Medicaid as a tool for ACEs

HI Eva - I work at Dept of Health Care Services (DHCS) which supports Medicaid  in CA.  We partnered with Dept of Public Health and brought Dr Felitti to present and most recently Dr. Ken Epstein from San Francisco Dept of Public Health (their entire 9000 staff workforce is getting trained on trauma-informed practices) to talk about creating trauma-informed organizations.   I am  also working on an obesity prevention/ whole person lifestyle pilot which incorportates ACEs. I would love to chat with you (and anyone else) who is interested in how we can embed ACEs into Medicaid services!

I would like offer trauma informed services for pregnant women/new moms/dads using a psycho-educational approach that provides support for healthy bonding/attachment, emotional regulation and enriched environment plus an understanding of epigenetics and how to not pass on the legacy of ACES to their children.

Hello Eva,

I recently organized an advocacy effort focused on this very thing. We put together an advocacy brief, attached, based on my limited literature search and tried to provide as concise an argument as possible. We are waiting to see if/how the Health Care Authority in WA State responds. Obviously education or training about ACEs or the NEAR sciences (neuroscience, epigenetics, ACEs, and resiliency) is insufficient in and of itself, we need organizational reform with an emphasis on equity, and one possible pathway is true trauma-informed care.

Our community is exploring the Sanctuary Model, SAINTA, SAMHSA or some combination of these various models to support organizations with the transformation process that needs to occur for both the staff and clients to experience the real benefits of a TIC model. 

I'm excited about any ideas/opportunities to leverage funding to support this important work. Additionally, we are interested in other pathways to getting caring professionals exposed to this information. Is anyone aware of state-level efforts to include ACEs training in "licensing requirements" for helping professionals; teachers, social workers, nurses, doctors, counselors, etc.?

Cheers,

Kody Russell

Kitsap Strong

Certified peer specialists are medicaid billable in something like 27 states, and most of them are pretty decent at trauma info.