Our HCRE Story:

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From roughly 2011 to 2020, Tracy -- with a masters and PhD in public administration and public affairs -- oversaw an AmeriCorps program in SE Michigan that specifically recruited so called disconnected youth – or “Opportunity Youth” ages 17-25 – to serve in their communities.  In fact, the program enrolled other disconnected adults of up to roughly 50 years in age who had experienced many adverse experiences in their lives as well. The program became committed to reconnecting participants to systems of wellbeing, like work and school, and help them to identify a path for moving their lives toward family sustaining careers grounded in their strengths and passions for making the world a better place. 

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While doing this work, Tracy became more intimately aware of the trauma and toxic stress that had created disconnection in the lives of these AmeriCorps members and the clients of the nonprofits where they served. She reached out to Dr. Jess Camp, a social work professor who had deep clinical and macro social work experience, to learn more about human service supports that could be made available to her AmeriCorps members.  That initial conversation led to many more conversations between them as they jointly became committed to identifying ways and means to reconnect and support the program’s participants and clients.

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Jess and Tracy engaged in deep literature reviews of their respective superpowers, public administration and social work, to identify evidence-based approaches to inform their programmatic work. As they explored approaches such as trauma-informed care, resilience, intersectionality, healing centered engagement, and social emotional learning - all of which were increasingly well known - they wove these into an iterative, process-based, culture-change approach to address ways that trauma and toxic stress are present in employment, organizations, and communities. It became clear from this work that trauma is a force of disconnection, and agencies need help to proactively engage in healing, relationship, and supportive connection to restore well-being.

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As their collaboration has deepened over the years, they have built on and contributed new methods and practices in the self, interpersonal, organizational, community and policy arenas.  Their collaboration ultimately led them to leave careers in higher education to share and advance their approach with clients full-time.        

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Jess and Tracy prefer to call themselves “pracademics” as both have decades of on-the-ground practitioner experience in the nonprofit and public sectors, but also happen to have unintentionally completed highly competitive doctoral programs which provide them with academic perspectives and skillsets, such as a continuous commitment to research and evaluation. Tracy’s scholarship is directly related to identifying and explicating alternative administrative methods to organizing and operating nonprofit and public sector agencies. Jess brings a social justice-oriented poverty researcher perspective that bridges micro and macro social work approaches.  
 

Together with a growing number of collaborators who value their approach, they immensely enjoy coaching and encouraging their clients and colleagues to explore new ways of working and responding to our complex and increasingly challenging world.