2017 Annual Meeting

In this session, participants will: 

1. Objective 1: Distinguish alternative funding and unique partnerships utilized by Kansas Power of the Positive.
2. Objective 2: Describe key findings related to the burden and regional variations of adverse childhood experiences in Kansas from the Kansas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey.
3. Objective 3: Describe the impact of collaborative partnerships and scientific findings on social norms and policy changes that support safe, stable, and nurturing relationship in childhood.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a constellation of child abuse, neglect, and family challenges that have long-lasting consequences on the health of individuals and communities. Research supports establishing safe, stable, and nurturing relationships in childhood to effectively prevent and mitigate ACEs impact. In Kansas, partners leveraged private funding to implement CDC’s Essentials for Childhood framework. This presentation focuses on Kansas Department of Health and Environments (KDHE’s) collaborative role with state and local partners to implement CDC’s framework.

The KDHE partnered with Kansas Children’s Service League and the Wichita State University Community Engagement Institute to form the Kansas Power of the Positive (KPoP). KPoP’s goal is to reduce the number of children exposed to 3+ (high) ACE to under 10% by 2020 by adopting the CDC’s framework: 1) increase public awareness of ACEs; 2) use data to inform planning and decision-making; 3) create the right contexts in communities throughout positive social norms, and 4) assist policy makers in identifying and aligning policies across systems.

Through partnership with the Kansas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (KS-BRFSS) and secured private funding, the CDC’s ACE module was added to the 2014 and 2015 KS-BRFSS. Data on 11 questions were collected from 29,686 respondents. About 55% of adults experienced at least one ACE and 20.9% experienced high ACE. The most common ACE were parental separation/divorce, emotional abuse and substance use. Adults with high ACE scores showed significantly higher prevalence of health risk behaviors, perceived poor health and chronic conditions compared to adults without ACE. Findings varied by geographic region. KDHE collaboratively released multiple reports via KDHE’s hosted KPoP webpage and national and state presentations. Kansas state and local partners developed an information and data sharing network and created a platform for supporting family-friendly policy changes. Scientific findings successfully influenced a large social service agency’s workplace policy to increase paid sick and medical level, including maternity and paternity leave.

Kansas state and local partners identified a gap in ACE data availability. Through collaboration, data were collected, disseminated and utilized to influence education, policy and worksite strategies promoting safe, stable and nurturing environments for Kansas families.