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By Iridian Casarez
iridian@northcoastjournal.com
M
ost of the seven stress-busting strategies the California Surgeon General’s Office have identified to help reduce toxic stress feel so simple, like being out in nature, eating a balanced, nutritious diet or getting sufficient, high-quality sleep, but they work. So when Mary Ann Hansen was looking through applications for the 2021-2022 First Five Humboldt and Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Collaborative Partnership grants, she was inspired by a few, including Cooperation Humboldt’s mini garden project that would provide families with gardening materials, knowledge and the “confidence to empower more gardeners,” giving families both access to nutritious foods and time spent outdoors. “I was really inspired this year by the Cooperation Humboldt project,” Hansen said. “I think that we know from the research that it’s one of the seven stress busters that [California Surgeon General] Nadine Burke Harris has in her toolkit: to get out in nature. It lowers our stress response (levels) and helps those stressors from becoming toxic stress and producing those negative, life-long outcomes, and so I was really inspired by the gardening project.” With Measure S, the county’s cannabis excise tax that passed in 2016 and brings in more than $10 million in annual revenue, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors made a commitment to ensure funding for programs that improve the physical, mental and emotional health of children and reduce the number of ACEs. For the past handful of years since the first round of funding, the board and DHHS have collaborated with First Five Humboldt and allocated $400,000 annually to go to mental health services for children and families, with $200,000 going out as community grants, known as the ACEs Collaborative Partnership, and the
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Cooperation Humboldt’s Mini Garden Project, which provides families with gardening materials and education, is one of 10 projects that is funded by the county’s ACEs Collaborative Partnership grant. Photo by Katie Rodriguez, courtesy of Cooperation Humboldt. other $200,000 going directly to First Five Humboldt in reimbursements for community resilience projects, playgroups and mental health work. In 2014, the Center for Youth Wellness released a study that highlighted the impacts adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) had in Humboldt County. It found that Humboldt and Mendocino counties combined have the highest rate of adverse childhood experiences in California, with about 75 percent of residents having experienced one or more of these childhood traumas and 30 percent having experienced four or more. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente identified ACEs as falling into one of 10 categories: sexual, emotional and physical abuse; emotional or physical neglect; living in a household with someone who suffers from mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse or divorce; or having an incarcerated relative. Each experience counts as one ACE, with the total representing an ACE score on a scale of one to 10. All these experiences put children under stress and at risk of extreme toxic stress if they experience more than one. The study also found that the more ACEs a person experiences, the more likely they are to have extremely poor health outcomes later in life due to chemical imbalances of cortisol, the stress hormone. A person with four or more ACEs is more than five times as likely to suffer from depression, twice as likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), nearly three times as likely to smoke and more than three times as likely to binge drink than the average person. The CYW study brought into focus what Humboldt County had long been experiencing, the poor health and behavioral out-
comes brought on by childhood trauma. Since the report was published and Gov. Gavin Newsom created a state Surgeon General’s office, reducing ACEs has been one of California’s top priorities, training doctors to screen for ACEs, sharing valuable information like the science behind toxic stress and how to build resilience (including the seven stress-busting strategies). Identifying the stress-reduction strategies was just one part of the Surgeon General Office’s mission of reducing childhood trauma and building resilience. The other four strategies include having supportive relationships with caregivers, other family members and peers; getting regular physical activity, being mindful and using meditation; and getting mental healthcare, including psychotherapy or psychiatric care, and substance use disorder treatment when needed. Around the same time as the state, community organizations like First Five Humboldt and the county board of supervisors have tagged along and committed to providing funding to community organizations to provide services that align with the state’s mission of reducing ACEs and their impacts. “There’s no one magic solution in addressing childhood trauma and toxic stress in our community,” Hansen said. “I believe that the only way we’re going to address the issue and achieve better outcomes for everyone in Humboldt is if we’re all working together and bringing our best selves, our best insights, our best hearts for families in Humboldt, so the grant project is a great way of bringing in agencies and community members who have probably not thought about how they
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Continued on next page » northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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