Wendy Ellis is the Project Director of the Building Community Resilience collaborative at the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University. The Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative is testing and implementing a model based on Ms. Ellis' research in designing a strategic process for child health systems to align resources, programs and initiatives with community based partners to address childhood adversity and reduce the effects of social determinants that culminate in toxic stress. The strengths based approach is aimed at building the infrastructure to promote resilience in vulnerable communities. The BCR model is being tested in five major U.S. cities including Cincinnati, OH; Dallas, TX; Portland, OR; Wilmington, DE and Washington, DC and is supported in part by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation.