Building Healthy Futures for Children Who’ve Experienced Trauma

Idea by Children’s Institute, Inc. (CII)

The more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to which a child is exposed, including: abuse, incarceration of parents, and exposure to family and community violence, the more likely the child is to suffer from negative physical and mental health in adulthood —from heart disease to depression. CII’s Integrated Services Model addresses trauma through services in: evidence-based mental health, early childhood, youth development, and family support to treat the whole child and the entire family.

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In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

Central LA

South LA

South Bay

County of Los Angeles

City of Los Angeles

CII Otis Booth Campus Westlake/Rampart Los Angeles; CII New Hampshire Campus Koreatown Los Angeles; CII Watts Campus Watts Los Angeles; CII Burton E. Green Campus Torrance, LA County; and at 29 early education sites in Los Angeles.

How do you plan to use these resources to make change?

Expand a pilot or a program

How will your proposal improve the following LIVE metrics?

Obesity rates

Rates of mental illness

Prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (Dream Metric)

Percentage of LA communities that are resilient (Dream Metric)

Percentage of residents receiving coordinated healthcare services (Dream Metric)

Please explain how you will evaluate your work.

At CII, our services are evaluated by our dedicated Research Evaluation Center (REC). CII’s research staff members gather and analyze the data from our evidence-based clinical services. Each clinical service is evaluated, based upon specific metrics for that particular evidence-based practice (EBP).

CII provides 12 mental health EBPs and several traditional treatments. Each treatment has its own evaluation criteria, which determines how effectively it is reducing trauma symptoms for a given patient. Some interventions are for older children, some are for younger children, some are dyadic (intended for parent and child), and some are delivered in a group therapy setting.

CII also measures the acquisition and improvement of social and emotional skills through our community services and youth development programs, using the SEARS (Social Emotional Assets and Resilience Skills) index, a behavior rating scale.

How can the LA2050 community and other stakeholders help your proposal succeed

Money (financial capital)

Volunteers/staff (human capital)

Publicity/awareness (social capital)

Infrastructure (building/space/vehicles, etc.)

Education/training

Technical infrastructure (computers, etc.)

Community outreach

Network/relationship support

Quality improvement research