By Iridain Casarez, October 1, 2020, North Coast Journal.
New programs were beginning to address the traumatic foundation of Humboldt's health problems. Then came COVID.
Mary Ann Hansen probably understands the landscape of early childhood education in Humboldt County better than most. Before she became the director of First 5 Humboldt in 2015, she worked as a full-time lecturer in the Child Development Department at Humboldt State University and had been the head preschool teacher at the university's child development lab.
Her career centered on helping train future teachers, social workers and caregivers to work with young children in a responsive way, based on the best practices and the most recent science. She taught the concepts of risk and resilience, and how they're impacted by factors like poverty, parental substance use disorder, child abuse and other adversities.
"I saw, during my years as a preschool teacher, the clear link between a family's stress/risk factors and a child's ability to manage stress and navigate a preschool classroom's challenges," Hansen says, adding that toxic stress can manifest in behaviors commonly diagnosed as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. "Being on alert because of an activated nervous system makes it hard to sustain attention during circle time or read the good intent of another child who wants to play with their blocks, causing them to 'overreact' when the circumstances test their ability to stay calm. What has helped a child navigate an unsafe environment becomes a liability in the classroom."
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