As a follow up to last week's post from the Barton County Health Department, Shelly Schneider shares their journey to move the work into the community through RiseUP Barton County.

"Barton County is experiencing an exciting opportunity with community members uniting together as a group of unusual voices meeting weekly to develop and launch an effort for not only building but executing a Trauma Informed Community of Resilience.  Our efforts started 2 years ago when the Barton County Health Department generally speaking, learned of the Kaiser Permanente study related to Adverse Childhood Experiences and how they effect the brain and how trauma and resilience effects a community. Barton County’s Robert Wood Johnson County Rankings and Roadmap indicated we were experiencing a higher number of children living in poverty, more children with single parent households, and more signs of poverty than the State of Kansas average. We also are experiencing a great deal of mental health issues, as well as a depth of generational poverty that is only getting worse.  We are seeing higher rates of illicit drug use as well as an increased incidence of crime in our community - which is yielding more hurt, broken and isolated community members. 

RIseUp Barton County is a group that represents policy makers, Department heads, Community Corrections, Juvenile Services, Health Department, Oxford House, people with lived experiences, business owners, school personnel, and many more.  We have decided that enough is enough and we are ready to make change happen, but more so, we are ready to be some people’s source of resilience rather than their source of trauma!

Our road to where we are now started with discussions on ACES and Trauma as well as Resilience and empowerment.  We decided that the best steps forward would be training members of our group in the science of ACES and how the brain is affected, then spreading this knowledge to as many people as possible.  We have started scheduling training for anyone that would want to hear about it, as well as convincing people that this knowledge and change in the way they think will benefit not only their business, but our County. 

Together, we have worked on a Social Media presence and kept data to show how far we have reached!  Our messages have traveled overseas as well as gained reactions from the experts in this field.  Our RiseUp team has experienced positive interactions with our Community, but we have a long way to go.  From pop-up meetings to planned coffees to Cinco De Mayo festivities, we are ready to talk and start spreading Resilience in our Community!"

--Shelly Schneider, RN BSN - Barton County Health Department Administrator

Last summer, the community hosted an "ACEs Bootcamp" that included more than 100 partners from Barton County and neighboring communities.  In February of this year, they supported a Training of Trainers to give their community the knowledge and skills to keep the discussions moving forward. WSU CEI is proud to be a partner with RiseUp Barton County and look forward to witnessing great things!

Vanessa