As director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, OH, Steve Stone has been leading efforts for the organization to become trauma-informed. He created the Ohio ACEs Network group on ACEs Connection, and has been active in a state-wide effort to eliminate the use of seclusion and restraint in mental health care.
Q: What brought you to learning about and working with ACEs?
A: My mother was a courier for the Belgian resistance during the WWII Nazi occupation. Around the same time, my father, at the age of 17, was involuntarily committed to Pilgrim State Hospital and labeled a paranoid schizophrenic- this was shortly after he sent a letter to J. Edgar Hoover about spy activity he was aware of in his small town on Eastern Long Island. I am a product of their marriage. How they met is another story.
I was born in Rockville Center, NY, and raised in Merrick, Long Island. I moved to Ashland, OH, shortly after marrying my wife in 1979 to attend Ashland Theological Seminary and to complete a graduate program in psychology and counseling at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Psychiatric Institute.
My interest in ACEs and trauma-informed care is both personal and professional. Suffice it to say that, like most people, I have had my share of confrontations with violence and have been a victim of multiple violent acts, mostly in childhood and in adolescence, inside and outside the family. I have an ACE score of 5. In my capacity as a county mental health board director, I have come to more fully appreciate that people usually seek mental health and other social services because the impact that violence and other adverse experiences have had on their lives. I have come to more fully appreciate the phenomenon called the contagion of violence, and what we know about how violence and its effects can be mitigated and even prevented.
I was licensed as a counselor in Ohio and maintained a private counseling practice for 15 years. I also worked in community non-profit agencies in clinical and administrative capacities. For the past 20 years I have worked in the public county mental health system. I have been the director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County since 2003. In Ohio, county behavioral health authorities conduct the planning, funding and monitoring activities of publicly funded mental health and alcohol/drug services. An 18-member volunteer board has authority over planning, funding and monitoring. They also hire the director.
Our board has adopted a framework of community mental health services we refer to as the “Three Legs of the Stool”. It is based on principles of recovery, trauma-informed care and medication optimization. Our board and community are not satisfied with the status quo of community mental health care and seek opportunities to influence policy and practice to better align with the three-legs philosophy.
Q: If you encounter or deal with trauma often in your work, what coping skills do you rely on to stay happy and healthy?
A: I have developed a number of simple but useful coping skills over the years, such as applying cognitive concepts and Buddhist psychological principles (such as mindfulness practices), often coupled with activities such as listening to music, reading, gardening, boating and spending time with friends or family.
Q: What does resilience to early childhood adversity mean to you?
A: I think that Carl Rogers, Carl Jung and so many others were right in proposing that people have a natural inclination towards healing and wholeness. Much like our body's ability to heal itself, nature has built a similar healing capability into our psyche.
This process is partially dependent on being cared about and cared for by other people. People heal and get better faster and more completely when cared for by others and in a safe environment. Caring about each other in families and communities is an important and natural phenomenon upon which our survival as a species is dependent. It benefits everyone when it is intentionally nurtured and promoted.
Q: How do you hope to contribute to and gain from ACEs and ACEs Connection?
A: The CDC's ACE Study is fundamental to guiding trauma-informed care in our community. The information provided by the study provides a sound foundation upon which to build trauma-informed systems and communities. It also provides a basic framework integrating primary and behavioral healthcare.
We have worked to better inform our community about ACEs in a number of ways over the past several years. For example, we have benefited from grants and speakers provided by the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care ( e.g., Ann Jennings and Darby Penny) during activities in April, which is Child Abuse and Neglect Awareness Month, as well as part of our Fall recovery conference and as keynotes at our annual dinner. In addition, our board recently partnered with the Academy on Violence and Abuse to organize the first Regional Academy on Violence and Abuse in April.
It is my hope that the Ohio ACEs Network group on ACEsConnection will become a place for people across Ohio to share ideas, resources and information about their activities so that a learning community can maximize the efforts of so many people.
I also hope that the site can help to promote AVA Regional Academies in collaboration with local individuals and organizations. These events can contribute in many unique ways to promoting local ACEs and trauma-related initiatives.
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Member profiles do not necessarily represent the views of ACEs Connection or its staff. If you are interested in learning more about a member's approach or experience, please add your thoughts in the comments below.
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