Community leaders gather to discuss effects of childhood trauma

Feb. 11--A near-capacity crowd gathered in the lecture hall at Autry Technology Center on Monday morning for the showing of a documentary and public discussion of how childhood trauma is negatively impacting the community.

It was one of two showings Monday of "Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope," which drew educators, mental health professionals, clergy, social workers, nonprofit and civic leaders together to discuss ways to improve social and health outcomes for community children.

"Resilience" documents the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as divorce, abuse, neglect or witnessing violence, and negative health and social outcomes later in life.

Dan Schiedel, CEO and executive director of United Way of Enid and Northwest Oklahoma, said United Way and the Potts Family Foundation wanted to coordinate the showings to foster public discussion and spur efforts to break the connections between childhood trauma and those later negative effects.

The documentary promotes "the birth of a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators and communities, who are using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction and disease," according to its website.

"Resilience" documents findings by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a 1998 study of more than 17,000 adults. The CDC found, as children, 28 percent of the study participants had witnessed physical abuse, 27 percent had witnessed substance abuse in the home, 13 percent had been present during domestic violence and 20 percent had been victims of sexual abuse.

Researchers identified correlations between those childhood traumatic experiences and negative behaviors in teen to adult years, including tobacco, drug and alcohol use, risky sexual activity and unhealthy eating habits. Negative health outcomes followed, including higher risks for heart disease, depression and other diseases, and higher rates of negative social outcomes, such as homelessness, abusive relationships and incarceration.

Debbie Wilczek, executive director of Enid YWCA, sees many of those outcomes in the YWCA's crisis center, which houses women, children and -- in a separate area -- men coming out of domestic violence situations.

She said it's important the community better understand the long-lasting effects of ACEs, and "help kiddos who may have experienced trauma, and get them the help they need so there can be a shift, and it doesn't become a generational cycle."

Paula Stafford, director of affiliate relations for the Oklahoma branch of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), said she wants people to better understand the connection between ACEs and lifelong mental illness.

"We're very committed to helping those families that have a loved one affected by mental illness," Stafford said, "and trauma is very connected to mental illness.

"We want to help the community understand what trauma is doing to our kids," Stafford said.

Pamela Toohey, coordinator of child trauma and resilience for Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said the effects of childhood trauma last into adulthood, and affect every walk of life.

"The top six health-related killers in our state are directly affected by ACEs," Toohey said.

The effects are particularly prevalent in Oklahoma, Toohey said, which has some of the highest risk factors for ACEs in the nation.

Toohey pointed to a 2014 study published by Child Trends, a Bethesda, Md.-based nonprofit focused on children's health and welfare issues.

According to the Child Trends study, the greatest risk factors for ACEs in Oklahoma are economic hardship and divorce, followed by alcoholism, domestic violence and mental illness.

Oklahoma has the highest composite percentage of children who have had one to three or more ACEs, and the highest percentage of children who had witnessed or been victims of domestic violence, according to the study.

In the Child Trends report, Oklahoma was ranked in the highest quartile for every ACEs risk factor, including economic hardship, divorce or separation of parents, substance abuse, mental illness, violence, incarceration of a parent or caregiver, death of a loved one and domestic violence.

District Attorney Mike Fields told attendees Monday he regularly sees the negative effects of not adequately preventing and addressing childhood trauma, which often leads to recidivism and generational cycles of crime.

"It didn't take me very long to realize the revolving door of the criminal justice system is very real," Fields said.

In his 22 years as a prosecutor and nine years as a district attorney, Fields said he now is into the third generation of some families he's had to prosecute.

Fields said family cycles of physical, mental and sexual abuse, neglect, substance abuse and mental illness "conspire together to push people into the criminal justice system, and then conspire to keep them in the criminal justice system."

Oklahoma's rate of incarcerating women -- the highest in the nation -- is both a result and cause of that cycle, Fields said. Of Oklahoma's female prison population, Fields said 90 percent have been victims of domestic violence and two-thirds suffer from addiction to drugs or alcohol.

To break those cycles, Fields said the community needs to take a holistic, preventive approach.

"We need to look far upstream from where we are to deal with adverse childhood experiences," Fields said.

He advocated greater access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, a more holistic response to child abuse, neglect and assault, more counseling and treatment resources in public schools and expanded economic and job opportunities as needed steps to improve outcomes and reduce cyclical crime and victimization.

As a first step in that process, Potts Family Foundation CEO Craig Knutson said the community needs to "break down the silence" surrounding adverse childhood experiences, and foster a new dialogue.

"It's not what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you," Knutson said, "and we need to change the dialogue around that."

Tasha Billingslea, community education manager at St. Mary's Resilience Behavioral Health, said it will take a team effort from all sectors of the community to address ACEs and negative outcomes, to "prevent serious mental health issues in the future."

"It's important for the community to understand the impact of adverse childhood experiences on children," Billingslea said, "so we can all work together ... to create a safety net so no-one falls through the cracks."

Schiedel said United Way will continue working to build that team effort through the Enid ACEs Coalition, which currently has 19 community partners signed on to develop a long-range plan to address childhood trauma.

"It's about building a plan for us and our community," Schiedel said, "and how we can do a better job of working together to address this, and ensure better outcomes."

Any organization interested in joining the coalition can contact Schiedel at dan@unitedwayenid.org.

___

(c)2019 the Enid News & Eagle (Enid, Okla.)

Visit the Enid News & Eagle (Enid, Okla.) at www.enidnews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.