June Meeting Summary

Welcome by Wendie Skala

Mindfulness Minute led by DeAngelo Mack

Introductions and Celebrations led by Wendie Skala

Action Workgroups

Each workgroup chair(s) gave a brief description of their purpose and initial goals, and invited participants to join. Sign-up sheets were distributed.

Workgroups include:

• Policy
• Trauma-Informed Schools
• Community Outreach & Engagement
• Juvenile Justice (Updated name, Now: System Involved Youth)
• Health Care and Behavioral Health

Website Tutorial led by Gail

Gail gave a tutorial on how to join the ACEs Connection Network and the Resilient Sacramento page. Donielle shared how to navigate the page and quickly find relevant content.

Featured Presentation:

Educating Health and Behavioral Staff about Trauma-Informed Care at WellSpace Health

Presented by DeAngelo Mack and Dr. Piri Ackerman-Barger

Dr. Ackerman-Barger (Piri) explained how important ACEs is to training nurses and nursing students. Not only is the ACEs science critical to preparing nurses to effectively treat their patients; it is also critical that nurses understand how toxic stress and their own personal ACE scores, impact the care they provide. Piri has observed that as nurses learn about ACEs, they begin to relate to the trauma experience from the perspective of their own lives. This connection leads to a better understanding of what their patients are going through.

A key challenge for Piri’s work, is convincing the nursing faculty to integrate this important science into the curriculum. Nurses want the information; they want to feel that they can help their patients, and understanding the ACEs science enables them to better serve patients. However, faculty want to stick to the standardized curriculum that they are most confident in teaching. The challenge is helping faculty to realize that an understanding of historical trauma is critical to quality nursing, and therefore should be integrated into the curriculum. 

DeAngelo stated that the goal of the Sacramento Violence Intervention Program (SVIP) is not just about lowering the incidence of intentional injuries among the target population; “our goal is about liberation”. Clients’ problems didn’t start with the act of violence that brought them into the program. If clients do go on to avoid violence, but the overall quality of that life does not improve, that’s not the goal of SVIP. SVIP wants to support enriched lives of program alumni well past the few months of the official enrollment in the program.

Currently, SVIP is developing workshops to teach other professionals in other sectors how to understand youth who have a history of witnessing or experiencing physical violence.

The beginning of this work involves a Listening Campaign. This has resulted in a collection of youth stories about the intense violence they have experienced.

“Our young people have an average ACE score of 8.”

One youth reflected that it wasn’t the violence itself that led them to engage in violence, it was the lack of positivity: positive relationships, positive people in their lives.

DeAngelo observed: “Violence is a form of communication” and will be used when youth have no other alternatives. There is a lack of social skills that leads to conflicts that escalate to violence. Many times, violence occurred after a conflict that otherwise could have been easily brushed off by youth with strong social skills. Teaching youth about ACEs helps them understand that they are traumatized, an awareness that is the beginning of healing.

The presentation concluded with Piri observing the importance of story, of hearing others’ stories. In convincing professionals to integrate ACEs, it is important that they hear these stories directly, because it is difficult to hear people’s personal testimonies and not be transformed. The connections made have the power to inspire professionals to change their practice.

Susan Jones echoed this point- she has found that hearing the recorded voices of students telling their stories of what helps and what hurts in classrooms, has the most powerful persuasive impact on teaching staff.

Piri: “As humans, we have all experienced some kind of trauma, and that is a basis for connection and therefore transformation”

Announcements and Closing led by Wendie Skala

• Karen Abrego from Senator Pan’s office shared Dr. Pan was hosting a Town Hall meeting in the community on June 16, 2016. (See write up of event by clicking here).

• Alicia Doktor shared that her branch of the Sacramento Public Library, Colonial Heights, is now serving free lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

• Please join us for our next meeting on July 12, 2016.

(For list of Attendees, see full notes in attached document)