A nearly two-year process for a group of individuals in Codington County culminated in Codington County becoming the 2nd Resilient Community in South Dakota.
Led by seven individuals, beginning in 2020, they built a coalition of local stakeholders with representatives from healthcare, welfare, government, behavior health, nonprofits and educators and met monthly to look at Codington County and complete an in-depth analysis of the county’s strengths.
This amazing team of leaders worked with the Center for Prevention of Childhood Maltreatment and Children’s Home Society to continue the movement of educating the Codington County Community on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
To date over 200 local individuals have attended the ACEs training in the community. This number continues to grow as ACEs are in the forefront of local education.
Our question was “What is built within our community to help children and families that deal with trauma, poverty, addiction, and how they are recovering from those traumatic episodes in their lives.”
Resilient Communities in Watertown realized that the community at large was missing a general cohesive understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The team of seven found that providing extensive ACE’s training monthly could be the best approach to educating leaders so everyone is using the same language and approach to make Codington County families resilient.
Our children are experiencing abuse and neglect in higher numbers every year. Many families, professionals, and service providers do not understand that ACEs have a direct impact on an individual’s nervous system and brain development. ACEs include 10 different forms of childhood maltreatment. Research into ACEs began in 1995 by the Centers for Disease Control and the Kaiser Permanente health care organization in California.
ACEs affect a child’s brain development which can create long-term mental and physical issues as well as an increase in high-risk behaviors. ACEs research shows there is a correlation between early adversity and poor outcomes later in life. Toxic stress explains how ACEs ”Get under the skin” and trigger biological reactions that lead to those outcomes.
Our Resilient Communities group knows that maltreatment is preventable. When a large group of passionate people come together and understand the impact of ACEs and the factors that can prevent and mitigate those effects it can lessen the long-term harm abuse causes. Our community is stronger because the Resilient Communities group has worked to create one team, consisting of hundreds of people, that believe understanding ACEs and being trauma informed creates unity and stronger prevention methods.
Together, we can move from an individual or organizational responsibility to a shared community responsibility for increasing positive life experiences for our children and families.
This group has a shared passion and is willing to step up and fight for our children and a hopeful future.
Terri Mielitz, MA ED, LSWA
East Central-CASA Program Director