Contagious Self Care

Melanie G. Snyder serves as the Trauma Informed Specialist for Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. She leads a community-wide, cross-sector training initiative that has trained over 6000 people in Lancaster County about trauma, resilience, self-care, and trauma-informed principles and practices, across multiple sectors, including education, healthcare, human services, behavioral health, government, business, criminal justice, first responders, and the faith community. She is passionate about helping people in the community understand the connections between trauma, mental health and physical health, as well as how to foster and build resilience and promote healing.

She is a certified trauma instructor with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Eastern Mennonite University, and Treatment Innovations, and was a 2016-17 Baldwin Fellow with the Lancaster County Community Foundation, where her focus was on trauma, resilience, and trauma-informed communities. 

Melanie is also the author of the book Grace Goes to Prison: An Inspiring Story of Hope and Humanity (Brethren Press, 2009), and she has given a TEDx talk titled “Breaking Out of Prison Thinking,” proposing that prison should be used only as a last resort, for the people we don’t yet know how to help.