Mimi Choy-Brown and Laura Soltani from the University of Minnesota highlight key lessons from the CIRCLE Project, emphasizing the importance of intentionally addressing trust and power when implementing multi-level interventions to support resilience among refugee and immigrant youth across community, school, and mental health settings. A central strategy was the development of an Implementation Team, with this video outlining how the Team was formed and how it functioned in practice. Grounded in community-based participatory research principles—such as power-sharing, mutual respect for diverse expertise, collective decision-making, and shared values— and implementation science evidence, the implementation team served as a collaborative structure to build connection across the project and guide the support of youth and their families. This video also shares lessons learned from the process, including the development of a guiding framework, strategies for building and sustaining champions, and key insights for strengthening future implementation efforts.

Resources

1. Information about this study: Soltani, L., Suleiman, J., Banegas, J., Hodges, H., Abdi, S., & Choy-Brown, M. (2026). “Working at the Speed of Trust”: The Roles of Trust and Power in Effective Implementation. Journal of Trauma Studies in Education, 4(3), 126–150. https://doi.org/10.70085/jtse.v4i3.318 [2]
2. Using a Community Based Participatory Research approach: S. M., Miller, A. B., Agalab, N. Y., & Ellis, B. H. (2022). Partnering with refugee communities to improve mental health access: Going from “why are they not coming” to “what can I (we) do differently?” Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 28(3), 370–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000476 [3]
3. Information about the CIRCLE Project: The CIRCLE Project is a community-based collaborative to implement and evaluate a multi-tiered, school-based, and culturally congruent prevention and treatment intervention (Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees; TST-R) with youth and families. To learn more about the CIRCLE Project, read an interview with Dr. Saida Abdi, the Director and Principal Investigator of the CIRCLE Project (https://watercoursecounseling.org/bridging-community-and-culture/ [4]) or Jasmine Banegas, a doctoral candidate, working on the CIRCLE Project (https://connect.cehd.umn.edu/community-engaged-prevention-intervention [5]).
4. Information about Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees: (TST-R) Ellis, B. H., Miller, A. B., Abdi, S., Barrett, C., Blood, E. A., & Betancourt, T. S. (2013). Multi-tier mental health program for refugee youth. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 81(1), 129-140. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029844 [6]
5. Information about using Implementation Teams: National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (n.d.). Implementation: An NCTSN video series [Video]. NCTSN. https://nctsn.org/resources/implementation-video-playlist [7]