Trauma Free World

Rob Hall is the President of Trauma Free World and brings experiences as a Masters Level Professional Counselor working with kids from trauma, a Doctoral degree in Education focused with expertise in disruptive innovation, and leadership in an international non-profit serving orphans and vulnerable children.

Dr. Hall leads Trauma Free World's small but growing team of experienced and expert trainers, non-profit leaders, and business-builders. He adds his expertise in leading teams and leveraging technology to offer on-demand, live-streaming, and blended learning approaches for learners.

Child development experts have found that changing the future for a child who has experienced trauma is possible with specific interventions known as trauma-informed care. Our mission is to make trauma-informed care training available to everyone, everywhere.

Trauma Free World brings world-class training out of university classrooms and makes it accessible to all adults. Training for every teacher, parent, foster and adoptive parent; every social worker, health-care worker, and aid worker; every school, church, and NGO; every income and educational level; on every phone, tablet, laptop, and chalkboard; in every country and every language. Because when adults provide trauma-informed care, children heal and we begin to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

One billion children experience the effects of trauma. But, there are 5 billion adults in the world who can rally around them. We’re partnering with individuals, families, and organizations to end the epidemic of childhood trauma.

There are 2 billion children in the world. One billion experience the effects of trauma - neglect, abuse, and abandonment. One out of every two children on our planet.

Complex trauma impacts everything – brain, body, biology, belief system, and behavior. 

Kids who experience this type of trauma not only have difficult childhoods, as adults they are 2x's more likely to experience poverty; 3x's more likely to experience depression; 4x's alcoholism and drug use; 10x's learning problems; 15x's attempted suicide. And, they are over 50% more likely to repeat the cycle with their own children because they never truly heal.

But, the presence of one loving adult in the life of a child can make a difference.

The problem is that the the overwhelming majority of loving and caring adults, the best institutional programming, and the most effective organizations are limited in their impact because they are not skilled in the specific interventions of trauma-informed care. 

Trauma Free World and the training we provide is a force multiplier for people already engaged in working with children (and adults) who experience the effects of complex developmental trauma.

Trauma Free World uses a digital platform and comprehensive Learning Management System to provide on-demand trauma training for anyone with a mobile phone or internet connection. Subtitles, closed captioning, and a diverse training team provide culturally adapted training in a learners first language.

Increasingly, using micro-learning and meta-data allows TFW to personalize learning based on user experience and need. 

The digital platform, supplemented by live-streaming and in-person training, also offers many TFW users a full spectrum of on-demand, live-streaming, and in-person training to drive blended learning options.

We believe if we can train the world, we can change the world!

Trauma Free World works to help children and young adults who've experienced complex developmental trauma with the goal of improving their lives and breaking the cycle of generational trauma.  

We do that by training adults who find themselves caring for this population in the specific skills of trauma-informed care. In just the last two years we've trained people from 68 countries, representing over 300,000 children and growing. 

TFW partners with The Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University to understand the most up-to-date research on the effects of complex trauma and The Ohio State University's College of Social Work to measure the desired impact of our training. 

Additionally, TFW's training has been through several iterations over the last seven years as we work directly with partners all around the world - from semi-literate Children's Home workers in Haiti, Nigeria, Mexico, and India, to highly educated helping professionals in places like the United States, Mexico/Latin America, and Eastern Europe, to adoptive and foster parents from all corners of the world. 

We've heard and are responding to the need for flexible, on-demand, easily digestible, and increasingly personalized training that is scalable beyond a traditional in-person learning experience.

At the heart of providing trauma-informed care is the need to build the understanding of helpers/caregivers and, therefore, "change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors" toward children who've experienced complex developmental trauma. 

Elevating issues by "building awareness and driving action" is also an aligned dimension of Trauma Free World. A huge plurality of helpers/caregivers are unaware that those who've experienced complex trauma even need special interventions to promote healing - or that the "traditional" interventions they are using can actually create further harm. 

Helping children heal from trauma is one of the most difficult and important problems of our world.

Trauma Free World's parent organization, Back2Back Ministries, has been serving orphaned and vulnerable children around the world since 1997. In 2009, continued frustration with the lack of long-term success for children Back2Back served - even those the organization provided with a high school and university education in loving family-style homes - led Back2Back to dedicate itself to developing solutions. 

Convinced that offering trauma-informed care was indeed the backbone of those solutions, by 2014 Back2Back forged a partnership with the Karyn Purvis Institute for Child Development, hired Dr. David and Jayne Schooler to provide training for their entire international staff and partners, and dedicated itself to being a trauma-informed organization from Board and leadership level on down. 

By the end of 2015 lives were being changed and consistent healing in the lives of children was evident. Other organizations began to ask how they, too, could provide similar care. 

By the end of 2019 Back2Back had trained people from 68 countries representing over 250,000 children.

Several iterations of training material later and building on the overwhelming demand from individuals, organizations, and governments around the globe, Back2Back knew a separate organization focused solely on training was necessary. Trauma Free World was born.

This is not just an organizational passion. This isn't just a theoretical and conceptual idea we want to share with others.

As foster and adoptive parents, missionaries living abroad working with orphans and vulnerable children, as professional counselors and social workers, as trainers of social workers and foster/adoptive parents, our staff has dedicated themselves to the care of orphaned, vulnerable, and traumatized children over our entire adult lives. 

Helping children who have been neglected, abandoned, and abused is personal.

Trauma Free World's team is uniquely qualified to understand developmental trauma, deliver trauma training to everyone, everywhere, and connect with global partners for collaboration.

Our team includes: 

1. A parent organization with over 20 years of first-hand experience working with the some of the most vulnerable children on our planet.
2. One of the most respected and senior trainers of adoptive and foster parents in the U.S. and of Social Workers in the State of Ohio.
3. A master trainer/doctoral candidate who has trained caregivers from the U.S., Canada, all over Latin America and the African Continent, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
4. A CFO with a long history of building successful businesses throughout his career.
5. A President with a Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership and a demonstrated history of innovation in combining traditional classroom instruction with technology solutions to form a blended learning model of learning, as well as a Master's Degree in Counseling and a specialty in working with children who experienced incest and sexual abuse.
6. Partnerships with The Ohio State University College of Social Work and Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University
7. Partnership with 5th Element Group, "described by Forbes as 'an outstanding global braintrust network,' with the capacity to create unprecedented omniwin partnerships that grow your enterprise, attract top talent, and create a positive impact on society and the environment."

The craziness of late 2019 leading into Q3 of 2020 has provided ample opportunities to overcome adversity for a young organization like Trauma Free World.

While adapting in-person training to serve a live-streaming audience and adding content to our on-demand library was slated for later in the year and into Q1 of 2021, both COVID-19 and the resurgent push for racial equity and justice required an immediate response. 

Doing so caused us to adjust everything - marketing, sales, content creation, curriculum development, tech support, budget. It has caused great stress, not only on our strategic planning but on our team, as well.

As a team, we're handling the cycle of "frustration -> friction -> resolution" by doubling down on our commitment to the cause and to one another, creating additional structures for communication and collaboration, and openly airing out our differences until we reach consensus. 

Externally, we are quickly creating/adapting content and building new alliances that will bring this content to an expanding and unexpected network of people - the largest, predominantly black church on the eastern seaboard, corporate philanthropy and diversity teams, large national and international non-profits.

The adversity has accelerated and altered our planning. We've accepted the challenge.

WhIle I could offer examples of organizational leadership over the last 20 years that are scattered across my resume, I'd rather offer a deeply personal example highlighting the skills demanded of an organizational leader.

A few years ago my 20 year-old nephew died of an accidental opioid overdose. Alex had been a high-school soccer star until a concussion and other injuries led him to find ways to fill his idle time. Depressed and without the structure and friendships soccer provided, he ultimately filled that time with new "friends" and regular drug use.

To say Alex's death was devastating would not do it justice. My family needed someone to "step-up" to provide leadership such a tragedy requires. Someone to provide vision that we could - and would - make it through.

Managing the emotional needs of immediate and extended family, the various needs and requests of friends and acquaintances, all while helping my sister and brother-in-law with funeral details, is not something one "prepares for" in a traditional sense. 

However, balancing all of it, while maintaining my own emotional equilibrium along the way, is as much a study in leadership as anything I could highlight from my resume.

Trauma Free World is a Back2Back Learn Organization - a 501(c)3 legally separate from, but solely owned by, Back2Back Ministries.

On-demand trauma training for anyone with a smart phone or internet connection, in that person's first language, is - on its own - an innovative approach to getting world-class training to everyone, everywhere.

However, the goal of building into the digital learning platform content that is formatted for micro-learning with tagged meta-data - like a combination of Khan Academy and Spotify for trauma-training - will allow for individually curated content.

Finally, plans for utilizing SMS/MMS messaging will allow TFW to drive the personal application of what the user has learned in real time - based on the user's profile and content consumption.

Problem trying to solve:

• The effects of complex trauma in children
• Lack of knowledge in adults that complex trauma exists
• The use of interventions/strategies that do not help, and often even harm, children who have experienced complex trauma
• The cycle of complex trauma from generation to generation

Key Audience:

• Adult caregivers/helping professionals/educators, etc.
• Children who experience complex trauma

Entrypoint:

• Training for adults who care for children

Steps needed:

• Simplify access:
  • on-demand training to anyone with internet or mobile phone
  • "translating" academic material to speak to both professional and non-professional audience
• Provide learning in adult's first language
• Partner with organizations/NGO's/NPO's as a force amplifier to make the work already being done even better
  • Any humanitarian work is made even better when it is trauma informed
  • Only the most resilient recipients of care can actually take advantage of non-trauma informed interventions
• No entry cost to the trainee

Measurable effect and wider benefits:

• Increased understanding, empathy, and skill for adults who work with kids from trauma with wider benefit of adults who grew up with their own complex trauma becoming healthier themselves.
• Decrease in ill-effects of trauma on children (depression, alcohol/drug use, educational and behavioral problems, suicidality, negative biological effects of stress) with wider benefit of increased self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-esteem, healthier relationships, etc.
• Empowering professional, para-professional, and non-professional helpers to bring healing to children within their own communities with the wider benefit of developing trained helpers to assist doctors/nurses/social workers in traditionally hard-to-staff areas of the world.

Long-term change:

• Increased health and well-being of those who have experienced complex trauma (lower stress-related illness, greater employability, trustworthy neighbors in the community, economically sustainable families, stronger familial relationships, lower orphan recidivism, etc.)
• Breaking the cycle of generational trauma

Since 2015, we have trained over 3,500 individuals from 68 countries representing over 300,000 children.

In the next year we are targeting - and have been in discussion with - 10 influential organizations in anticipation of providing training for over 250,000 individuals.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people Trauma Free World could serve in 5 years and how many children that would represent.

Within Next Year:

Build on demand training/faith-based courses in English and Spanish

Lay foundations for micro-learning with tagged meta-data

Expand training team (with particular goal of expanding diversity of team beyond white and Latino trainers)

Partner with global tech firm to deliver most robust Learning Management System available 

Within Five Years:

Provide free training for anyone with a mobile phone or internet connection

Partner with regional/state/national/global organizations across government, NGO/NPO, education, and health care sectors to provide targeted training for their constituents/partners.

Use machine learning to increasingly personalize learning and  provide automated coaching for parents, caregivers, and organizational constituents outlined above.

We are currently building partnerships that provide connections to users/trainees (e.g. United Nations, U.S Federal/State government, national and international NGO/NPO networks), but three core areas include barriers to scalability over the next year and next five years - staffing, technical infrastructure, and, as is the case with any start-up, the funding necessary.

In the next year:

The ability to aggressively scale is most specifically tied to the area of building a larger, more diverse content creation team and adding staff/expertise to our tech team.

In the next five years:

Staffing, technical expertise, and funding to:

• Stand up a world class tech organization that has state of the art Learning Management System (LMS) and Content Management System (CMS) - and replicate it for disaster readiness.   
• Create flexible, pliable, chunk-able and reusable content that can be easily switched to different languages. 
• Establish a first class customer support and client service team, potentially in several parts of the world to handle questions and assure a quality experience using the product.
• Expertise in machine learning for increasingly individualized learning and right-on-time coaching/learning support.

Trauma Free World will aggressively pursue omniwins as potential partners arise in the areas of funding, tech, and content.

Some specific examples of early movement as we address the barriers listed above:

• TFW's partnership with 5th Element Group is a key to discovering and unlocking funding and tech partnerships
• TFW is in very early discussion with friends at Google regarding the barriers regarding LMS/CMS and machine learning. This would be our first choice for such a partnership but we would be open to other possibilities.
• We have access to recently retired tech executive with expertise in micro-learning and meta-data as we build out content with this in mind.

5th Element Group - investigating and creating omni-win opportunities for TFW with United Nations, Federal/State Government, corporations, NGOs/NPOs, and family offices 

Karyn Purvis Institute for Child Development - ongoing research-base regarding the effects of trauma

Ohio State University College of Social Work - research to determine efficacy of TFW training

National Foster Parent Association - working in collaboration to provide on-demand training to their state foster parent networks.

Christian Alliance for Orphans - providing training and resources for CAFO members around the world

World Without Orphans (Romania) - training trainers within their network by providing access to materials and ongoing coaching.

Adoption Share/Family Match - on-demand training for potential adoptive families who are using their tech platform for child/family matches.

Country of Latvia - requires Trauma Free World training for all new foster parents and is offering training to already established foster/adoptive parents and prison workers

Countries of Latvia Lithuania, Estonia, Costa Rica; Province of Saskatchewan, CA; State of Nuevo Leon, MX - provide training for government social workers and/or foster/adoptive parents.

Trauma Free World provides several modalities of trauma training - on demand, live-streaming, and in-person - so that users can decide on the best modality for them. Both scalability and individualization of training are directly tied to on-demand and live-streaming.

The training is priced aggressively in an effort to reach as many people across the socioeconomic spectrum as possible and is sold to:

• Individuals – directly through our TFW website. These purchases are typically for 1 or 2 training modules at a time.
• Organizations – through sales calls to targeted organizations. These purchases are larger and can range from dozens, thousands, and tens-of-thousands of trainees.

TFW also solicits corporate and individual sponsors to underwrite the cost of training for a particular constituency. These constituencies, similar to our sales to organizations, can range from dozens to thousands of trainees.

Since most of the training occurs online the business is scalable. The majority of the costs associated with the business center around developing content and curriculum, providing a strong, reliable LMS/CMS to deliver content, and sales/marketing. There are also a handful of general and administrative functions that support the business.

The economics of the business are solid and provide a path to financial sustainability with modest penetration of the market.

The online training went live in Q2, is now being sold, and the training is being accessed by both individuals and organizations. 

The primary focus has now shifted from piloting and establishing the infrastructure to increasing revenue through sales to individuals and organizations, donor development, and sponsorships.  

For 2020, we project to break even once approximately 30,000 on-demand training modules have been sold at standard pricing.

TFW sales and development efforts started in Q2, 2020.

To date, we have: 

• Sold approximately $25,000 in training
• Received $10,000 in sponsored training from a private donor for Boys and Girls Club of Greater Cincinnati
• Received two separate private individual donations totaling $600,000 

We also have dozens of other organizational sales opportunities, donors, and sponsorships in various stages of discussion.

Fundraising will be limited to grants, individual/corporate donations, and gifts-in-kinds - no debt or equity.

As mentioned in Section 2: More about Your Work, we described growth in the areas of content creation and curriculum, as well as in technical support and expertise. Fundraising parallels our need to grow in these two areas.

Content/Curriculum/Training Team:

We are seeking immediate funding to hire a cohort of diverse trainers. People of Color - both women and men - that can deliver training in all three training modalities - on-demand, live-streaming, and in-person. This funding would cover two years of salary and benefits for one full-time and four part-time trainers.  Total funding would be $200,000/year. 

Tech:

We're seeking to build the infrastructure for LMS/CMS, UX/UI, integration with TFW's website either through gifts-in-kind from a corporate tech partner who would grant unlimited access to their LMS/CMS and use of employee expertise or funding a team of our own. Total estimated cost would be $100K-120K per month over a 12-15 month time period.

At current levels of productivity and staffing, Trauma Free World's budget for 2020 is $800,000.

The Elevate Prize offers an organization like Trauma Free World access not only to funding, but to a network of technical, business, start-up, and philanthropic expertise unavailable elsewhere.

Imagining our work as the technology "offspring" of organizations like Khan Academy, and services like Spotify and YouTube, access to the kind of people who drove such innovation would provide TFW with unparalleled support. 

In addition, connecting our work to like-minded entrepreneurs who've successfully blazed similar trails would provide insight and motivation to overcome known and unknown barries  

Trauma Free World has enjoyed unbelievable support and a network of like-minded people who have specific expertise and reach in monitoring, evaluation, marketing, media, and exposure. It is truly remarkable what has happened in such a short time.

Adding to this foundation with partnerships/advisors that offer insight into funding and revenue, talent recruitment - especially in technology, and business savvy will allow the organization to scale on rock-solid footing.