A campaign to aid victims of childhood trauma is under way in California.
Such trauma is the source of significant lifelong health issues that affect families and communities across the state, said Nadine Burke Harris, founder and chief operating officer of the Center for Youth Wellness, a San Francisco-based pediatric clinic, reports Jeremy Loudenback of The Chronicle of Social Change.
A focus of the campaign was a recent San Diego conference.
Unaddressed trauma as a result of being a victim of a crime or witnessing violence can lead to tremendous consequences later in life, said Lenore Anderson, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice.
Anderson labeled the adversity as a public safety crisis.
A Kaiser Permanente-Centers for Disease Control study called “Adverse Childhood Experiences” connected early experiences of trauma during childhood and subsequent health issues later in life by the organization.
The Center for Youth Wellness released the Children Can Thrive: A Vision for California’s Response to the Adverse Childhood Experiences report.
The report recommended these steps for preventing and responding to child trauma:
- Raise public awareness
- Develop a trauma-informed workforce
- Increase access to interventions
- Promote early identification coupled with interventions
- Partner in efforts to address the determinants of childhood adversity
- Cultivate trauma-informed systems
