ACEs 360 leadership will expand organizational capacity to coordinate social emotional learning activities, ensuring alignment with existing and planned strategies of the coalition and related networks as well as support the broader coalition work necessary to advance the movement. Activities include: Expand outreach in central Iowa and beyond to engage new partners in ACEs and trauma informed movement and more deeply engage existing partners, Drive web based content development to support network communication and learning, Increase dissemination of high quality Iowa-based research and practice change.
Polk County DHS Child Welfare continues to face significant stress through high caseloads and high turnover. The project will support the contract of a national expert to provide technical assistance to Polk County DHS supervisors and managers to identify and implement strategies to mitigate vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress and to support a trauma-informed environment. Efforts will begin with collaboration with the Polk County DHS Retention Team. This project will also support the technical assistance efforts of the same consultant to evaluate progress on trauma informed services in juvenile justice and detention. As an extension of child welfare and juvenile justice efforts, it is critical that we maintain the knowledge and progress of previous technical assistance efforts and receive updated guidance and planning with the consultant.
To collect, analyze and develop updated report on Iowa ACEs data