On Friday, March 2, Santa Clara County ACEs Connection held a second screening of the film Resilience at Santa Clara University, hosted by faculty member Barbara Burns. The event was facilitated by Rhoda Blankenship, MCAH Director at the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health. Both are on the ACEs Connection steering committee.
Maretta Juarez, LCSW is Division Director at Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services. Before the screening, she helped give the film context by sharing a preview of the Trauma Transformed TIS 101 curriculum currently being implemented throughout Santa Clara County.
The goal of TIS (Trauma Informed Systems) curriculum is to support organizations in shifting to a trauma informed worldview, as well as becoming skilled in trauma informed practice and resilience building strategies.
After the film, a panel of community leaders led a discussion about the implications of trauma and resilience in their work.
Panelists included: Barbara Burns, Professor of Child Studies at Santa Clara University; Roberto Gil, Director of Self Sufficiency Programs at Sacred Heart; Wendy Kinnear-Rausch, Program Manager at Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children's Services; and Hector Sanchez-Flores, Executive Director of National Compadres Network.
Hector Sanchez-Flores shared that ACEs and resilience focused work harkens to a Native American philosophy of making decisions today with seven generations ahead in mind. He declared that is beyond time for our society to adopt this mindset and begin to make investments in communities based on human need. The science around ACES, trauma and resilience are both the alarm bell, and the call to action, for making this cultural shift. In addition, acknowledging racism in access to, and quality of, services is a critical component of this clarion call. He ended by saying, "We need to have these conversations in the community, and in connection with our work, in order to build real resilience".
Roberto Gil spoke of his increasing awareness that the role of healing work is critical. In reflecting on the fear many of his clients are holding due to aggressive action by ICE, he sees up close that people need healing now. They need and deserve to be supported with coping and resilience strategies, for the struggles they are currently enduring. His work with Resilient Families is a response to this need for healing. Resilient Families will be featured at the March 13 meeting of Santa Clara County ACEs Connection.
Wendy Kinnear-Rausch shared from her systems perspective with Child Protective Services, the urgency of cross system, cross sector work in order to build truly resilient communities. South Santa Clara county families involved with CPS tend to have high ACEs scores. Through a systems approach, the Santa Clara County community can prevent these ACEs from accumulating, as well as eliminate the additional system trauma the families are facing. Like Roberto, Wendy referenced the climate of fear stimulated by increased ICE raids that target the very population CPS is serving in South Santa Clara County. Wendy also emphasized the need to focus on the vicarious trauma of staff. Vicarious trauma needs to be addressed and treated.
Like Hector, Wendy also shared that CPS has recognized the need to engage in focused work to address racism. Disproportionality- patterns of higher participation in CPS by race and ethnicity- is an issue, and cannot be addressed by CPS alone. Again, this work requires collective community engagement. Once the community understands "that poverty does not equal abuse", problem solving can focus less on CPS involvement and more on linking struggling families to resources available in the community. Learning about ACEs, trauma and resilience is an important component of educating community members about how families' needs are best served with a collective, community based approach.
Do you want to get involved in building a resilient Santa Clara County? First: Stay tuned for future screenings of Resilience. And join Santa Clara County ACEs Connection!
This community will begin meeting quarterly to discuss and plan how to educate the entire county about the impacts of ACEs and trauma, as well as transform Santa Clara into a county of resilient communities. Please join the first open meeting on March 13, 2018, 9:00 a.m -11:00 a.m, at First 5 Santa Clara.
Everyone is welcome!
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