In this episode of Resiliency Within, Elaine Miller-Karas sits down with Edith Boyle, LCSW—President & CEO of LifeBridge Community Services—for a meaningful conversation about the power of balancing the narrative and why the stories we tell about our communities shape their future.

Bridgeport, Connecticut is often described through statistics of hardship—high poverty rates, community violence, limited access to mental health care, and chronic school absenteeism. These realities are significant and deserve attention. But when a place is defined only by its struggles, something vital is lost. Research calls this deficit framing or spatial stigma—a lens that can lower expectations, reinforce bias, and quietly erode hope, dignity, and well-being.

So the question becomes: What else is true?

Bridgeport is also home to deep cultural pride, resilient families, committed faith and neighborhood leaders, strong nonprofit partnerships, and generations of community strength. Edith shares how LifeBridge embraces both truths—acknowledging adversity while actively cultivating possibility.

Through trauma-informed school and community mental health services, integrated pediatric behavioral health, community resiliency training, and arts-based healing initiatives, LifeBridge helps individuals and neighborhoods expand their narrative beyond survival toward empowerment.

This conversation explores how a balanced narrative doesn't deny pain—it widens the lens. It reduces shame, restores dignity, supports nervous system regulation, and strengthens resilience not just in individuals, but across entire communities.

Join us for an inspiring dialogue about reframing stories, reclaiming identity, and rediscovering what is possible.

About Our Guest:

Edith Boyle, LCSW
President & CEO, LifeBridge Community Services

Edith Boyle, LCSW is President & CEO of LifeBridge Community Services in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a licensed clinical social worker committed to advancing healing and resilience in communities impacted by stress and adversity. A first-generation college graduate, she holds an MSW from Western NewMexico University and a BA in Psychology from Arizona State University.

Since 2022, Edith has led LifeBridge's expansion of accessible, trauma-informed outpatient mental health care for children, adults, and families—integrating talk therapy and clinical art therapy to support both mind and body. She also champions practical, neuroscience-informed resiliency skills in everyday settings through Community Resiliency Model (CRM) trainings for frontline professionals and community members, helping people feel calmer, more focused, and more connected during challenging times.

Edith is advancing community-based models that bring care closer to where families live and learn, including embedding clinicians in schools and pediatric practices across Fairfield County.

Under her leadership, LifeBridge joined the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, strengthening the organization's capacity to serve children and families impacted by trauma.

She also founded Connecticut's first Trauma-Informed Community of Practice (TI-CoP), convening cross-sector providers to deepen shared learning and strengthen trauma-responsive care throughout the region.

In this conversation, Maryam Zar reflects on resilience as an act of continuity—how individuals and communities carry memory, identity, and care forward after profound disruption. Drawing from her leadership in post-wildfire recovery and her partnership in Art for Healing and the Legacy Family project among other initiatives, Maryam explores how healing is supported when survivors are seen as keepers of story, connection, and meaning.

She shares insights on the emotional toll of displacement, the importance of community-led recovery models, and the role of creative and practical structures in helping people feel grounded. The discussion highlights how resilience is often quiet and relational—rooted in showing up, creating safe spaces, and allowing grief and hope to exist side by side. Maryam offers a perspective on recovery that is focused on rebuilding structures and recovering community with a focus on meeting people where they are - even as that evolves.

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About Our Guest:

Maryam Zar is a longtime community leader, civic convener, and recovery advocate based in Pacific Palisades. She is a founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition and plays a central role in guiding community-centered recovery efforts following wildfire-related displacement and loss. Her work focuses on restoring not only physical infrastructure, but also trust, continuity, and belonging—particularly for families navigating prolonged disruption.

Maryam's leadership emphasizes collaboration across residents, local institutions, mental health practitioners, designers, and policymakers, with a strong belief that recovery is both a logistical and emotional process. Through initiatives such as the Legacy Family project, Community Recovery Labs, and healing-centered convenings, she has helped create spaces where grief, resilience, and forward momentum can coexist. Her approach is grounded, inclusive, and informed by lived experience, with a commitment to ensuring that recovery efforts honor memory while supporting long-term well-being.

Dr. Rebecca Shasanmi Ellis joins Resiliency Within to explore how we can mobilize models of care that strengthen resilience, promote health equity, and advance Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of The Beloved Community across the life span. Drawing on her expertise as a community mental health nurse and a Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® Teacher, Dr. Ellis brings a grounded, systems-level perspective on how social and structural determinants of health shape individual and community well-being.

She has taught nurses and other clinical, public health, and social service providers how to manage their own psychological stress while sharing practical resiliency skills that support more equitable, patient-centered care in both facility-based and community settings. Her wisdom is informed by nearly two decades of work in health systems readiness for maternal and child health—globally and domestically—including her current work with communities in Washington, DC.

Notably, in 2014, Dr. Ellis served as project manager for a $9 million USD World Health Organization initiative in Nigeria, addressing critical frontline reproductive health workforce shortages during the Ebola crisis. In this conversation, she reflects on lessons learned from global and local contexts, and how resilience-informed, community-centered approaches can foster healing, hope, and connection in times of both crisis and renewal.

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About Our Guest:

Rebecca Shasanmi Ellis, PhD, MS, MPH, BSN, RN is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University's Berkley School of Nursing. Her long-term research agenda focuses on the intersections of health workforce and health systems development, mental health, and structural determinants of health, with the goal of reducing health disparities in underserved and resource-limited communities globally.

With more than 20 years of experience as a field-trained health professional, Dr. Ellis brings deep expertise in program management, implementation science, and interprofessional education across research, clinical practice, health system strengthening, and policy. This multidisciplinary background uniquely positions her to design, lead, and evaluate complex, collaborative programs that bridge nursing, public health, and global health practice.

Dr. Ellis currently serves as Chair of the Public Health Nursing (PHN) Section of the American Public Health Association(APHA) and is a member of the Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was an instructor at Emory University beginning in 2018. She also provided direct patient care as a registered nurse in mental health and women's health settings at SisterLove, Inc.—the first Black women–led HIV organization in the U.S. South—and at Our House Health (formerly CAPN Clinics), delivering care within homeless shelters in Atlanta, Georgia.

Since 2014, Dr. Ellis has also served as a research collaborating consultant with the Center for Patient Safety at the University of Sao Paulo College of Nursing in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, contributing to international efforts to advance patient safety, workforce development, and equitable health systems.