Albuquerque, New Mexico has a population of approximately 560,000 people. This means that about a quarter of the population—140,000 children, women and men—have endured or will endure three or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
What makes the headlines in the news is just the tip of the iceberg. Our kids live in homes where there is abuse, neglect and all forms of traumatizing adult behaviors and most of these families will never meet someone from child welfare. Our third graders live with adults who have untreated mental health challenges and abuse substances.
We see the consequences of ACEs and trauma in kids who can’t learn at school, adults who can’t keep a job or parents who can’t parent. We have a traumatized city and no longer can we remain numb to the emotional costs to our families and dollars not effectively spent on data driven prevention and treatment. We must act now.
I am working with others to promote a new program focused on the data-driven prevention of ACEs and trauma—informed by the social determinants of health. We are not tinkering around the edges of prevention, we are using data to understand the impact of the harsh conditions children and parents live in. We know that resilient communities create resilient families—and the opposite is also true. While ACEs impact all families in all socio-economic levels, those with fewer resources struggle to find help to move out of a world of trauma.
Our work with ACEs prevention is being guided by the book Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment by Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello, both formerly with the New Mexico Child Protective Service’s Research, Assessment and Data Bureau. The book outlines how we must improve the conditions children are raised in and stop telling traumatized parents to fix themselves all on their own. Chapters show how we can empower our most vulnerable parents by providing family-friendly services like behavioral health care, early childhood learning programs, youth mentorship and family-centered schools.
Our first step in Albuquerque is engaging city hall, including a thoughtful and caring mayor. We must also engage Bernalillo County Commissioners in charge of funding ACEs prevention, along with our school board members, University of New Mexico, Central New Mexico Community College, faith-based organizations and our businesses.
We will build awareness of our epidemic of trauma and then move into data informing action. We have a blueprint and a course on the data-driven prevention of ACEs—now we need compassionate and courageous leadership to strengthen our countywide, data-driven and cross-sector ACEs prevention project. This will be modeled after the Resilience Leaders ACEs Prevention programs launched in Las Cruces, New Mexico and Owensboro, Kentucky, working in partnership with Safety+Success Communities and Eastern New Mexico University-Program of Social Work.
To join us and prevent more childhood trauma, please attend our forum: ACEs Prevention in Albuquerque: The Preventable Trauma and Death of Anna, age eight, August 24, 10:30-Noon, Albuquerque Community Foundation. The authors of Anna, Age Eight will discuss their book and the blueprint for building safe childhoods and empowered families. We cannot continue to allow Albuquerque’s children to endure more trauma when it’s predictable and preventable. Our boys and girls and their parents deserve so much more. When we make our communities safe for our children, we make our communities safe for everyone.
For more information visit, info@safetyandsuccess.org
Sincerely,
Dubra Karnes-Padilla
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