Updated 3/21/2024

2023-2024 Priorities:

• Improve data available on trauma and ACES at the local level.

• Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally-affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives.

2023-2024 Adverse Childhood Experiences Meeting Schedule:

• Monday, November 27, 2023, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams
• Monday, January 29, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams
• Monday, February 26, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams
• Monday, April 29, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams
• Monday, May 20, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams

Monday, May 20, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams- Work Group Meeting

Attendees: Madison Allen, Wanda Boone, Ingrid Bou-Saada, Mebane Boyd, Terri Grant, Sharon Hirsch, Micha James, Stacie Kinlaw, Gerri Mattson, Juan Ortiz, Portia Pope, Melea Rose Waters; Staff: Ashley Rink

• Welcome and Agenda Overview
  • Wanda Boone welcomed everyone and asked everyone to introduce themselves and share how they felt on a scale of 1 to 5.
  • Sharon Hirsch reviewed the priority focus for the meeting was, “Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally-affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives.” The presentations on the NCDHHS Community and Partner Engagement Guide and Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust’s Investment in Preventing ACEs and Building Resilience were two examples of how this can be done. 
• NCDHHS Community and Partner Engagement Guide
  • Portia Pope, Deputy Director, Office of Health Equity and Community Engagement and Juan Ortiz, Cultural Competency Program Manager with the Office of Health Equity, Health Equity Portfolio, Office of the Secretary with the NC Department of Health and Human Services, provided an overview of the NCDHHS Community and Partner Engagement Guide (CPE). 
  • NCDHHS is making a conscious, concerted, intentional effort to involve communities and partners in their policies, procedures, and initiatives.
  • The NCDHHS Partner Engagement Inventory lists all relevant external partners engaged with the Divisions/ Offices and includes an abstract version visible for communities to access.
  • The Equitable Outreach and Engagement Continuum was highlighted and is available on page 9 of the CPE. The continuum is not linear. The below infographic is being translated into other languages.
  • The following questions were asked about the guide:
    • Who is the main intended audience for this guide?
      • The guide can be used within NCDHHS and outside of NCDHHS. The guide is an on approach for equitable community and partner engagement that is transparent in scope.
    • How does an agency get listed on the NCDHHS' services and partnerships roster?  What are the criteria?
      • External groups the Division engages with regularly (monthly or quarterly) that advise/inform your programmatic and policy work as a division.
      • Partnerships which are state or legislatively required.
      • Groups that are your top priorities for engagement.
    • Is there an assessment tool to determine at what level is an effort on the spectrum of outreach to engagement? Are there measures you have created or another tool we can use?
      • NCDHHS uses a variety of tools such as the Health Equity Impact Assessment among others.
    • Additional questions can be submitted through an inquiry form on the DHHS CPE website.
• Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust’s Investment in Preventing ACEs and Building Resilience
  • Madison Allen, Senior Program Officer, Health Improvement in North Carolina with Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, shared about their Healthy Places North Carolina Initiative that was a 10-year, $100 million dollar commitment. Refer to the slide deck titled, “5.20.24 ACES Workgroup Meeting KBR”.
  • The last group of counties to join this work were in the southeastern part of North Carolina in Bladen, Robeson, and Columbus counties. The investments were intended to support networks and build the capacity of local residents to lead the work.
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) rose to the top in this region of the state partly due to 75% of residents within that tri-county region living in poverty and the devastation of natural disasters. 
  • The goal was to address childhood trauma for children from neighborhoods with low-incomes.
  • Many partners within the region have worked to build the capacity of families and to build the capacity of prevention partners to deeply understand and advocate for the prevention of child abuse and neglect in this region. There have been diverse partnerships with non-traditional partners in the region.
  • The Tri-County Regional Community Prevention Action Plan includes additional information about the plan of action within the region.
  • The work in Bladen, Robeson, and Columbus counties is reflective of Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust’s intentional strategy of systems change. Their grantmaking strategy starts with capacity building.
  • The following questions were asked about the presentation:
    • How do we engage with state partners and legislators about the importance of doing this kind of work?
      • With the Healthy Places North Carolina work ending, there is opportunity for flexibility to extend and think about this work more regionally beyond the 10 counties named for the Healthy Places Initiative.
      • There are opportunities to learn from other counties around the state about resilience work. Some state agencies are bringing people together to move other initiatives forward.
      • Smart Start is working internally to fund systems change work and have measurable outcomes to justify the work to the state legislature. There are opportunities to explore how to fund this work sustainably on an ongoing basis.
• Identify Next Steps and Adjourn
  • The next work group meeting date has not been determined. The next work group meeting will focus back on the data priority.
    • NC Child will be invited to share about the Kids Count data.
    • Meghan Shanahan will be invited to provide any updates on the Essentials for Childhood grant and surveillance system work.

Monday, April 29, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams- Work Group Meeting

Attendees: Emily Newman Beaver, Wanda Boone, Jessica Bousquette, Mebane Boyd, Tracey Fuchs, Terri Grant, Sharon Hirsch, Micha James, Stacie Kinlaw, Gerri Mattson, Sara McCartney, Vantoinette Savage, Trina Stephens, Ivana Susic; Staff: Hannah Mcdiarmid

• Welcome and Agenda Overview
  • Wanda Boone welcomed everyone and reviewed the meeting agenda.
  • The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) Work Group’s 2023-2024 priorities are to:
    • Improve data available on trauma and ACES at the local level
    • Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally-affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives
• Essentials for Childhood Updates
  • North Carolina has been an Essentials for Childhood state for ten years. The Essentials for Childhood Task Force is being reconvened within the next few months to update on the progress that has been made over the past ten years and make recommendations for the future.
  • Ivana Susic, Research Specialist with the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, is the project manager for Essentials for Childhood, and shared the following updates:
    • Part of the CDC requirement and overall goal of this grant is to create an effective ACEs and PCEs (positive childhood experiences) surveillance structure to analyze, collect, and use ACEs data to inform evidence-based prevention strategy implementation. This will be accomplished by:
      • Convening a data work group to identify appropriate data sources to include in the system, administrative and social determinants of health, integrating it data sources into a surveillance system that tracks ACEs as a state and county level, and disaggregating data by demographic characteristics when appropriate.
      • Identifying a storage location for the surveillance system that allows access by community members. The data work group will decide the best way to design the public facing interface.
      • Creating a data dissemination plan to share the surveillance system with state and local organizations.
  • Implementation will tentatively begin during year three of the five-year grant; this will be dependent on the data work group and the design of the public facing interface.
  • Suggestions for data parameters can be shared with Ivana to share with the project evaluator.
  • There is an opportunity for the ACEs Work Group to identify internally someone to serve as a liaison to the data work group to keep communication open between the two groups. After that person is identified, Ivana can introduce them to the evaluator for connection to the data work group.
    • Next steps are to Identify an ACEs Work Group member to serve as a liaison with the Essentials for Childhood data work group.
• Building Healthy & Resilient Communities
  • Mebane Boyd, Resilient Communities Officer with Smart Start and the North Carolina Partnership for Children, provided an overview of the data project and dashboard.
    • The dashboard was funded in part by a grant from NCDHHS.
    • The Resilient Communities Initiative takes into consideration the four realms of ACEs:
      • Adverse Childhood Experiences
      • Adverse Community Experiences
      • Adverse Climate Experiences
      • Atrocious Cultural Experiences
    • The Smart Start Community Indicators dashboard includes long term indicators from all five of the CDC’s Social Determinants of Health. Communities also wanted real time/ process indicators, data about what is happening now at the coalition level, including relationships, organizational culture, representation, etc.
    • The indicator wish list included data the Community Advisory Council and their State Advisory Council wished they could measure and include in the dashboard; good data for those indicators was not available, such as connection to social supports.
    • On the dashboard the Smart Start Community Indicators and Healthy & Resilient Communities metrics can be viewed together or separately. Some of the data is available on the map at the county and/or census tract level. The glossary includes the data source and year the data was collected. The data is updated annually.
    • There is not currently a centralized reporting system for child abuse and neglect. The most recent data is from 2019.
• Identify Next Steps and Adjourn
  • The next work group meeting will be on Monday, May 20, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm via Microsoft Teams.
    • This meeting will focus on the priority, “Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally-affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives.”
  • The June work group meeting will focus back on the data priority.
    • NC Child will be invited to share about the Kids Count data.
    • An evaluator will be invited to provide any updates on the Essentials for Childhood grant and surveillance system work.

Monday, February 26, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams- Work Group Meeting

Attendees: Wanda Boone, Jess Bousquette, Mebane Boyd, Terri Grant, Sharon Hirsch, Micha James, Trishana Jones, Sue Lynn Ledford, Gerri Mattson, Sara McCartney, Melissa W. Radcliff, Melea Rose Waters; Staff: Ashley Rink

• Welcome and Agenda Overview
  • Sharon Hirsch welcomed everyone and reviewed the meeting agenda.
• Review of Jamboard and Themes
  • Sharon Hirsch reviewed the themes previously discussed related to the second priority, “Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives.”
    • Need to understand better where community-based coalitions and organizations are and how they define themselves.
    • Drafting a policy for inclusion of local voice in statewide initiatives related to ACEs and resilience.
    • Need to rethink who was an expert, whether experts are the state level people, researchers, and/or families and communities at the local level the experts.
    • Need for more money to go to local communities for this work.
    • Need to understand what community means.
  • NCDHHS (North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services) released a Community and Partner Engagement Guide.
    • The NCDHHS Health Equity Framework is included on page 3 and community is defined on page 5 of the guide.
    • For additional information, refer to https://www.ncdhhs.gov/about/department-initiatives/community-and-partner-engagement.
• Funding for community-rooted, culturally affirming family and community support programs
  • The work group discussed the following questions.
    • What does community mean?
      • community is geographically accessible
      • Those who have experienced service/within systems
      • People most impacted are LEADING
      • Self-identified group based on identity, shared history, shared language or place
    • What does the community need to participate?
      • Paying those who have lived experience so that they can participate and share their experience.
      • stipends for families to participate - meals, childcare
      • Openness to new solutions
      • Training people who are vulnerable/ impacted by systems to learn about ACEs, collective impact, community empowerment -- with stipends.  Then share with peers
      • Space and time for creativity and innovation - with less bureaucracy and oversight.
      • Build trust by empowering community members to participate/take lead.
      • Less technical language in meetings
      • A clear path of participation. If the community participates, how will their information be used, how will results  be shared, what are goals, how is success defined
      • Resources that advertise the opportunities across demographics
      • Longer term funding for planning, engagement, implementation and evaluation so can be creative with tracking milestones and progress.
      • Include opportunities and time for youth to participate
      • Acknowledgement of many ways of "knowing" something. We don't all need degrees to understand ACEs
      • Identification of barriers to funding from government funders
      • Identified barriers to participation and then address them
      • easily accessible for the community to participate
      • Familiar or known individuals that are trusted. CHWs for example
      • Less burdensome reporting
      • Including people with lived experiences
      • clear expectations -- what the community can expect from participating and what the group that is asking for their participation is expected to do
      • perhaps Public Health, DSS, Nonprofits, Community Action agencies
      • Less restrictions on things that can be funded
      • Consistency, transparency from State/funders
      • Humble, help one another, less concern with turf - even among community-led organizations
• Identify Next Steps and Adjourn
  • An evaluator with UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, will be invited to attend the next work group meeting that focuses on the second priority to share an update about the surveillance grant.
  • For the next steps, work group members are asked to continue to add responses to the Jamboard. The co-leaders will meet to synthesize the responses prior to the next meeting.
  • The next work group meeting will be on Monday, March 25, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm via Microsoft Teams. This meeting will focus on the priority, “Improve data available on trauma and ACES at the local level.”

Monday, January 29, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams- Work Group Meeting

Attendees: Wanda Boone, Brian Boyd, Mebane Boyd, Ellen Carroll, Daniel Gitterman, Sharon Hirsch, Micha James, Catherine Joyner, Stacie Kinlaw, Sue Lynn Ledford, Gerri Mattson, Sara McCartney, Ivey Parks, Nancy Rosales, Trina Stephens, Melea Rose Waters; Staff: Hannah McDiarmid and Ashley Rink

• Welcome and Agenda Overview
  • Wanda Boone welcomed everyone and reviewed the meeting agenda.
• Review of Jamboard and Themes
  • Sharon Hirsch shared that going forward the group would focus on a different priority every other month. The focus of this meeting was on the data priority, “Improve data available on trauma and ACEs at the local level.”
  • The group reviewed the following themes from the previous meeting on November 27, 2023, related to the priority on data at the local level.
    • Focus on protective factors.
    • Data about all four levels of ACEs
    • Other committees are working on similar efforts.
    • There are opportunities around mapping on funding.
    • Commitment to share data.
    • To convene at the local level.
    • Telling the stories around the data to move from awareness to action.
    • Other partners to engage at the state and local level.
    • Importance of collaboration and establishing trust.
    • The state does collect data on child protective services (CPS) reports; the data is available, but not timely. CPS data is available by county and race and is available through UNC’s School of Social Work.
• Identifying statewide data needs
  • The work group discussed the following questions. 
    • Who do we know that is measuring this data locally?
    • How do we define and measure Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?
    • How do we define and measure Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs)?
• Identify Next Steps and Adjourn
  • For the next steps, work group members are asked to continue to add responses to the Jamboard. The co-leaders will meet to synthesize the responses prior to the next meeting.
  • The next work group meeting will be on Monday, February 26 , 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm via Microsoft Teams. This meeting will focus on the priority, “Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives.”

Monday, November 27, 2023, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Microsoft Teams- Work Group Meeting

Attendees:  Wanda Boone, Jess Bousquette, Ellen Carroll, Terri Grant, Micha James, Sharon Hirsch, Gerri Mattson, Melissa Radcliff, Trina Stephens, Melea Rose Waters; Staff: Ashley Rink

• Welcome and Agenda Overview
  • Sharon Hirsch welcomed everyone and reviewed the meeting agenda.
• Clarifying our role and charge
  • Wanda Boone reviewed the targets and baselines for Adverse Childhood Experiences from Healthy North Carolina 2030.
  • The charge is to consider how the work group could advance the priorities related to advocacy, implementation, etc.
• Identifying action steps to advance our two priorities
  • The work group reviewed the planning survey results, discussed themes from the results, and where there were opportunities. The planning survey included the following questions. Refer to Jamboard for additional information. 
    • What do you recommend as next steps to advance this priority, "Improve data available on trauma and ACEs at the local level"?
    • What do you recommend as next steps to advance this priority, "Increase funding for and embed community-rooted, culturally affirming family and community support programs into existing initiatives"?
    • What strengths do you and your organization bring to this work group?
    • What work is your organization interested in doing to help advance these priority areas?
    • What do you think are the most impactful things we could do in the next year?
    • Who else should be invited to participate in this work?
• Identify Next Steps and Adjourn
  • The next work group meeting will be on Monday, January 29, 2024, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm via Microsoft Teams.

• Building Better Childhoods Toolkit: https://buildingbetterchildhoods.org/
• Building Healthy & Resilient Communities Across North Carolina: One Community at a Time: https://indd.adobe.com/view/f9cca8b9-d326-4666-99d0-afe7ea06bd73
• Community-Rooted Organizations : Enhanced Accountability and Capacity Building for Community Development: https://metropolitiques.eu/Community-Rooted-Organizations-Enhanced-Accountability-and-Capacity-Building.html
• Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA): Background and Funding: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42838.pdf
• Healthy & Resilient Communities Dashboard: https://www.smartstart.org/healthy-resilient-communities-dashboard-launched/
• Smart Start Community Indicators: https://ncsmartstart.shinyapps.io/community_indicators/