About 23 years ago, Jim Henry and four other Kalamazoo-area professionals launched the Southwest Michigan Child Trauma Assessment Center at Western Michigan University. At the time, few people knew how traumatic experiences can negatively affect the developing brain of a child. But the founders of CTAC did. And the center they created to assess traumatized children has not only become the model for similar centers across Michigan and in Colorado, but also has effected change in the state’s child-welfare system and beyond.

WSV’s Amy East writes, “And, at that point, that’s when I realize I’ve come to a crossroads. I realize I’ve been walking around cut off from myself, numbing myself to the pain, yes, but also numbing myself to the beauty too. As I stand at the crossroads, I know that down one road lies the same — protected and predictable, yet numb — and down the other lies uncertainty — and the ability to feel alive again.”