Connections matter. Brain connections, caring relationships and thriving communities contribute to healthy communities. The Community Hub Partnership Team believes El Dorado County can build healthy communities by understanding and being intentional about connecting families.

Positive interactions are the foundation for healthy brain development at any age. The Harvard Center for the Developing Child finds brain connections begin before birth, continuing until 26 years of age. Ninety percent of the brain is formed by the time children enter kindergarten, making the first five years of life critical to development.  Healthy brain development is interrupted when children are exposed to excessive or prolonged stress referred to as toxic stress.

In the absence of a caring relationship, childhood trauma can disrupt healthy brain development. The ACEs study confirms that toxic stress impacts health outcomes. Adverse Childhoods Experiences or ACEs actually rewire a child’s developing brain. According to the research, “the more ACEs you have, the greater the risk for chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence.”

 People have an ACE score of 0 to 10. For example, people with an ACE score of 4 are twice as likely to be smokers and seven times more likely to be alcoholic, have an increased risk of emphysema or chronic bronchitis by nearly 400 percent, and attempted suicide by 1,200 percent. People with high ACE scores are more likely to be violent, to have more marriages, more broken bones, more drug prescriptions, more depression and more autoimmune diseases. People with an ACE score of 6 or higher are at risk of their lifespan being shortened by 20 years.

The ACEs screening tool has 10 questions: As a child, did you experience physical, sexual and verbal abuse or physical and emotional neglect? Did you have a family members who was depressed or diagnosed with other mental illness, addicted to alcohol or another substance or in prison, witnessed a mother being abused or lost a parent to separation, divorce or other reason?

Promoting healthy brain development is essential to community development. Research tells us the higher number of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) impacts health outcomes.

Children living in resilient families are more likely to overcome ACEs. According to the Robert Wood Johnson California Health Rankings, the county’s ranking has declined in the last five years from 6 to 15. A 2012 Kidsdata.org report shows 71.8 percent of children in the county were usually or always resilient, but 18.2 percent have two or more ACEs. In order to improve outcomes, local data is needed to inform effective strategies addressing the disparities such as income, language and access leading to inequity for children and families.

El Dorado County exceeds the state in the number of domestic violence calls for assistance per 100,000 adults (685.7/415.6), substance affected still or live born infants per 1,000 (45.4/23.4) and mental health diagnoses in pregnancy (129.7/48.5). To address these concerns, public health nursing staff in each hub have conducted community level needs assessments used by hub teams in developing outreach plans with strategies to address local issues.

Communities can promote healthy brain development through relationship building. Community hubs were created to offer community-based prevention and early intervention services in the County. Each hub has a multi-disciplinary team offering activities focused on early literacy and reading, child development and parenting and preventative health activities and services. These services are provided at no cost to the families. Each team member’s position is different but have complimentary roles.

• Early Childhood Literacy specialists are best known for weekly story times at libraries, but also offer books, early literacy kits, and other resources to support parents as their child’s first teacher.

 • Community health advocates are health staff that focus on improving access to health care and can help with insurance, medical and/or dental provider connections and individualized assistance to help families navigate through the process.

• Family engagement specialists assist with everyday child development and parenting questions by connecting families with screening tools, workshops, parenting classes and individual appointments in their community.

• Public health nurses provide short-term case management, including home visitation to help with families that have multiple needs, require physical and/or developmental assessments or coordination of care between multiple agencies or providers.

Community Hubs are physically located in each El Dorado County Supervisorial district within a public library in: El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Placerville, Georgetown and South Lake Tahoe. While these are central places where hub activities occur, any place where community hub partners serve families within a community is a hub. For more information on Community Hubs, visit first5eldorado.com/community-hubs.

Connections Matter is a partnership among the Central Iowa ACEs 360 Steering Committee, Trauma Informed Care Project and Developing Brain Group.