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Carrie Seidman: Trauma recovery a community responsibility

The Herald-Tribune - 9/6/2018

Sept. 06--In the spring of 2010, Robin Saenger, then vice-mayor of Tarpon Springs, discovered the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) test, a simple 10-question survey developed through Centers for Disease Control research that calculates the degree of abuse, neglect and family dysfunction an individual has experienced in childhood.

A growing body of scientific evidence has shown that those early life traumas are directly connected to later physical and mental illnesses and contribute to a host of today's social and medical ills -- among them, child abuse, domestic violence, drug and alcohol addiction, divorce, obesity, diabetes and suicide.

The higher the ACE score, the higher the risk of consequences. For example, people with four or more ACEs have a 700 percent increased risk of alcoholism, and a 1,200 percent increased risk of attempted suicide.

As an elected official, Saenger had long deliberated why, when so many organizations in her community were working so earnestly to address its problems, so little progress was being made. She reasoned that if personal struggles and public maladies had common catalysts, helping individuals identify and recover from the "toxic stress" they'd experienced would result in benefits to everyone. Her vision was to create a community that didn't ask "What's wrong with you?" and respond with retaliation, but instead offered "What happened to you?" and provided the support necessary for recovery and resiliency.

That's how Tarpon Springs -- a Gulf Coast town of 24,000 about 70 miles north of Sarasota -- became the first "trauma-informed community" in the nation. Since then, dozens of regions around the country have taken on a similar challenge, some with an agency-driven top-down approach and others, like Tarpon Springs, building a grassroots consortium. In addition, many individual organizations -- such as Sarasota'sFlorida Center for Early Childhood, All Star Children's Foundation and YMCA/Safe Children's Coalition -- have integrated trauma-informed practices on their own.

Last month, about 350 leaders from around the state -- from policy makers to PTA presidents -- gathered at a Naples "think tank" spearheaded by Florida State University'sCenter for Prevention, to showcase some of the state's cutting-edge trauma initiatives, hear a presentation from Dr. Vincent Felitti, one of the principal investigators on the CDC's original ACEs study, and discuss how to build Florida's disparate trauma initiatives into a collective that could reduce some of the state's most intractable problems.

Last week, stakeholders from Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties met for the first time to embark on a tri-county trauma-informed collaboration. Saenger, the founding director of Peace4Tarpon, shared some of the successes and challenges her group has encountered in trying to build a healthier and more resilient community.

"Because we were the first, we had no real model to follow," she said. "But from the beginning, we knew citizen participation was a key to community change. This is an easy reach for regular community members because everyone has experienced a degree of trauma. So there is no 'us and them,' it's all just us."

While human services agencies would eventually play a role by instilling their own trauma-informed practices, Saenger said Tarpon Springs' efforts initially focused on building relationships. The guiding principles were that that everyone had some gift to offer, no one in need of help would be turned away and everyone bore responsibility for the community's problems.Participants were asked to sign a "memorandum of understanding" with a commitment to "connect, inform, transform and heal" within their own realm, be it a family, church, social circle or a place of employment.

"From the start, our approach was radical inclusivity and a radical lack of hierarchy," Saenger said. "Every person counts the same. When the community takes the lead, the pressure is taken off of individual agencies."

Over the next five years, with little more than in-kind funding, no staff and no office, the group established a website and marketing materials and began hosting monthly public forums to develop strategies for change. Because the primary goal was to reduce violence and conflict, they settled on the name Peace4Tarpon (despite the "lofty" implications, Saenger says) and chose the red mangrove -- a hardy native plant with deep roots and the ability to withstand environmental stress -- as its symbol. Community members were encouraged to "Offer your piece...Find your peace."

Peace4Tarpon's website allows people to take the ACEs test (results feed into a data base overseen by University of Florida Public Health), offers a regularly updated resource guide and shares local stories. When the community experienced the trauma of a young man with a history of mental health challenges who was killed in a police shooting last year, Peace4Tarpon prompted a transparent conversation about the painful incident.

I'm someone whose eyes glaze over when people start talking in the jargon of academia or bureaucracy so, as the only individual at the table during this initial local meeting who was not part of a human services agency or organization, Saenger's "citizen-driven" model particularly appealed to me. I'm just old-school enough to prefer a phone call over a text, and a face-to-face, heart-to heart conversation over either. (I often shock people when I pick up my office phone.) I applaud the admirably-invested members of our human services community, but I still believe our residents have the greatest power to make Sarasota a more equitable, compassionate and inclusive community.

So as area agencies begin laying the foundation to support trauma-informed care in their own organizations, I'll be working on my end to make sure that any community member with an interest has an opportunity to contribute to healing the hurts that have touched us all. Stay tuned for an forthcoming announcement about a kickoff community event. And if you're interested in getting in on the ground floor, send me your name and contacts now.

I'm not beyond getting into the competitive spirit of this thing. It may be too late for us to become the first trauma-informed community in the country, but if Tarpon Springs thinks they have the market on "radical inclusivity," they've got another think coming.

Contact columnist Carrie Seidman at 941-361-4834 or carrie.seidman@heraldtribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @CarrieSeidman and Facebook at facebook.com/cseidman.

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