FARMINGTON — A group of University of Maine at Farmington students has spent the last semester asking people in Franklin County what is needed to “make a community more resilient in the face of trauma.”
It’s part of a research project the students have undertaken to identify those factors. Their semester-long research project will culminate Wednesday evening in a poster session that will be open to the public from 6 to 7 p.m. at the UMF Olsen Student Center in North Dining Hall A, B, and C.
The research project was the collaborative effort of about 65 students in five academic courses spanning several disciplines, including community health, rehabilitative services and special education.
Over the course of the last semester, they participated in community events and conducted interviews and research with community members and stakeholders to discover what a community needs in order to be resilient and informed about how to prevent and handle trauma.
“Right now, the push in the state of Maine is prevention,” said Katherine Kemp, UMF’s lecturer of rehabilitative services. “Prevention goes a lot further. It’s more about how we as a community and a society can come together to prevent trauma.”
Students were able to pick a specific area of trauma to research that could be studied in Franklin County, Kemp said. Topics students chose to research included substance abuse, gender issues, domestic violence, suicide prevention, child abuse and neglect and fostering resiliency in veterans.
“The research was all along the same question but with different topics,” Kemp said. “They had to work in Franklin County. (The research) is very much focused with what is going on in the state right now.”
At Wednesday’s presentation, the public will be able to view the students’ findings and talk with them about how Franklin County can remain more resilient to trauma that occurs in their communities.
Lauren Abbate — 861-9252
Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate
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