I recently joined El Dorado County as a Public Health Nurse for the Community Hubs program. The Community Hubs program, developed with awareness of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), is focused on bringing resilience to our community. There is so much about Public Health that I’m already passionate about and ACEs/resiliency is one of my favorite topics. Yesterday, I attended the El Dorado County ACEs collaborative for the first time. It was AMAZING!
Around 80 members joined in Placerville and South Lake Tahoe, producing a captivating energy. Each individual introduced themselves and their important role in the community, showing the dynamic partnerships within our ACEs community. Several members spoke of their accomplishments spreading the word about ACEs, as the collaborative now celebrates its 2nd Birthday in El Dorado County. A new collaborative logo was unveiled for the occasion and El Dorado County HHSA Director, Patricia Charles-Heathers, showed appreciation for collaborative co-founders Lynnan Svensson and Judy Knapp for turning a dream into reality. It is exciting to see this community coming together to put trauma-informed lenses into action!
The guest speaker, Susan Jones, member of Resilient Sacramento and Behavior Specialist at San Juan Unified School District, provided an engaging training. She brought her 20 years of experience to highlight the importance of trauma sensitive schools. Susan immediately grabbed my attention with this quote by E.E. Cummings: “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch”. What an impact each of us can have on our community just by showing compassion! Susan then discussed the de-escalation of certain behaviors, restorative practices, lessening toxic stress, and the icing on the cake, self-care!
Happy 2nd Birthday El Dorado County ACEs Collaborative! I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together in our community this upcoming year!
-Adriana De Persia, BSN, RN, PHN
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