Becky Haas Interview: Your City is Waiting on You

About Alexia Georghiou

Hello, I am Alexia Georghiou, The Founder of Life Betterment Through God. Today we had the honor of hearing Becky Haas tell her story of how she is impacting her city. Becky Haas serves as the Trauma Informed Administrator for Ballad Health working within the division of Population Health. In this role, she assists in expanding Trauma Informed education, research and programming throughout the 21 counties of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia served by Ballad Health. Becky is also working with healthcare leadership to help Ballad Health become a trauma informed heath system. Becky is recognized as a national presenter on trauma informed care and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study with 2019 events including presentations to state leadership for the First Lady of Delaware, training for the Oklahoma City Police Department and presenting at Duke Divinity School’s Conference on Medicine and Religion. Becky received her Professional Certification in Trauma and Resilience from Florida State University and has trainer certifications from both the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Gains Center and the Tennessee Building Strong Brains Program. Prior to joining Ballad Health, Becky was employed by the Johnson City Police Department overseeing Crime Prevention Programs. In this role, she developed a collaborative of thirty-three partnering agencies that provided nineteen prevention programs into two historically high crime neighborhoods of Johnson City. Among programs developed was the creation of the Day Reporting Center which was the first probation program of its kind in the state of Tennessee. At the end of the successful Targeted Community Crime Reduction Programs (TCCRP) grant in 2016, the Tennessee Department of Corrections acquired the Day Reporting Center and since have replicated this model in several other cities across Tennessee in efforts to reduce recidivism rates which statewide. Under Becky’s direction, in 2014 the TCCRP won national recognition by receiving the prestigious, “Outstanding Criminal Justice Program of the Year Award” for the southern region from the National Criminal Justice Association. The TCCRP is referenced by the U.S. Department of Justice as a grant funded “Success Story” and in 2016 received the Met Life Foundation Community Police Partnership Award for Excellence in Community Engagement. It was during her tenure at the police department that Becky first heard about Trauma-Informed Care and ACEs Science. Partnering with Dr. Andi Clements from the East Tennessee State University Psychology Department in 2015, and receiving technical assistance from the SAMHSA funded, National Center for Trauma Informed Care, they trained over 4,000 professionals in less than 3 years and created a growing Trauma Informed System of Care which has over 40 affiliated organizations. In September of 2018, SAMHSA officials recognized their work as a model for other cities to follow. She is a seasoned public speaker addressing both professional and faith based audiences. In August of 2017 she published her first book, Your City is Waiting on You and in 2019, Becky co-authored, Building a Trauma Informed Community Toolkit for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services which since has been endorsed by the international online journal, ACEs Connection in their publication Growing Resilient Communities 2.1. Becky has been married to Jonathan for 35 years and their greatest joys in life are their sons David and Christopher, along with their wives Katie and Stacy and two grandchildren, Paisley and Cayden.