For those of us committed to preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), our work keeps getting more challenging each day. We know from our 100% Community surveys that our parents struggle to access the basic services of survival: medical care, mental health care, food security programs, housing security programs and transportation to vital services. This means the children and teens we work with face not only abuse and neglect in the home, but social adversity once they step outside their door. These results have been showing up in our surveys of gaps in vital services even before the pandemic hit the USA. Things are not getting better for our most vulnerable children.
Today our families may be struggling because, to prevent the spread of infection, so many businesses were closed and joblessness grew. In rural counties, where unemployment and underemployment were already a stark reality, life has become more unstable. Our children are more at risk for ACEs as local systems of family support disappear.
What does all this mean to ACEs prevention and the treatment of trauma associated with abuse and neglect? If you happen to live in a county where 50% of parents reported needing behavioral health care and finding it very challenging to access, we have a growing mental health crisis on our hands. This requires we turn our caring into action focused on ending health disparities.
GOOD NEWS
If you work with rural populations there is a resource that can strengthen your ACEs prevention work in the form of the National Rural Health Day online conference. This event provides attendees with the resources, insights and skills to redesign county systems, forge new partnerships and strengthen the vital services for surviving and thriving in rural America (urban America will find great ideas, too).
While just like you, most of us are feeling overwhelmed, please consider signing up to attend the virtual conference to find inspiration, a host of solutions and a sense of community. You will see how ensuring vital services for our children, students, parents and caregiving grandparents is the cornerstone for result-focused ACEs prevention.
Together–100% can thrive.
Learn more and register here:
Comments (0)