Webinar Q&A: Childhood Adversity—Data to Help Advocate for Change
In a March 29 webinar, panelists from kidsdata.org and the California Department of Public Health discussed how to describe the burden of childhood adversity in your community, how to frame your message most effectively, and how to engage and mobilize your community to address the roots and effects of childhood adversity. Attendees responded to the panelists’ presentations with questions about how best to integrate the information into their work.
Panelists:
Marissa Abbott, MPH – California Epidemiologic Investigation Service (Cal-EIS) Fellow, Injury Surveillance and Epidemiology Section, Safe and Active Communities Branch, California Department of Public Health
Lori Turk-Bicakci, Ph.D. – Senior Manager, Data and Research, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health
Q&A:
Download the full list of responses to questions that were posed during both the live March 29 webinar and the registration period. The first five of 26 responses are below.
How do we best begin a community dialogue about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?
ACEs provide a valuable frame to highlight how trauma is an intersectional issue. When approaching various stakeholders, you can try to frame your presentations in terms of how ACEs might matter to them in their personal and professional domains. It is also important to stress the idea that addressing adversity is not simply a personal issue but also a broader community responsibility.
There are several different ways to begin a community dialogue about ACEs. One approach is to start by identifying champions who can help you think about how to engage the community in conversations about adversity and trauma. Another important step is to convene and engage these champions and “supporters” around the issue, build baseline awareness about ACEs in the community, and leverage relationships in order to expand and engage your target audiences.
Can you give us an example of how you integrate values with ACEs facts?
We are trying to create a “new” public narrative grounded in values and beliefs that support safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all parents and children. In contrast, the current dominant value frame for child maltreatment includes value statements such as: 1) parenting is a family issue–not a government or community problem; and 2) bad parents and children are to blame.
To create a “new” public narrative, we need to propose another set of values that focuses on our shared responsibility for the wellbeing of children and the possibility for pro-active solutions. The ACEs “facts,” as seen in the broader set of adversity indicators, support the notion that parenting is not simply an isolated family matter. Instead, the data suggest that the toxic stresses and traumas experienced by children and families are shaped not only by family history and the immediate family dysfunctions, but also by the cumulative past and present environments in which they live, work, grow, and play. Adverse environments include unsafe and violent neighborhoods, poor quality education, persistent poverty, lack of opportunity, and limited job prospects.
The value of shared responsibility can be premised on the notion that we are all responsible for recognizing and addressing these unjust and preventable inequalities. This premise allows us to re-frame the dialogue from simply blaming parents to looking at the potential structural and systemic ways that families are affected. In this frame, government has an important role to play to address these inequalities and provide families and children with the supports they need to prevent, stop, mitigate, and recover from adversity and toxic stress.
What are some sample messages grounded in values and beliefs that help shift from an individual to a community frame?
Some of the messages grounded in shared responsibility start with value frames stressing a shared worldview: 1) we all want the best for our children; 2) parenting can be difficult–we all need help at some time; 3) investing in children is good for all of us/we all benefit when children succeed (e.g., paying into social security); 4) America’s “can do” spirit should prevail (we can solve these problems if we work together); and 5) focus on innovative solutions (we can find creative ways to solve problems).
Are there future plans to incorporate into kidsdata.org additional adversities that are not classified ACEs per se, such as neighborhood violence, housing, or employment discrimination?
In addition to indicators in the Childhood Adversity and Resilience topic, kidsdata.org has over 550 other indicators of children’s health and wellness, and many of them measure the extent of adversity. For example, we have data on poverty, housing instability, food insecurity, and child abuse/neglect. This summer, we expect to add additional community-level indicators related to poverty.
We would also like to add indicators that demonstrate resilience and that measure types of resources that support children’s health and wellness. An example of a supportive resource is school-based health centers, for which we currently show counts on our site. Please let us know if you are aware of a data source that measures resilience or quantifies supportive resources for counties in California.
Does kidsdata.org provide tangible materials for organizations to share with their community?
Kidsdata.org does not provide tangible materials about childhood adversity and resilience such as screening tools. However, you can generate fact sheets for any county, city, school district, and legislative district for which we have data that include a variety of indicators related to childhood adversity, health, and wellness.
For additional materials specifically related to adversity and resilience, we recommend reviewing the Research and Links section at the bottom of each indicator page and checking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Essentials for Childhood website.
Download the full list of responses to questions that were posed during both the live March 29 webinar and the registration period.
Posted by kidsdata.org
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