The Children's Resilience Initiative in Walla Walla, WA, has been busy. We're creating parent "Did you Know" cards, one for each ACE. In this post, you can see small front and back images of the first one. I just got the Spanish version from our translator back. The others are in the editing and layout stages. We plan to sell all 10 for $10. We are getting the Resilience Online Store finished (on the web site), so they’ll be available there along with our other products and services.
We think parents and service providers will be most interested in using the cards. The "loss of parent" was directed to judges (and lawyers) because of the Parenting Plan Class which is supposed to be mandatory in Walla Walla County for any divorcing couple with children. We want to highlight the impact of divorce on the child, since most parents and even court systems aren’t aware of the national data suggesting a three-fold increase in drop-out or teen pregnancy when compared to non-divorce families. It's not that we're against divorce -- it often is the right thing to do. But parents need to know that their children need extra attention and assistance during and after a divorce to allay its impact.
We did ACE and resilience training at the Walla Walla Police Department twice now, with two more scheduled this week. Every officer will have had the training. We have been invited to do the same training for the Walla Walla County Sheriff Department’s staff (in early 2013).
Here are some comments we've received from police officers who participated:
-- Why is this training only an hour?”
-- “This is some of the most profound information I have ever heard.”
-- “This information has changed me. I walk the streets differently now.”
We trained 40 elementary school Early Head Start teachers and staff last week with additional school district staff and
community partners participating in a morning session taught by Dr. Steven Taylor on the Collaborative Problem Solving model of Ross Greene (author of the Explosive Child and Lost at School). We are preparing for two full days of training in Detroit next week. The Washington State Penitentiary invited CRI to a meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss ACEs and resilience training with both staff and inmates. Dates for training weren’t set yet.
We're also planning the next Children’s Forum (April 2013) that will focus on where our community is concerning child abuse, with an emphasis on ACEs as the framework for the outcomes that cost society so much in lost lives, potential, capacity and dollars. This is our biennial public forum on issues of concern to families and children. The Planning Team will also be updating the Data Book, a unique compilation of trends in four domains, using 16 indicators. We’ve been doing this as a community since 1998. Our last one featured Dr. John Medina (that was when the School Board voted unanimously to close the District schools for the morning hours so that every staff person and teacher could attend the Forum). We also released the Walla Walla County BRFSS data at that forum- we are one of three Counties to have our own ACE score based on BRFSS, which we were able to include under our Gates grant.
This week, our biggest hospital, St. Mary's, will make a second distribution of our New Parent brochure (soon to be added to our web site) in Baby Bags that go home with new infants. We now have the Spanish version available, too. We designed this brochure to offer ten tips to parents, and they include information on resilience and ACEs.
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