Crossnore’s Center for Trauma Resilient Communities has been working in Western North Carolina to embed and embody the science of trauma resilience with individuals and organizations.
Western North Carolina TRC Project
The WNC-TRC Project wrapped up in fall 2025. This initiative, with the generous support of Dogwood Health Trust, focused on working with existing resilience collaboratives and partners in three counties – Henderson, Polk, and Transylvania – to enhance their resilience efforts through additional training, organizational capacity-building and coaching, and implementation support. Twelve backbone organizations (BBA) in these three counties worked individually and collectively as a learning community to develop and cultivate a core set of resilience-building blocks.
Leaders and team members of these agencies will build trauma-informed knowledge, skills, behaviors, and trauma-responsive environments. This leads to positive systems change, renewed wellness, energy and purpose for program participants, community members and the caregiving professionals serving in these agencies. The WNC-TRC project is an opportunity to co-create a culture of hope, as communities heal together.
Healing Centered Churches Initiative
Since 2024, we have been partnering with the United Methodist Western Conference on a Healing Centered Church Initiative. The long-term objectives of the Building Healing-Centered Faith Communities initiative are to support WNC UMC leaders and congregations in establishing the internal capacity (knowledge, understanding, skills, practices, and leadership) to sustain a trauma-informed and trauma-resilient church culture.
We Heal Together High Country
We are excited to announce that in January 2026, Dogwood Health Trust awarded funding to launch the “We Heal Together High Country” initiative. This two-year commitment is a strategic response to the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene, focusing on long-term psychosocial recovery of Avery, Mitchell, and Yanacy Counties.
While much of the disaster recovery to date has focused on physical infrastructure, this grant prioritizes the “human infrastructure” of the High Country. By investing in leadership development for executive leaders and comprehensive capacity building for area nonprofits, the initiative ensures that the organizations serving on the front lines are emotionally and operationally equipped for the years of recovery ahead.
