In anticipation of America’s Promise Alliance’s fifth annual Promise Night, we’ll introduce you to each of the night’s honorees, who are all outstanding individuals helping to deliver the American dream to young people across the country.

“We actually don’t have the answers, the answers are in communities and in the people we are investing in.

Are you working to advance young people’s social, emotional, and cognitive development? Are you poised to extend those efforts through intentional crosssector collaboration? Is your organization trusted in the community to represent and honorits young people?

When I first started teaching, I could not have guessed that my understanding of human development, psychological responses to trauma and cultural nuance (I was a sociology and psychology major in college) would so strongly inform my approach to managing my classroom and connecting with my students. Without this baseline knowledge, I may have never discovered the true value of Trauma Informed Practices (TIP) in schools.