Reaching for Resilience

"A lot of the kids in the county lack a positive figure in their lives. They don't know how to reach out when they need help and boys are often taught that they can't be weak or they can't be vulnerable, that violence is OK. So what happens is that they can't talk about their feelings and they learn to numb themselves with drugs, and the behavior progresses, leading to incarceration."

 

The group met at lunchtime. Gomez was just one of a diverse collection of guest mentors invited by Vrtiak — a Eureka police officer, a poet, a journalist and activist, educators and a father — each with a story to share about finding their voice and identity. They talked about respecting women, learning self-care through wellness practices, standing up against bullying and for inclusivity. They detailed how they could have taken different paths in life and broken down the boxes of toxic masculinity, while talking openly with students about how they hold themselves now.

 "We all need guidance," Vrtiak says, "and I think there's this misconception that men are naturally violent and I think what's happening in this group is that these kids are pushing back against this misconception of what it means to be a man. A lot of the students are processing these different ideas of how to carry themselves."

Kintay Johnson, the director of special programs at College of the Redwoods, is from Pensacola, Florida, but has lived in Humboldt County since 2003 and spoke to the group last spring. Johnson says it's important for kids to have influential people in their lives, even if just for a moment, to plant a seed in their mind and show them what's possible. He spoke to the group about the power of words and how they can be used to diffuse any situation, about being mindful and finding non-violent ways to communicate.

"I talked to them about keeping your cool and trying to make positive choices and not head down a path of self-destruction, and I gave them some examples of the things kids in the same age as the group are doing down from where I'm from — where they are making life-changing decisions that they can't come back from," Johnson says.

Just like Gomez, Johnson wants to help students choose a path of resiliency.

And it's working, Vrtiak says, describing how a school administrator told her about the time one of her boys group students came into the office after directing foul language at another student. When the administrator asked what Gomez and the other mentors would tell him, he responded remorsefully, saying Gomez would have guided him to do better.

After a couple of the Boys to Men group sessions, Vrtiak (who doesn't sit in on the groups, wanting to give students privacy) decided to survey students about the group. The responses were fascinating.

"A lot of students reported feeling a deeper connection with their community," she says. "They talked a lot about treating their teachers with respect and learned how to communicate with their teachers and adults. A lot of them don't know how to advocate for themselves, so a lot of them reported feeling an increased sense of confidence and self-worth and felt like they wanted to be a mentor to youth themselves."

'Everyone Needs Support'

Before she signed on as the program director for McKinleyville Middle School's health center in 2019, Vrtiak worked at the Humboldt County jail developing rehabilitation programs for incarcerated men and women. But after a couple of years, she decided she wanted to reach people earlier — before they'd made potentially life-altering mistakes.

"I worked with so many young men and women while they were incarcerated and couldn't help but think what their lives would be like if they would have had support in their developing years," says Vrtiak.

One of Vrtiak's first steps after arriving at McKinleyville Middle School was organizing a peer health education group. It was a failure as, much to her dismay, no students showed up. But the answer proved simple. She asked students what kinds of support groups they wanted to attend and learned they were looking for specific groups tailored for boys, girls and those who don't identify with those genders.

So the health center followed the students' lead and began creating voluntary open spaces for students last year — a girl's group, an LGBTQ+ group and the Boys to Men group. Although each has been impactful in its own ways, the Boys to Men group became the one Vrtiak is most proud of. But it's only one prong of McKinleyville Middle's approach.

McKinleyville Middle School's health center is also designed to mitigate student absenteeism and foster emotional growth, giving students access to a health center where they can get minor healthcare services and well-being support without missing school.

"It's not a traditional school-based health center in the sense that it's like a full spectrum health care center," says Stockton, explaining that while the center does offer health services, its focus is more on empowering students and enriching their lives. "So, a lot of mental health and emotional support services and connections with community resources that are needed, like food, housing, parenting support, those types of resources."

There's more than anecdotal evidence and testimonials to suggest the multi-pronged program is working.

According to data from the California Department of Education, 8 percent of students at McKinleyville Middle School were suspended at least once in the 2018-2019 school year, including 91 for violent incidents. While that's a 5-percent drop from 2017-2018, it's still more than double the statewide suspension rate of 3.4 percent.

 

"It's talking about connecting and supporting your child. It's talking about mindfulness techniques. It's about getting exercise. I mean, there are all these things. It doesn't have to cost us a lot. It's about having a trauma-responsive practice, whether that's as a clinician, a teacher or a doctor."

 

 

In an email to the Journal, McKinleyville Middle School Principal Elwira Salata said that in the 2019-2020 school year (which included the distance learning after COVID-19 hit Humboldt County), about 41 students were suspended, which would be a more than 50-percent decrease from the prior year and a potential sign that Vrtiak's groups are having an impact.

Countywide, suspension rates are 60 percent higher than the state average, though they aren't dispersed evenly throughout the county's 30-plus school districts. In 2018-2019, Humboldt County had a suspension rate of 5.7 percent but that jumped to 10.1 percent in the Southern Humboldt Joint Unified School District, 12.9 percent at Fortuna Union High School, 17.3 percent at Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified and 23.7 percent — the county's highest and seven times the state average — at Loleta Elementary.

Although school suspensions are still higher than the state average — and much higher, in some cases — new wellness initiatives and a focus on trauma-informed practices are working, officials say, and suspension rates are declining overall.

Gomez and Johnson believe the type of mentorship program piloted at McKinleyville Middle School — teaching communication skills and mindfulness, while giving students access to a diverse group of positive role models — would benefit students in all Humboldt County schools.

"If they have positive male or female role models in their lives to teach them how to deal with challenges and adversity, to develop resilience, if we can teach young people that, that's one of the most amazing gifts ever that we can pass onto the next generation, is how to be resilient," Johnson says. "To teach them that when a challenge is thrown your way, when something is difficult, that it's not the end."

But it's not just schools recognizing the importance of ACEs and trauma-informed practices.

Since being sworn in as California's first surgeon general in February of 2019, Harris has made ACEs one of the key focuses of the office. Wanting to improve health outcomes and break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, Harris created the ACEs Aware initiative with the help of the state Department of Health Care Services.

The initiative's main goal is to help doctors screen for ACEs, recognizing they are an important factor in determining who is at increased health risk due to toxic stress. Once patients are screened, doctors can give them information on community resources, like housing assistance and food stamps, and talk to them about the importance of managing stress to stay healthy. If a patient is at an extremely high risk of poor health outcomes, they are referred to a mental health specialist, though the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported some critics of Harris' initiative worry California doesn't have enough of these specialists to meet the demand that will possibly stem from mandatory screenings.

Hansen, however, says there are many effective interventions that can be applied before referring patients to specialists.

"It's talking about connecting and supporting your child," she said. "It's talking about mindfulness techniques. It's about getting exercise. I mean, there are all these things. It doesn't have to cost us a lot. It's about having a trauma-responsive practice, whether that's as a clinician, a teacher or a doctor. But it doesn't always mean you have to refer out to other more costly resources. Sometimes the solution is listening and helping put tools in people's hands."

Having seen some of these changes in McKinleyville, Vrtiak says she knew other students could benefit from the added layers of support and decided to expand the group.

Through grant funding secured by the Humboldt Independent Practice Association, the Boys to Men group will be expanding this year to McKinleyville High School, Humboldt County Office of Education's Court and Community School and Humboldt County juvenile hall. The Court and Community School is for students who can't attend a traditional public school — those who are on probation, were suspended multiple times or have issues with substance use. Often, they have high ACEs scores.

Gomez, who spent time in both juvenile hall and HCOE's Court and Community School, says he's excited about the expansion, saying it's especially important for young students who have already been stigmatized as criminals to have access to these programs.

"Everyone needs support," Gomez says. "There's this stigma about how people who are incarcerated are criminals but they don't know what got them there. ... These are innocent babies that grow up in a messed-up life that, next thing you know, are going down these destructive paths."

The 11th ACE

When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit Humboldt County in March, closing schools and businesses, leaving people in their homes, some unemployed and out of school without anywhere to go, Vrtiak knew some of her students lost their outlets of support and others were trapped in increasingly unhealthy, stressful situations.

She was especially worried about the students who extensively utilized the health center and were chronically absent, so she did what she would have wanted her teachers to do in the face of a pandemic: She began visiting students at their homes to check in and see what they needed, if they had enough food, or if their families needed information about applying for unemployment benefits or other forms of assistance.

Vrtiak felt it was important to do this because in Humboldt County — where child abuse, neglect, substance abuse and poverty rates are already higher than the state average — the COVID-19 pandemic meant something else. Here, Hansen says, COVID-19 became an unofficial ACE, a new layer of trauma.

The pandemic layered stress onto already stressed households, closing businesses and putting people out of work, sending families scrambling to figure out how they were going to provide for their basic needs, like housing, healthcare and food. Some dug into their savings, many more filed for unemployment. (Humboldt County residents filed more than 5,846 unemployment claims in April compared to just 570 filed the same month a year prior.)

The U.S. Census reports that 20.8 percent of Humboldt County residents lived below the poverty line before COVID-19, with 58 percent of the county's school children eligible to receive free and reduced lunches. According to the Humboldt County Office of Education, more than 1,400 local school children qualified as homeless last year.

"So there are the classic 10 ACEs but then there's poverty and racism, bias, living in community violence — all of those things are like the second realm of ACEs that cause the same physiological formula of toxic stress that turns on someone's stress system," Hansen says, "[The pandemic] isn't an identified ACE but it has the same effect."

 

"So there are the classic 10 ACEs but then there's poverty and racism, bias, living in community violence — all of those things are like the second realm of ACEs that cause the same physiological formula of toxic stress that turns on someone's stress system. [The pandemic] isn't an identified ACE but it has the same effect."

 

 

In a webinar for the ACEs Aware initiative, Devika Bhushan, a pediatrician and chief health officer for the Office of the California Surgeon General, said we may see the similar long-term health effects from COVID-19 as from prior infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters and economic downturns, including increased rates of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, COPD, asthma flares and mental health issues like depression, anxiety, suicidality and post traumatic stress disorder.

According to Bhushan, almost everyone is feeling acute toxic stress from the pandemic, whether it stems from the risk of getting COVID, grief and loss, economic strain or widespread social disruption from distancing and isolation measures meant to prevent the virus' spread.

She's not wrong, Vrtiak says, noting that when she started visiting families last spring she saw a common theme. Many were feeling anxiety, depression and a lack of motivation, she says, adding that while some students were anxious to get back to school, others were really scared of returning because their parents had underlying health issues and were at increased risk from the virus.

Hansen adds that for people and children with ACEs in their lives — who were already vulnerable and learning to manage stress from various sources — the COVID-19 pandemic just adds to that burden, exacerbating what they were already experiencing.

"For COVID, the isolation is really hard for families," she says. "But if you're a child who is experiencing child abuse in your home, then it also — in most cases — means that you're isolated from the teachers that might be the buffer in your life or the one who's keeping an eye out when they think something's up, or call [Child Welfare Services] when they feel necessary."

In an email to the Journal, CWS Deputy Director Ivy Breen says prior to the pandemic, CWS was receiving an average of 270 total child abuse and neglect referrals per month, with an average of 50 coming from school staff and teachers. Between April and August, that number dropped to 206 a month — a 24 percent reduction. (She says CWS has seen an increase in reports since the start of this school year, even though most schools have begun with distance learning.)

'Showing Up'

The array of new programs and approaches Humboldt County organizations have implemented to help children be resilient in the face of trauma and toxic stress centered around personal interaction — small group discussions, mindfulness lessons, safe spaces. But when Humboldt County Health Officer Teresa Frankovich issued a stay-at-home order last March, that all had to stop.

The systems of support designed to combat isolation — to make students feel seen and supported and cared for — broke down under the strain of the virus.

"So at the same time that this pandemic is increasing the risk of ACEs and other toxic stressors, it's decreasing the conditions that we need to act as buffering sources to prevent the onset of toxic stress," Bhushan says in the webinar.

While there's nothing that can replace the safety net that physically attending school provides thousands of local children or the specialized services that can be provided on campus, Vrtiak and the other Humboldt organizations realized their work was more important than ever, and would have to adapt.

First 5 Humboldt, which offers trauma-informed training, playgroups and parenting classes, among other things, closed most of its classes but began offering online services, like one-on-one consultations between families and early childhood mental health specialists, and virtual parenting circles, where parents can get together online with and talk.

First 5 also continued connecting families to resources and webinars related to stress, as well as self-care strategies, while offering trainings on the "community resilience model," which teaches people how to recognize their own stress triggers and what tools they can use to manage their responses.

Humboldt Bridges to Success, a new partnership between DHHS and the Humboldt County Office of Education, focused on streamlining mental health and learning support services for local students, worked to ensure the families it helps have what they need to adjust to the realities of the pandemic. It mobilized to support online learning and support services by getting students access to computers, internet service, technology and tech support, while also connecting families with nutritional assistance and other safety net services.

"Families were really kind of in a state of shock initially," says Julie Beach, the county supervising clinician for the Bridges program. "And so we just wanted to really make sure that they were able to access education and counseling through telehealth and access the resources for Calfresh, unemployment benefits and Medi-Cal."

Vrtiak says that's also a huge part of what she was doing — making sure the families she was visiting had the right means to access resources. Mentors from the Boys to Men group helped her visit students and deliver food, as well.

During the summer, Vrtiak had to think about how the health center would continue to offer wellness support groups in ways that could follow physical distancing guidelines and avoid gatherings. Online was the only option.

 

"That's what's so cool about this group. We teach them those protective factors. We talk to them about self-care and wellness. ... But what matters most is that the male mentors are showing up and listening to and loving these kids. That's what matters most."

 

 

The boy's group will start in mid-October online but with the same format — a mentor presenting his story and giving advice, with time for questions and a brief check-in. Even though they can't continue the kind of in-person conversation that adds an extra layer of connection, Vrtiak says the thing that matters most is the commitment of the group mentors to continue showing up and helping these kids. Even through a pandemic, these mentors are continuing to be the positive people that Hansen says can make a difference in leading a child with adversities to become a happy and healthy adult.

"That's what's so cool about this group," she says. "We teach them those protective factors. We talk to them about self-care and wellness. ... But what matters most is that the male mentors are showing up and listening to and loving these kids. That's what matters most."

But asked to imagine how a similar pandemic would have impacted their childhoods and their ability to cope with other ACEs, both Gomez and Vrtiak said they needed some time to gather their thoughts and reflect. Their responses ultimately bring the stakes of intervention efforts in the time of COVID into stark relief.

Gomez says his family is primarily Spanish speaking and, without any Spanish news outlets available, doesn't watch the news. His mother is a frontline worker and he says she likely would have been exposed to COVID-19, adding yet another stressor. He says he probably would have still been hanging out with a bad group and would've tested positive for the virus.

Vrtiak, meanwhile, says her mother would have lost her job as a hairdresser, leading them to lose their home and become homeless once again. Her mom also wasn't tech savvy, so the pandemic and distance learning would have put a halt to Vrtiak's education, removing her only supportive environment.

"School was the place where I got to be a kid, where I felt safe and special," she says. "COVID would have completely transformed me as a person."

Iridian Casarez wrote this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2020 California Fellowship.

Iridian Casarez (she/her) is a Journal staff writer. Reach her at 442-1400, extension 317, or iridian@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @IridianCasarez.

[This story was originally published by North Coast Journal.]