Picture of "Little Red School House" I passed along the road.
My route took me through Phoenix, Arizona and I had the great fortune and pleasure to meet with some of the staff of Eight Educational Outreach - Kimberly Flack (General Manager of Educational Outreach), Colleen O’Donnell Pierce (Public Relations), and Sam Becker( Special Projects Coordinator). They work in partnership with PBS and Arizona State University, and serve as a trusted, independent catalyst for educational improvement. They specialize in supporting educators and students in the classroom, and families at home by creating and connecting them with relevant and engaging, quality educational content. They do this exciting work through the power of noncommercial television, the Internet, radio, other media, outreach activities, and a variety of community-based initiatives.
One of the exciting and powerful change making initiatives that they are part of and I want to tell you about is The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Consortium. A group of Arizona based organizations whose mission is to strengthening Arizona families and communities, it includes partners such as Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Southwest Human Development, Arizona Department of Economic Security, East Valley Child Crisis Center, Arizona Association for Supportive Child Care, Northland Family Help Center, Prevent Child Abuse Arizona and Valley of the Sun Arizona Association for the Education of Young Children.
To support the medical and counseling outreach leaders of this consortium, Eight has been an active participant in the ACE Consortium and spearheaded its social media and promotion efforts since 2009. azpbs.org/strongkids
In April of 2013 Kim and her staff helped organize an ACE summit that was hosted by Arizona State University and Eight Arizona. One of the keynote speakers at the summit was Dr. Vincent Fellitti M.D. and you can see and listen to his keynote by going to - www.asset.asu.edu/new/summit/
When I arrived at their offices Kim offered me some water and took me to one of their conference rooms and after introducing me to Sam and Colleen we began to share our stories and I got to hear about the wonderful work that they are involved in.
Kim told me that the Consortium that I mentioned above grew out of Celebrating Child Abuse Prevention Month. At some point the organizations involved began to talk about the fact that children can’t learn unless they feel safe (Kim by the way was a teacher before engaging in this work). So anyway they talked about how they could help as community agencies to provide more awareness of ACE and also how they could survey and get a handle on what is really going on in the communities that they serve. Thus the Consortium was born. Understanding and grasping the reality that educators are on the front lines working with kids they decided to spread the ACE survey to educators.
One of the ways they do this through their train the trainer program and have been impacting the professional development of many educators in the city of Phoenix and the surrounding counties.
Sam shared information about the Darkness to Light curriculum that was created through the Strong Families Build Strong Communities grant from the Steele Foundation that he says is also being used throughout the state. On the website one can go to their Creating Safe Environments videos and watch and listen to lectures on Emotional Health, Relationships, Personal Values and Beliefs… http://az.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/488b10f6-b60f-4314-a56b-a7ab9d82cb22/ace-adverse-childhood-experiences/
“People are hungry for this information”, said Kim. One of the indicators that supports the belief that Kim has about the hunger and need present in the communities comes fro the response they’ve had from a show they’ve been producing called “Ask an Expert.”
The show has a panel of experts discuss topics such as sex trafficking, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse...Colleen mentioned that they’ve done the show between 6 to 10 times now. People have called in saying things such as, “I’m addicted what do I do?” “I think this is going on in my family what do I do?” “I just want to talk to someone!’
The show has gotten the highest number of viewers they ever had. It’s even made the Nielsen Ratings. The volume of calls has been lower than the large numbers of people watching. From what we know about the impact of ACE in our communities I wonder how many people watching would have called if the denial and silence that persists in our communities didn’t exist?
Mark Becker (Associate Director) walked me to the freight elevator and went down with me to help point me in the right direction. He also was a teacher and works at Eight Arizona running the train the trainer program.
http://www.asset.asu.edu/new/assetprojects.html
As I biked away I wondered how much good could be accomplished if all the PBS affiliates throughout the country where inspired to do this kind of work. The Consortium that exists in Phoenix should be modeled nationally. All PBS stations throughout the country need to copy and create what is being done in this community. As Kim said "People are hungry for this information!"
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