Cardea Services, The Raise Foundation, Lake Family Resource Center, and First 5 Contra Costa

Since receiving their grant awards in June 2020, ACEs Aware grantees have been hard at work executing a range of activities to inform and educate Medi-Cal providers about the importance of screening for ACEs and responding with trauma-informed care.

Cardea Services, The Raise Foundation, Lake Family Resource Center, and First 5 Contra Costa are included in the Grantee Spotlight for December, and each organization is leading an exciting body of work though provider training, provider engagement, and communications. Read below for more information about each organization.

Cardea Services

Cardea Services (Cardea) is a woman of color and women-led training, organizational development, and research and evaluation firm providing their services nationally and in the Bay Area/Oakland. Using their ACEs Aware grant funds for provider engagement and peer-to-peer learning, the Cardea team is working with fellow grantee La Clinica de la Raza and community-based partners California Rural Indian Health Board, Tribal Health Programs, and California Urban Indian Health Programs to support thoughtful and culturally relevant ACEs integration in under-resourced communities. They are also producing practice papers on the clinical experience of diverse practitioners who implement ACE screening.

The Raise Foundation

The Raise Foundation is the convening body for Orange County’s Child Abuse Prevention Council, which has partnered with The Chicago School of Professional Psychology to develop an ACEs Aware provider engagement series. With grant funding to increase provider engagement, the organization leads virtual network of care sessions and invites different experts in the field to speak on topics related to ACEs, such as racial justice, bias, and prejudice. Other topics have included: What are ACEs and How to Screen; Trauma-Informed Care and Principles; Vicarious Trauma and Burnout; Tracing Trauma Through Ethnic Roots; and How ACEs Impact Brain Development.

Lake Family Resource Center

Lake Family Resource Center hosts a “Family Strong Hour” show two times every month on a local radio station to discuss topics relevant to the community. Since receiving communications grant funding from ACEs Aware, staff devote the entire hour to topics surrounding ACEs, toxic stress, and resiliency. Several providers and members of the public call in to discuss these topics, ask questions, and develop partnerships. They will also start recording podcasts that feature interviews with providers regarding stress, self-care for professionals, clinical response to ACEs, and tools/resources to support efforts in becoming ACEs Aware.

First 5 Contra Costa County

First 5 Contra Costa is focusing its provider engagement, peer-to-peer learning, and communications grant funds on cultivating a community of connected and resource-rich care providers and organizations. Core to its approach is First 5 Contra Costa’s design team, a group of county leaders from different agencies that help develop convenings, support provider participation across agencies, and guide the direction of the network’s development. The First 5 Contra Costa team launched their network of care convening in mid-September, which served as a recruiting ground for the peer-to-peer Trauma-Informed Leadership Teams (TILTs). TILTs will meet monthly until the spring network convening, and learnings from these teams will shape First 5 Contra Costa’s communications efforts across the board to promote ACEs and develop supplemental training, scheduled for early spring.

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To learn more, visit the ACEs Aware Grants page.