Humboldt County has one of the highest rates of childhood trauma and abuse in the state with 75 percent of locals being affected by at least one adverse childhood experience — or ACE. This county along with Mendocino County, have the highest percentage of residents with four or more ACEs.
“A child who experiences ACEs is 12 times [more likely] to attempt suicide, 12 times. A child who has four or more ACEs experiences [is] seven times [more likely] to be and alcoholic or 10 times higher to use injection drugs,” North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire said Friday night.
That was exemplified in all the organizations tabling in the Adorni about their efforts to combat childhood trauma and the affects they can have later in life. This included CASA of Humboldt, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the North Coast, St. Joseph Health, SafeCare, Head Start, Redwood Community Action Agency’s Youth Service Bureau, Native Connections, Social-emotional Early Educator Supports.
“A lot of these organizations tabling have done resilience promoting programs for years,” Anderson said.
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“The North Coast Grant Maker Partnership funded an [attached] ACEs community assessment by the California Center on Rural Policy. We have convened community meetings with agencies and social services organizations,” she said.
Hansen continued to talk about the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors investing $400,000 in ACE preventional and resilience programs, the hiring of Anderson, community partnerships known as “upstream teams” to provide ACE support in communities across Humboldt and ACE resilience primers coming in the fall.
Anderson said teams are organized by local family resources centers to cater specifically to those communities. So far there are teams in McKinleyville, Arcata, Eureka, Hoopa and Fortuna.
For more information call 707-445-7389 or online at first5humboldt.org.
Read the full article, written by By Hunter Cresswell, click here: McGuire, First 5 Humboldt talk ‘ACEs’ at town hall
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