About
DartHeart's recovery model is built upon the importance of COMMUNICATION between survivors, families, friends and communities. Open dialogue, fellowship, shared experience and communication between survivors and their community is vital to providing hope, strength and ultimately recovery for all survivors.
Studies have shown that an absolutely critical component to recovery from post traumatic stress is peer affirmation. Only by meeting and sharing experiences with other survivors can the recovery process be complete. To facilitate communication and peer affirmation, DartHeart emphasizes face-to-face interaction between survivors. Although the traumatic event causing the stress may be distinct among survivors, the similarities that survivors share in the recovery process and responses to everyday situations because of the impact of this stress, allows survivors to understand one another and offer unique support. Survivors share the special virtue of understanding, of experience, and of appreciation for each survivor's trauma and stress. By meeting one-on-one or in small groups, survivors of trauma can serve as their own best support network.
DartHeart recognizes that not all survivors are ready or willing to meet in person or small groups for support and affirmation. For this reason, DartHeart also provides a medium for safe and anonymous virtual communication for survivors to communicate with each other through blogging, making artwork, providing book reviews and suggestions, reading about other survivors' experiences and participating in large group activities.
Based upon these various forms of communication between survivors, DartHeart provides an ideal forum for survivors to CONNECT with each other. Survivors have the unique ability to relate, to mentor, to guide and to support each other, having experienced trauma themselves and having dealt with post traumatic stress in its various forms. Survivors are united by common experience, they share symptoms, they share fears, and ultimately, they share a desire to recover from the post traumatic stress they battle every day. Through communication and connection, survivors find truth and affirmation in fellow survivors, a form of support that the current healthcare system and personal counseling cannot, by nature, provide.
Finally, by communicating and connecting with each other, survivors can begin the process of making positive CHANGE in themselves, in their relationships with others, and in their communities. By engaging in active recovery by meeting with other survivors, discussing and addressing stressful situations, issues, symptoms and experiences, each survivor can not only change themselves, but also educate their community regarding post traumatic stress and improve services for survivors like themselves.
DartHeart's spectrum of recovery options provides outlets which accommodate all recovery stages and individual personalities. Our peer support network offers survivor connection and unity, individual and community mentorship, campus and online support groups, and the support of community members. DartHeart's distinctive ability to provide resources for all stages of the recovery process makes it profoundly unique and necessary to bridge the current gap in the current healthcare system. Each survivor of trauma possesses natural coping skills and diverse forms of interpersonal development during recovery. DartHeart has the ability to capitalize on these coping skills, by providing a range of opportunities for communication and connection, while providing the flexibility for survivors to develop interpersonal skills at their own pace and in their own manner.
HISTORY DartHeart was founded in March 2008 by a group of Dartmouth College student survivors. Our nonprofit organization formed out of a desire to be the missing link in the chain of support currently given to survivors of trauma. We continue to be run by student and alumni survivors of trauma as they join and develop our peer support network. In April 2009, the IRS approved DartHeart as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
Want to know more about our operations? Check out the blog!
