Community Education

CHFA is an organization that strives to strengthen Colorado through increasing housing stability and economic prosperity for Coloradans. Their mission is to increase the availability of affordable and accessible housing. Since 1973 CHFA has continued to find ways to support Coloradans, including the creation of homeownership programs, small business financing, and homebuyer education. The training program CHFAreach was created as an expansion of CHFA, to provide resources, education, and assistance for individuals to better navigate the affordable housing industry. The staff members of CHFAreach work on multiple levels to further this mission and to support all multifamily property staff members from owners, managers, and on-property-site staff.

Ardent Grove has partnered with this wonderful organization to help support their employees in the work they do for the community. We have provided a presentation on grief in the workplace and plan to facilitate another group discussion on grief during the holidays. We are thrilled to provide education and facilitate discussions about mental health to the CHFAreach staff as they continue to do the hard work of supporting their community members and strengthening affordable housing.

Click to learn more about CHFA and CHFAreach!

For Love and Babes is a Durango based, grassroots organization who's mission is to create a safe space for parents to gather, share and support one another through deep listening and compassion.

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The goals of their Mom & Baby and Mom & Toddler group meetings are:

• To share your parenting experiences, thoughts and feelings with the group in order to gain better insight into your own problems and struggles. By your willingness to be vulnerable and share you may help someone else through a similar problem or predicament.
• To bond with one another and form new lasting friendships as a result of going through this special transition in life together.
• To maintain confidentiality in the group by not sharing or gossiping outside the group about other member’s private matters.
• To learn more about parenting babies and to discover the wealth of family resources that our community has to offer.
• To know that you are not alone at this stage of your life. Other people are experiencing the same highs and lows that you are.
• This group is not an appropriate replacement for traditional therapy, but can support you on your journey. If you are struggling on a deeper level and could benefit from some one-on-one therapy, please reach out to us via our contact page and we can give you some referrals to trusted providers that would love to help you feel better!
• To start and end each meeting on time to the best of our ability.
• To relax, enjoy each other’s company and have fun!!

Ardent Grove has partnered with this incredible organization to dig deeper into trauma informed spaces for perinatal mental health. We are truly honored to be working together!

Learn more about For Loves and Babes here!

Community Table is an organization based in Arvada, Colorado, and was founded in 1982 to provide food resources to the community. Serving the Northern Denver Metro Area, their offerings have expanded to include dental and nursing care, as well as financial support and job training. The organization was founded in the idea that everyone should have access to the food and resources to foster autonomy and self-sufficiency. Ardent Grove is proud to partner with them to increase access to mental health services, including providing educational events where Ardent Grove therapists discuss the impacts of trauma and ways to mitigate it. Learn more about Community Table here!

The greater Denver area has been at the center of this new phenomena of school-centered violence, beginning with the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 and continuing through the shooting at STEM Highlands Ranch 20 years later. This year Denver was also targeted by someone who travelled here specifically to perpetrate a school shooting  -  this unfortunate legacy has made our community even more vulnerable violence. It was these recent events and recognition of the human tendency to move on and forget that made us realize that as trauma specialists we have a unique and important role to play in our community.

Trauma has been shown to be one of the risk factors to school violence as is a lack of mental health intervention. There is evidence that mental health awareness and response is an important part of preventing events of school violence. Of course, we also need trauma awareness after an incident of school violence as each incident (or even threat) leaves the mark of trauma on many children, teachers, and parents.

Traumatic situations such as school violence and other life-threatening acts against children and adults continue to impact our community.  We look back at our experiences and work to support parents, teachers, and other community members who need to be better equipped to take care of themselves and to speak with their children about understanding, recognizing, and preventing violence through knowledge and improved mental health care. Looking forward we need to increase stress management techniques, self-care for all ages, and understanding of when to be afraid, when to react, and when to enjoy life with security. Ardent Grove presenters will help adults to recognize and address signs of trauma in themselves and children.

Ardent Grove's Resilience Project engages in community outreach in the form of presentations and discussions that focuses on trauma awareness, concerns of children, parents, and other adults, and directly addresses school violence using psycho-education in social-emotional awareness and resilience for all ages.  

A typical community event under the Resilience Project includes two discussions: 

• One with parents and other adults that address how they might feel safe for themselves and also in caring for children in this current climate of possible violence in schools.  Additionally we discuss how to recognize the effects of trauma and responses in adults and children. 
• Simultaneously, the second discussion is focused on helping children to develop language and identification of social-emotional needs in themselves and their friends.  In this discussion we provide different activities for children focused on empathy and kindness and identifying feelings.  

We attempt to provide these two discussions simultaneously in order to help to avoid one possible barrier to obtaining mental health support through difficulties with childcare.  By offering the social-emotional component for children in the form of teaching and childcare, we hope that more adults can attend the larger, community discussion and the children can learn skills for themselves for their own mental wellness.

We are living in an uncertain time and are all dealing with an increase in stress. We have heard from so many people in our community- doctors, medical professionals, birth professionals, clients, and even just friends and family about the overwhelm people are feeling. We can help with many of the big topics that are often coming up for people around the increased stress we are feeling due to covid-19 and other current events. Including:

Anxiety and Depression

Burn out

Parenting In a Pandemic

Relationship Issues

Trauma triggers

Stress and Overwhelm

We are happy to address any mental health related issues that may be arising, from vicarious trauma and burnout to self-care and stress management and any other topics that would improve health and well-being for our community.