Community Activated Medicine™
DEFINING CAM™
What is CAM™?
Community Activated Medicine™, abbreviated to "CAM™", was coined and developed by our CEO, Founder, and Clinical Director Lea S. Denny. It was started to support collective grieving for collective healing. Within the communities that Denny walked in she saw historical trauma manifested in generations of disenfranchised and complex grief. Using practice-based medicine she saw immediate results with gathering community members together to create a space where we can collectively grieve. Informed by cultural and ancestral knowledge she created connections with land, people, stories, and food as a way of healing.
CAM™ is where cultural healing ways, community activism, transformative justice, radical healing and liberation intersect to create action-oriented wellness; it is where the people are the medicine. This approach has two parts, to inform the community and providers and to activate their action on how to be part of the process in addressing the healing needs for communities and creating change for the generations of our past, present, and future.
CAM™ is both a noun and verb; it is a process for mending social fabric through healing connections and the process of activating these community-informed spaces. It is where we protect and share our sacred healing traditions in collaboration with inclusive mental health ways to support the healing of the one's mind, body, heart, and spirit for the community, and the greater global plane. A CAM™ Informed practice is a framework that focuses on healing historical trauma/loss as transgenerational trauma/loss through utilizing an Intergenerational Healing Approach™ and embodying a decolonizing mental health and wellness practice.
The CAM™ Theoretical Approach
With Community Activated Medicine™ (CAM™), CAM™ Providers understand that the relative’s presenting symptoms, functioning, and concerns are interconnected and interdependent on their relational and environmental health. When working with a CAM™ Provider, a holistic and interdisciplinary approach is utilized. This is done by practice based generating evidence through biological, sensory, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritually informed assessments and evaluations to measure needs and identify interventions. To apply CAM™ techniques, a counselor works with relatives to understand self-attunement, relational attunement, environmental attunement, and community belonging.
The relative’s will be taught Healing Intergenerational Roots – Meaningful Attunement Processing Skills™ (HIR-MAPS™), identifying intergenerational ancestral strengths, building/ bridging a Circle of Care™, and nurturing a circle of Children’s Fire Guardians.
When working with a CAM™ Provider the outcomes that can be supported include: understanding of their presenting concerns/ symptoms, better relationships with self, improved over-all functioning, stronger sense of reciprocity, increased sense of belonging, a practice of responsibility, a connection with ancestral wisdoms, and increased comfort with vulnerability.
We believe that CAM™ is a foundational theoretical orientation in which the professional commits to working on their own healing, growth, and ancestral work as they offer a variety of techniques, tools, and therapies to their relatives (clients).
UPCOMING CAM™ EVENTS
CAM™ FRAMEWORK
Your Guardians for Your Circle of Care™
Our CEO, Founder, and Clinical Director Lea S. Denny developed the Intergenerational Healing Approach™ (IHA) to address and heal historical trauma through community mental health and wellness centered services and programming. Out of this work she developed an approach to decolonize mental health pedagogy and practices which she then used to build the HIR Wellness Institute. Denny pioneered an organization structured as a network utilizing Indigenous tolls such as shared leadership, matriarchal governance, and teachings of The Children’s Fire. As her work and the organization grew so did concepts and practices that became her CAM Framework™.
Part of CAM™ is leaning into the people around you that you consider safe, loving, joyful, and protective. As we navigate our healing journey, we come across people who touch our lives in a positive way. Sometimes it is our parents, caregivers, grandparents, friends, aunties, cousins, teachers, coaches, or a local librarian. Our guardians are those who helped us feel seen and heard. They are the people we are able to connect to within the community when we need advice, or someone to talk with when we are feeling a little down. Take some time to think about who those special people are in your life. Identify your guardians to create a Circle of Care™!
CAMPsites™
Community Activated Medicine Provider Sites™ are part of the CAM™ Mental Health Without Borders™ programs developed by Lea S. Denny. These are our “offices” in the community, and are mental health pop-up spaces to support immediate community and relational care. This is done by bringing licensed mental health and trained wellness providers, community healers, and advocates to shared collective spaces. This is part of our commitment to create free access to mental health professionals and advocacy support. Learn more about how we bring Community Activated Medicine™ to our communities and spaces using CAMPsites™ in our video below.
HIR-MAPS™
Healing Intergenerational Roots – Meaningful Attunement Processing Skills
Developed out of our CAM Framework™ is leaning into those things throughout your life that bring you joy. At HIR Wellness Institute we teach how to build your own wellness kits to continue your h