July 2016 Meeting Summary

Resilient Sacramento held our first workgroup meeting on July 12, 2015. As of this July, we have been meeting for one year! 

Welcome by DeAngelo Mack

Mindfulness Minute (with raisins) led by Imani Lucas

Introductions and Celebrations led by DeAngelo Mack

Action Workgroups

Resilient Sacramento has five Action Workgroups. Workgroups include:

• Policy
• Trauma-Informed Schools
• Community Outreach & Engagement
• System Involved Youth
• Health Care and Behavioral Health

Since the last meeting:

The Policy group has had one meeting, with County Board of Supervisors member Don Nottoli, with whom they were able to discuss the concept of making Sacramento a trauma-informed county. Nottoli showed strong support for this concept.

System Involved Youth has had its first meeting, and invites others to join.

Other News

The most recent draft of the promotional material, a One-Page snapshot of the mission of Resilient Sacramento, was shared. The document is not yet final, but will be finalized soon as many attendees are ready to share it to spread the work about ACEs throughout the community.

A reporter and crew member from ABC10 attended the meeting as part of a story they are doing on today’s featured speaker, Treva Kelly.

Featured Presentation:

Treva Kelly, Legislative Director at Incest Survivors Speakers Bureau of California

Andres Sciolla introduced Treva Kelly.

Treva spoke on her personal story, and opened up for questions from the group. A key part of her message today and in her work, is that we have to conquer the taboo against talking about incest. Treva observed that there is more support for the rights of predators than in supporting people to simply report that incest has occurred.

Treva shared that ACEs science has been valuable to her work on behalf of incest survivors. ACEs screening is important- she recalls that her own self-harm behaviors were signals of a problem,"but nobody noticed". She even told her family, but after talking to the perpetrator once they accepted his claim that he would discontinue the abuse.  School and medical personnel never uncovered the trauma she was enduring.

ACEs science has been important for demonstrating the very long terms effects of trauma. In Treva’s case, the emergence of her addiction did not occur until AFTER the abuse had stopped. Today, she suffers from fibromyalgia, a debilitating illness that limits how much she can work. ACEs science has taught her that physical illness is an outcome of a traumatic childhood. This information is critical to two parts of her work- supporting survivors by helping them understand how their trauma is impacting other parts of their lives; and in lobbying legislators to drive home the severity and long term nature of trauma.

Treva is currently working with Assemblywoman Menendez on AB 2569 to close a loophole for sexual offenders who can apply for exclusion from the sexual predator registries based on certain criteria.

It is important for legislation to change based on ACEs science. When we know the long term, severe impacts of trauma, the statute of limitations should be extended for reporting these crimes. Treva tells the story that at age 21, she was finally ready to report the abuse that occurred between ages 5-11. Police demurred because the statute of limitations had passed. She insisted that they “write something down”- she wanted what happened to her to be documented, especially given the fact that she knew her abuser had hurt others. At 21 she felt an urgency to ensure that some documentation existed about her abuser, because she wanted some way to try and protect others from his abuse.

During Q&A, Treva offered to support the policy group with her contacts at the State Capitol.

Announcements and Closing led by DeAngelo Mack

• Save the Date: November 1: we hope to have Nadine Burke Harris and a screening of the film, Resilience.

• Two people who have contributed immensely to the trauma informed field are coming to town: Vincent Filetti, who conducted the original study on ACEs, and David Willis of the Home Visiting Project. When they are in town, ACEs Connection Network hopes to develop an event for Resilient Sacramento and other regional ACEs working groups.

• Stay tuned on the Resilient Sacramento website for local event postings:
  • National Health Equity Conference put on by medical students
  • Promise Neighborhood kick off announcement

• Please join us for our next meeting on August 9, 2016.