Community Conversations 2.0 Slide Notes
Slide #2: YWRC Overview
To embrace and inspire young women, ages 10-21, to become strong, self-confident and successful and realize their full potential in our community.
The Empowerment Program offers weekly in school and after school groups, working with 5th-12th graders to build self-esteem, positive body image, support and strategies for healthy relationships and developmentally appropriate education regarding reproductive health.
The Young Moms Program provides, not only support, but the education needed for young moms to successfully navigate this life-changing journey through pregnancy and child birth education; and parenting and life skill building.
Individual and group therapy is provided, both traditional therapy and also creative expressive therapy including specialized art therapy and healing arts yoga. Both therapists have been trained in Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Slide #3: Starting Out: Understanding Client Trauma
Through the research, it was determined that YWRC needed to develop a youth-tailored tool to capture a baseline for trauma history of clients served, that did not require a clinician to administer. The Youth Experience Survey was designed which specifically takes into account youth mental and emotional capacity and is written at a fifth grade reading level.
Slides #4, #5: YES: 12 Focus Areas
YWRC developed a 12 question Youth Experiences Survey (YES) to specifically focus on areas of mental and emotional trauma for youth. It focused on the following 12 areas: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse in the home, family member having mental illness, incarcerated family member, parents separation/divorce, family violence, physical neglect, someone close who has died/serious illness, ran away/lived in shelter/relative, and moved 3x in the last year.
Slide #6: The Data: Client Trauma
Implemented in January with 303 clients. Voluntary and confidential (anonymous) survey. Results were very revealing. Agency-wide results for over 30%.
For our Young Moms, survey results showed that 62% reported that they experienced family emotional abuse, 54% had someone close to them die or seriously ill, 49% had run away or lived in foster care or shelter, 43% had experienced hunger, lack of clothing or safe shelter, 43% had a family member in jail/prison or deported, 43% reported family substance abuse, 41% reported family mental illness, 41% reported parents separation/divorce, 35% reported moving 3 times or more in the last year, 32% reported being physically abused, 30% reported being sexually abused, and 19% reported family domestic violence.
Slide #7: ACEs and YES Comparison
56% of Iowans (adults) experienced at least one ACE. 78% of our clients experienced at least one ACE.
14.5% of Iowans (adults) experienced four or more ACEs. 32% of our clients experienced four or more.
Slide #9: Resiliency Research: Four Protective Factors
Connections & Strong Social Network:
a) Attachment to parent or caregiver and/or strong relationship with a caring supportive adult(s);
b) feeling safe and supported in the school and community
Confidence & Self-esteem
a) Belief in your abilities; acceptance for who you are; maintain sense of your own identity; positive self-view
b) Identify strengths; reframe negative experiences; challenge self-critical behaviors; utilize positive thinking
Competence & Sense of Purpose:
a) Mastery of skill; self-discovery; extracurricular activities
b) Opportunities to get involved in the community; spirituality; activities meaningful to you; serving others
Coping & Self-Control
a) Developing problem solving/decision making skills; setting goals, addressing problems head on/immediately
b) Encouraging positive emotions and feeling management; recognizing feelings and reactions and how to manage them in positive ways
Slide #10: How To Measure Resiliency
YWRC specifically focused on researching and developing an inclusive youth-tailored tool that could measure change in resiliency over time. Research focused on identifying key components that build resiliency and integrated findings into a Resiliency Survey that is being utilized agency-wide. The YWRC will utilize these results with staff to be increasingly responsive in the development of resiliency skill building components into program curriculum for continuous quality improvement.
Valid is if it measures what it is supposed to measure. Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results.
YWRC works closely with United Way. As a funder, United Way provides the ETO data base we use for all of our program data and client information. We shared the Resiliency Survey with them and their response was very favorable. United Way agreed that our programs could use the Resiliency Survey as our measure of change/progress and also created the survey in the ETO data base. Social Solutions, the national software company that manages ETO products, also contacted YWRC as they are considering using the partnership between Central Iowa United Way and our Resiliency Survey as an innovative case study to highlight in their organization.
Slide #11: Next Steps
Building protective factors for clients in key settings like schools and homes will take a community effort. The YWRC will share the results of research, survey tools and lessons learned with the community in an effort to further collaborate and improve tracking for other local organizations. (ACEs Steering Committee, Trauma Informed Learning Collaborative-TIC Stakeholders, Community Conversations 2.0 and Eyes Open Conference)
The DMPS District Administration worked with the YWRC and provided permission to conduct our Youth Experiences Survey (YES) in their schools. This has led to Scavo Alternative High School partnering with YWRC as consultant and using our Resiliency Survey and YES survey for their Trauma Sensitive School Project during the upcoming school year.