Youth task force to host child behavior speaker

Friday, August 24, 2018
On hand for the Wednesday morning meeting of the Vernon County Youth Task Force were Devin Johnson, senior and Alexis Leighty, junior who are members of the Nevada R-5 Youth Enrichment Services group. YES students take the lead in planning the high school’s Red Ribbon Week anti-substance abuse activities as well as other school events and area-wide conferences.
Johannes Brann / Daily Mail

Gathering Wednesday morning in the meeting room of Healthy Nevada, 20 people representing law enforcement, social service groups as well as physical and mental health agencies, the Vernon County Youth Task Force discussed its fall kick-off, fundraising and hosting a major conference.

Carol Branham, director of Nevada Public Housing said, “We’ve got a real problem with students in high school and even younger who lack stable housing. They couch-surf, sleep in cars or parked RVs and it really makes life hard on them let alone do homework.”

Also in attendance at the meeting were Nevada R-5 Assistant Superintendent Jodie McNeley and Northeast Vernon County Superintendent Charles Naas who confirmed their knowledge of such needs.

While the meeting was devoted to several other current projects a number of those at the meeting agreed with On My Own director, Jennifer Gundy who said, “This is really important and this group needs to work with others and deal with this problem.”

The majority of the meeting dealt with a conference the task force is sponsoring. In an after meeting interview, group chairperson, Dr. Tricia Bridgewater, said, “Cottey College has agreed to be the host site for a major conference we are hosting on Tuesday, Nov. 6 which happens to be election day.”

Entitled, “Trauma Brain and Relationships: Helping Communities Heal,” Bridgewater said the conference is free and open to the public and will have Dr. Bryan Post as its featured speaker.

Among his many publications are two books he authored in 2009, “How to End Lying Now” and “From Fear to Love: Parenting Difficult Adopted Children.”

Said Bridgewater, “We’re bringing him here because we want to put the spotlight on what’s called the trauma-brain. As a child’s brain develops, if it experiences three or more significant traumatic events — such as divorce, violence or drugs in the home, verbal or physical abuse or neglect — that brain becomes a trauma-brain.”

While admitting it is a bit of an oversimplification, she said a trauma-brain is always stuck in fight or flight mode where the child and later then as an adult, is easily “set off” by small things. She said higher level thinking, learning and problem solving is performed in the brain’s frontal lobe.

Explained Bridgewater, “But in an emotional or trauma-brain, it’s the amygdala, the hippocampus and the limbic system — which initiates the fight, flight or freeze response — which becomes and stays easily triggered so that first the child and then the adult is set off by the smallest things.”

She said when such traumatized children become adults their brains are locked into trauma-brain mode unless there is treatment. In adulthood, the trauma-brain leads to poor judgment, substance abuse, crime, self-destructive behaviors and often early death from substance abuse, heart and other physical problems.

“But here’s the good news, a caring adult can help to intervene and break the cycle for the child,” said Bridgewater. “Dr. Post will provide great tips for parents dealing with child behaviors but more than that, what the youth task force wants to do by putting on this conference is to help this area become informed about trauma and have people reach out and help its children.”

The task force wishes to encourage people to “Be The One” who notices, cares and provides positive support to children.

Another part of the four-hour conference will be the screening of the movie, “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope.”

This film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in Jan. 2016. The actor, director and producer Robert Redford co-founded Sundance and “Resilience” is directed by his son, James, who has previously directed a number of award winning films.

Describing a previous local screening of this film, Nevada R-5 high school counselor, Tom Geeding said, “While this movie is only an hour, it really packs a punch.”

Information on this film describes it as a documentary which attempts to explain the way in which Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs), including divorce, addiction issues in the home or violence, can build up to cause heart disease, obesity and reduced life expectancy later in adulthood.

Said Geeding, “While to many it may seem obvious there’s a connection between childhood sexual abuse or domestic violence and a cycle of problems from one generation to the next, this film shows various doctors who have conducted studies documenting both the damage as well as the significant long-term results.”

He said the movie also shows school teachers employing various strategies to deal with those affects in their classrooms and mentions communities who are working intentionally to improve parenting skills.

Said Geeding, “While it’s very engaging visually, what I really liked and why I wanted to see it shown here is that it’s a science based look at kids and the long-term effects of stress but it doesn’t stop there. Because it provides some strategies for communities, I thought we could watch it and think about how to put some of these strategies in place here.”

The conference will be held in the Haidee and Allen Wild Center for the Arts (2000 W. Austin) on the campus of Cottey College.

Turning to the issue of fundraising, Jennifer Gundy, director of On My Own, distributed copies of what she is calling annual sponsorship opportunities, with five levels ranging from Supporter (a donation of at least $100) up to Platinum ($1,000). She also listed the various benefits a business, family or individual would receive from such support.

Said Gundy, “Our sponsors would be listed on our Facebook page and website as well as on posters and materials we have at events.”

Further, she said sponsors would receive copies of various materials which the task force has produced. Gundy said the effort will be rolled out this fall and she hopes for participation from a wide range of clubs, churches and community groups.

Bridgewater encouraged youth task force members to come that evening to the same place and help with another fundraiser.

“We recently received a donation from Mark Quitno at W.F. Norman of various metal ornaments — some small, some larger — which need to be cleaned up and that we hope to sell for Christmas as a fundraiser; so we need volunteers,” said Bridgewater.

Wednesday evening saw seven volunteers use tooth brushes to scrub and then rinse the 127 stamped metal decorative pieces, each of which are decades old.

A loop was glued to the back of those smaller pieces deemed suitable as a tree ornament while the larger ones had an explanatory note of origin tied to them.

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