A recent celebration of community in Carpinteria, CA featured an inspiring speech by the Executive Director of the Carpinteria Children's Project, Maria Chesley, PhD.  Maria and Dr. Peggy Dodds from the Carpinteria Health Care Clinic have been instrumental in launching a pilot project that began screening for ACEs in February.

The Carpinteria Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Resilience Project (CARP) marks a significantly expanded integration of formal care across organizations.  A goal of the project is to serve as a pilot for similar efforts in the rest of the county. Ultimately, the aim is to create a more holistic system of care for children that integrates medical, behavioral health, and social services to prevent adverse childhood experiences and promote healthy development across our community. 

Maria greeted her community with the following message, delivered in Spanish as well as in English:

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Aren’t we lucky to live and work in Carpinteria? Carpinteria is a place where people want to see and learn from each other, where people come together to get things get done, and where people work to make our corner of the world a better place for children to grow up healthy, happy, and successful. We want to go far, and we know that requires that we build connections and go together.

The Carpinteria Children’s Project works to nurture caring connections at many levels. We want families to love and connect with their children by talking, reading and singing. At monthly lunches in our auditorium, the staff of our many partner agencies learn more about each other and the work they do so they can wisely connect families to each other. We work in partnership with the school district to support families, educate young children, and think strategically about how to improve. And we are thrilled to be working much more closely with the public health department.

Starting a couple years ago over periodic lunch breaks, pediatrician Dr. Peggy Dodds and I would dream about how we could provide opportunities to families when children are itty bitty, long before they arrive at the school district. And now, we have embarked on a pilot program where the clinic and visiting nurses of Maternal Child Adolescent Health are screening parents and children for Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Every demographic in our community is affected: all income levels, all ethnic and language groups. Approximately 44% of adults in Santa Barbara County experienced one to three ACEs and 13% experienced 4 or more. For those who are referred by the doctors and nurses, the Carpinteria Children’s Project’s Family Resource Center is offering parents opportunities to manage the effects of these negative experiences so they can best prevent them in their children.

And it takes a village - this possible thanks to First 5 of Santa Barbara County, Cottage Health System, CALM, Family Service Agency, other partner agencies, our funders, particularly the J.S Bower Foundation, and the hard work of the passionate people who have dived in head first to this pilot project. We are learning and what we learn here in Carpinteria, where the connections are strong, will ease the way for passionate, caring people in other communities in our county to counter with love and resilience the ill-effects of the epidemic of adverse childhood experiences.

Thank you to all of you in the public health department and all of you. You are willing to think outside the box, to think with the wellbeing of families and community at the forefront of your mind and to cherish familiar connections and build new ones. Together, Carpinteria will go far."

THANK YOU Maria and Dr. Dodds and  Congratulations to the Carpinteria ACEs and Resilience Project!