Rick Loseth of PACT (Putting All Communities Together) for Families Collaborative recently gave our staff an overview of the collaborative’s Partnering for Resilience work. Our own Early Childhood Specialist Tari Niemeyer serves on this committee.
Partnering for Resilience is a project to support families with young children through problem-solving around safety, resilience, and independence. As part of a two-year initiative funded by the Bush Foundation, it’s engaging parents and the professionals who support them in a collaborative effort to understand and respond to the needs of high-ACEs children age birth to 8 in Kandiyohi, McLeod, Meeker, Renville and Yellow Medicine counties.
“Resiliency tries to help us look not at what’s wrong, but what we can do,” Rick said. They’re working with schools and communities to share resources, provide trainings and build awareness.
An ACE, or adverse childhood experience, is a traumatic experience in a person’s life occurring before the age of 18 that the person recalls as an adult. This includes physical, sexual and verbal abuse, mental illness of a household member, problematic drinking or alcoholism of a household member, illegal street or prescription drug use by a household member, divorce or separation of a parent, domestic violence towards a a parent and incarceration of a household member.
Research shows these experiences are specifically linked to poor physical and mental health, chronic disease like asthma and diabetes, lower educational achievement, lower economic success, and impaired social success in adulthood.
A 2011 study by the Minnesota Department of Health (pdf) finds that over half of Minnesotans reported experiencing at least one ACE in childhood. But, Rick said the research is meant to spark action and hope.
“If nothing else, build up hope,” Rick said. He liked hearing that message at the Grow Our Own Summit. “How do we reinforce some of these positive aspects for kids? There’s great opportunity to partner on things … I encourage you to add this to the conversations.”
Want to dig deeper into understanding ACEs? Take 15 minutes to watch this TED Talk by pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris.
