We are often asked what do change agents need to know as they start an ACEs prevention project. We respond, “Are you ready for the biggest challenge of your life?”
Imagine you wish to take on one of the most complex public health crises in the nation. We’re talking about a costly challenge that impacts children, parents, grandparents, the entire school and higher education system, and ultimately impacts the workforce and local economies. Add to this that the challenge leads to substance misuse and untreated mental health challenges, while prevention requires an understanding of ten distinct social support programs (all with their own field of study, by the way) and can only succeed with a combination of tech-savvy, organizational development experience, social justice insights and deep political wisdom.
Our goal with the Anna, Age Eight Institute is empowering stakeholders in all 33 counties in New Mexico with the skills to design and launch the data-driven, cross-sector and tech-empowered prevention of ACEs. This requires an understanding of at least twenty key concepts. Let us explain what we teach community leaders to launch our 100% Community ACEs Prevention Initiative.
WHAT?
The first concepts represent the “what,” meaning what challenges are we facing. Concept one would be the potentially-traumatizing 1) adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that occur in the home. This requires a basic understanding of 2) child and brain development. Concept three would be 3) social adversity, all the challenges a person faces when they step out the door of their home.
WHY?
The second set of concepts include the reason why the challenges exist, referred to as root causes, and these include the 4) social determinants of health, a field of study that explores how a person’s community environment can impact their health and opportunities with learning, work and wealth.
We also must explore 5) historical trauma, a field of study documenting centuries of social injustice, disparities, and all the “isms” you’re familiar with to describe the unfair treatment of people.
When we talk about community environments we are talking about access to the ten local family, youth and student services we refer to as the 6) surviving and thriving services. For survival we include housing, food, medical care, behavioral health care, and transport. For thriving services include parent support, early childhood learning, community schools, youth mentors, job training). Each one of the ten local services in your county have their own histories, research and political relationships associated with them.
HOW?
The mission of 100% Community initiative is to empower local champions to create the services to ensure trauma-free and thriving children, students and families. This means that the initiative works across ten sectors to provide quality and accessible services.
This leads us to the frameworks we use to take on such a monumental task across ten sectors that function within all the cities, towns and communities within a 7) county’s borders. (Yes, we chose the county model for some very pragmatic, economic and political reasons.)
We are a data-driven process guided by the 8) continuous quality improvement framework that includes four phases: assessing, planning, acting and evaluating.
We are also following the 9) collective impact model with the following components: a shared vision, goals, use of data, use of communications strategy, interrelated activities and solid economic base.
The other concept worth introducing is called 10) technical challenges and adaptive challenges. This is a way of thinking about identifying and solving complex and political challenges. In a nutshell, it asks all of us to look at community or organizational problems as either technical challenges or adaptive challenges. Technical ones have an agreed upon path to follow for problem-solving while adaptive ones have no agreed upon path forward and you’re in uncharted waters. Trust us, you don’t want to confuse a technical challenge with an adaptive one.
Each county will be doing a 11) readiness and capacity assessment, assessing to what degree local leaders and stakeholders are committed to improving the ten surviving and thriving services.
All our work with the 100% Community initiative is 12) working in alignment with existing local efforts.
Speaking of assessments, you will know to what degree your county’s parents and youth have access to the ten vital services because you will be asking them on the 13) 100% Community Survey, “To what degree can you access services and if you face challenges, what are they?”
One key planning tool we use to design our projects is a 14) logic model, that is a visual representation of a plan to guide a project that includes the project’s goal, purpose, inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes.
As we seek to improve the quality of family services and their accessibility, we will research 15) evidence-informed strategies.
We will find that many of our local challenges have already been tested and evaluated in other localities, meaning we don’t need to reinvent wheels.
You will want to understand how 16) technology can be used to support 100% Community innovations and projects.
WHO?
To get anything of substance accomplished, we must build 17) relationships and partnerships with the leaders and stakeholders on the state, county, city levels, including schools, higher education, nongovernmental organizations, foundations and the chamber of commerce.
The 100% Community initiative will be developing and launching innovations and projects, many of them requiring 18) public and private sector partnerships.
We will describe our entire 19) 100% Community initiative’s process including the history, mission, vision, process and organizational structure, roles and expectations of co-community organizers and action team leaders and members, and the benefits of being part of the groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind initiative. Lastly, we don’t underestimate the importance of 20) self-care while a local champion works on the 100% Community initiative in the arena of ACEs, trauma, social adversity and social change.
Working to prevent ACEs and to ensure safe childhoods on a county level is an inspiring and groundbreaking experience. Best to be very prepared.
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