DR. NICOLE G. WILKE Director, Research Center
CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE FOR ORPHANS
MEREDITH CALEB
Educator & WriterALISHA PANGBORN Techincal Writer & Research Coordinator
Created to Heal: How Neuroplasticity Offers Hope for Children & Their Families
What exactly is Neuroplasticity, and how can it help children in adversity and their families? Created to Heal explores the incredible way that the human brain is created to heal and how it offers hope for children who have experienced adversity and trauma early in life. While adverse experiences can negatively impact brain development, this book reveals how nurturing environments and intentional caregiving can literally rewire the brain for healing and help these children move towards fulfilling their potential.
Topics Covered in Created to Heal
Chapter 1: Straightening the Tree: Why Neuroplasticity Matters
Chapter 2: How Brains Develop and Change
Chapter 3: How the Brain Responds to Stress
Chapter 4: How Brains Heal from Trauma
Chapter 5: Practical Principles to Support Healing
Suggested Interview Topics and Questions
• Understanding the idea of neuroplasticity, how the brain can change across life
• The differences between stress, adversity, and trauma
• How stress can be positive, tolerable, or toxic, and how stress impacts the brain
• Why learning about early brain development is important and relevant to caregivers, parents, teachers, church members, and others
• What it means for children to be impacted by early adversity and what it means for them to heal
• How positive experiences with adults can alter a child’s mind for the better and help them heal from early adversity
• How caregivers and parents can apply this information
• Ways that caregivers, parents, teachers, church members, and others can work together to be positive influences on the children in their lives
“Understanding how the brain can change and heal is essential for those who love and care for children who have experienced early adversity.”
Our hope for Created to Heal:
“Thoughts are real, physical things that occupy mental real estate. Moment by moment, every day, you are changing the structure of your brain through your thinking. When we hope, it is an activity of the mind that changes the structure of our brain in a positive and normal direction.”
Knowing that a child’s brain can heal from early adversity matters. Our primary goal for this book is to inform the broader Christian community about the idea of neuroplasticity and to provide hope and practical tools for helping children who have experienced early adversity. We aim to spread the profound and hopeful message that while early adversity can shape the brain, the brain was indeed created with the ability to heal - and that we all have a role to play in unlocking that healing potential for children who have faced hardship.
