Hanna Center takes ‘trauma care’ on the road

Karen Clemmer 5/19/177:17 AM

For 72 years, Hanna Boys Center has been a place of refuge for disadvantaged boys – boys who, largely by circumstance, were in trouble. Dysfunctional homes, neighborhood violence, feral upbringings, drug abuse: Hanna Boys Center has sheltered all kinds.

Over those decades Hanna Boys Center has established itself as a leader in transformational protocols, a vanguard on the fractious front advocating for at-risk youth. .....

..... Trauma-informed care argues that children who’ve experienced damaging events require precise and particular treatments to thrive.

Recognized as a medical syndrome by the moniker “Adverse Childhood Experience,” or ACE, these traumas comprise a rubric of mental and physical health stressors that trigger a wide range of problems through a person’s life. According to Persyn, of the 10 leading causes of death in America, eight of them are linked to adverse childhood experiences.

“We know that in Sonoma County there are tens of thousands of kids with very high ACE exposure,” Persyn said. “Those children become adults with higher risk for suicide, depression, substance abuse, asthma, cancer, COPD and a host of other types of long-term impacts.”