Deborah Mann has worked in early childhood education for three decades.
“What I enjoy the most is the fact that I can see lives change,” she said.
While at the Emmanuel Family & Child Development Center, Mann said they serve children from all backgrounds.
She said no matter the kids’ age, trauma has a real impact.
“There are times when a child can walk in a room and smell something and it can remind them of the abuse that they've been through or the trauma that they have experienced and they're triggered,” she said. “Until you understand that, you really can't help the child, you're just thinking 'well he's just misbehaving.'"
That’s why doctors with the National Medical Association are trying to raise awareness about the seriousness of childhood trauma, and its impact on kids’ lives now and in the future.
“Adverse Childhood Experience effects risky behavior, it effects chronic disease, it effects mental illness, and really a path to success if we don't deal with it early on,” Dr. Derek Lewis II said.
Lewis is the National Medical Association Region V Executive Administrator.
He said with a new mental health initiative targeted to minorities and people of low-income, called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, or ACE, doctors hope to tackle the issue of effects trauma can have long term.
“We're not coming in to restart anything, we're coming to be apart of something that's already moving,” Lewis said. “We want to come in and arm and provide empowerment to our physicians locally.”
“With ACE, we want to educate physicians with an objective tool so that they can really measure their patients' risks and go on to and refer them to social services, to try and intervene to take them off of that trajectory,” Region V Chairman of the National Medical Association Dr. Eleanor Lisbon said. “Any enhancement to eradicate or resolve any of these health disparity issues that are in our communities, we want to do that.”
That’s why Mann is bringing this initiative to her center, hoping it will bring more awareness to families.
“The children we care for, the families that we serve, they're in our community and if we don't help them, then this community dies,” Mann said.
For more information on trauma and ACEs in the metro area, click here.
