As we were writing our book 100% Community: Ensuring trauma-free and thriving children, students and families, we were honored to have our foreword written by New Mexico state senator Bill Soules, PhD. He captures the urgent need for data-driven and cross-sector ACEs prevention in every county across the nation.
FOREWORD
“What percentage of our kids can we protect from trauma?” is a question that arises often in my day as I work as a teacher, a state senator and an advocate for students. My work in education is inextricably linked to my work in preventing childhood trauma. We know that traumatized students, far more worried about abuse and neglect at home than math homework, may struggle with school.
The landmark research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is more than 20 years old and, while awareness of the public health crisis it exposes has increased, the systematic, data-driven, community responses needed to address the root causes of ACEs and trauma are sorely lacking. The book Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment, by Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello, was a sobering wake-up call to every state across the nation and every state and local lawmaker. Their follow up book, 100% Community, is the step-by-step guide to ending this epidemic of ACEs and trauma that’s hurting our families, schools and state and local economies.
After first-hand experience with the level of adverse childhood experiences and trauma among my high school students, I felt a need to act. As a state Senator, I introduced with my colleague state Representative Gail Armstrong a bi-partisan senate bill to secure funding for the Anna, Age Eight Institute for the Data-Driven Prevention of Childhood Trauma. It’s a first-of-its-kind technical assistance center dedicated to building strong resilient communities through a data-driven, cross-sector and county-focused strategy.
To provide every elected official and stakeholder with a blueprint for ending the epidemic of trauma, 100% Community clearly lays out what state, county, city and education leaders must do to prevent the traumatization of children and to address the untreated trauma of their parents and grandparents. The five survival services and five thriving services outlined in this book are not controversial. Most would agree that healthy communities should have services that protect, as well as nurture, our families.
The authors make a strong case that we need to connect the dots between emotional health and economic health, “identifying the connection between trauma-free children, successful children, health families, resourced communities, a productive workforce and a thriving local economy.” What has been lacking is the political will, vision and financial backing to reimagine and reinvent our communities to ensure that all families have access to all 10 vital surviving and thriving services.
As a lawmaker, much of my time in the capital is spent debating with lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, on how best to spend our revenue. The case for implementing a data-driven, systematic and measurable prevention process in each county is easy to make. We either invest upstream to prevent trauma before it happens, or we pay millions on costs related to trauma that include lack of school achievement and job readiness, substance misuse, untreated mental health challenges, unemployment, and overwhelmed police, courts and child welfare systems.
It comes back to a question: What percentage of our children and parents are we willing to write off and how many should be empowered to succeed?
100% Community is a must-read for lawmakers, educators, health care providers, social workers and community influencers across both sides of our political aisles and in our public and private sectors. It will change how you view the ACEs crisis, from the critical step of helping children and adults who have experienced adversity and trauma to redesigning county systems so that every community has the resources to prevent costly trauma in the first place. 100% Community provides a step-by-step guide for every community to take action and go upstream to prevent trauma from happening in the first place. For all of us who believe that we can make every child a priority, this book shows the way.
For information on 100% Community and free downloads of our books, please visit the Anna, Age Eight Institute www.AnnaAgeEight.org
Comments (0)