on how to organize and operate community initiatives that use a public health approach to enhance mental wellness and transformational resilience to the climate emergency. Learn more about the initiative here or you can apply to the CoP here.
One approach the ITRC also uses to help people in communities learn self-regulation, or what Doppelt calls Presencing skills, is the Community Resiliency Model (CRM)®. Doppelt believes CRM is an effective approach and set of tools to help others attain some control over their body, mind, and emotions amidst the distresses caused during the climate emergency. Doppelt also believes CRM offers what he refers to as Purposing skills, which are methods to help people find new sources of meaning, direction, and health hope in the midst of ongoing adversities. When community members begin to see incremental and steady progress, Doppelt believes their sense of hope and faith in the future improves.
As far as how others can get involved in the mission, Doppelt says that individuals should meet with family, friends, and colleagues in their communities to discuss how to organize a local coalition that eventually will help all adults and youth build their capacity for mental wellness and transformational resiliency for the long-term climate emergency. Start with anywhere from 2-5 people or find other groups and organizations in your community to start a vision and action plan. From there, positive changes can only grow.
To learn more about the ITRC or for others ways to get involved, click here.