Pilot Program (Pre-Launch Stage)
Where healing is the norm, not the exception, for every child in every system across Illinois.
THE HEALING FIRST INITIATIVE
Program Overview
Children affected by intergenerational trauma often navigate fragmented systems, leaving gaps in protection and support. The Healing First Initiative is currently in its design and pilot phase, developed by Unity for Children to engineer lasting systemic change for Illinois families.
Guided by the C.H.I.L.D. Framework, we are building a system that integrates trauma-informed strategies with a deliberate focus on healing—an aspect often overlooked in a child’s journey. Without this focus, intergenerational cycles of trauma persist.
The Vision: Through evidence-based practices and cross-sector collaboration, we are designing a framework where healing drives every decision, ensuring it becomes the standard for every child in Illinois.
From The Inside Out 2026
Where Healing Guides Intervention to End Intergenerational Trauma
The convening brings together professionals, advocates, community members with lived experience, and system leaders committed to reimagining how we respond to childhood trauma across disciplines, roles, and systems.
Through keynote presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions featuring evidence-based, trauma-informed strategies, participants gain actionable insights, share best practices, and leave inspired to advance systemic change. This covening lays the foundation for the Healing First Initiative, showing how prioritizing children’s recovery needs and understanding their trauma can help guide decisions that serve their long-term best interests.
Immersive experience that equips child-serving professionals to apply proven approaches.
The Retreat immerses child- and family-serving professionals and caregivers in evidence-based, trauma-informed strategies, including mindfulness, self-regulation exercises, and structured reflective practices shown to support well-being, resilience, and effective intervention.
By experiencing these approaches firsthand, participants gain practical understanding of what effective trauma-informed care looks and feels like, empowering them to bring the same research-supported strategies back to children in systems that too often overlook recovery. This helps ensure that every decision prioritizes trauma-informed care and supports children’s long-term best interests.
Why is this work important? Let’s start with the basics.
The Healing First Initiative is the first statewide effort in Illinois where healing guides every system that touches a child. By connecting experts, responders, parents, and champions, we empower every "first-touch" adult to recognize trauma, intervene effectively, and foster long-term safety.
Systemic Challenges and Vulnerable Children
When children enter the court system or are placed in foster care, they face complex circumstances that can be difficult to navigate. New relationships, environments, and rules create significant change and uncertainty during critical developmental periods. Decisions made in courtrooms and by state agencies have a lasting impact, yet these systems are not always structured to address the full scope of children’s needs.
Many children entering these systems have already experienced adversity, including neglect, exposure to domestic violence, or other forms of trauma. System interactions, whether inadvertently or not, are often constrained by pressured timelines, procedural checklists, and a focus on metrics, which can leave critical issues unaddressed and sometimes worsen outcomes for children.
FOCUS AREA I
Building the curriculum for those on the front lines.
Building Professional Capacity
We are developing specialized, role-based training modules in collaboration with accredited organizations and trauma experts. Our goal is to equip the "first-touch" professionals to recognize trauma and intervene effectively. Target Pilot Groups include:
Courtroom Professionals and Child Advocates for trauma-informed, healing-focused, and child-centered advocacy and decision-making.
Social Workers & First Responders for improved risk assessment, navigating family dynamics, and cross-system coordination.
Other Key Professionals such as Teachers, Medical and Mental Health providers, and others involved in children’s care
FOCUS AREA II
Designing Data-Driven Accountability
Creating the infrastructure so no child becomes invisible.
When a child enters the system, their needs often get lost in the shuffle of fragmented systems or agencies. We are establishing clear accountability metrics to:
Use data to verify that resources reach the neighborhoods that need them most.
ENSURE EQUITY
IDENTIFY GAPS
Shine a light on where the system is failing to allow for rapid improvement.
TRACK OUTCOMES
Shift the focus from "closing cases" to "healing children."
FOCUS AREA III
Architecting the network.
Cultivating Systems That Heal
Beyond training, we are laying the groundwork for a statewide hub that connects supporters, collaborators, and systems.
The Vision: A unified ecosystem where early partners provide referrals for essential services (shelter, financial education, mental health) and professionals share evidence-based approaches to advance the standard of care.
The Healing First Initiative is rooted in trauma-informed care but goes further by creating coordinated, healing, and child-centered systems. By uniting systems and providing specialized training through independent parties for courts, social services, schools, and other decision-makers, we ensure trauma awareness translates into safer, healthier outcomes for children and survivors at every touchpoint.
Co-Create the Pilot Program
This is a ground-floor opportunity. As a Partner during this pre-launch phase, you aren't just funding a program, you are helping to build the infrastructure before the first button is pressed. You will help define what 'healing' looks like in Illinois systems for decades to come.
Your Role as a Partner:
Co-Develop Pilot Modules: Design specialized training alongside Unity for Children and trauma experts.
Influence Strategy: Guide early interventions to ensure they remain child-centered.
Shape Systemic Change: Help define the policies that make healing the norm.
Soft Launch Opportunity: Partners joining at this pre-launch stage will form the first cohort shaping the initiative, ahead of the soft launch tentatively scheduled for early 2026.
Join Us in Building Lasting Change
PROBONO
Offer your expertise and skills to champion the rights of children. Legal, research, and other professional services are invaluable in our mission to protect and nurture every child in every system.
CORPORATE & PARTNER SPONSORSHIP
Strengthen your company’s reputation and commitment to a thriving culture. Directly impact the lives of Illinois’ children through program funding and event sponsorship.
EMPLOYER MATCHING
Does your company have an employer matching policy? Through corporate matching, your employees can multiply your donation to Unity for Children.
