NEWS RELEASE
October 30, 2024
For immediate release
Media contact: Cara Scarola Hansen
Center for Child Counseling Public Relations Counsel
cara@yourmissionmarketing.com
Celebrate Babies Event Stresses ‘Start Where You Are, Do What you Can’ to Support Florida’s Youngest Generation
Former Attorney General of California Nadine Burke Harris, M.D. calls for a national public health strategy to address the public health crisis of Florida’s youngest generation at Celebrate Babies event.
“You don’t have to boil the ocean, you just have to play your position” was Nadine Burke Harris, M.D.’s resounding message at the “Celebrate Babies” hybrid event that took place on Tuesday, October 22 at The Breakers and online. Center for Child Counseling in partnership with Florida Association of Infant Mental Health hosted the luncheon to help better shape the future of Florida’s youngest generation.
With Kathy Leone as the honorary chair and WPTV Channel 5’s Ashley Glass as the emcee, they led statewide business and system leaders in an interactive conversation with Dr. Burke Harris that explored the profound impact of early adversity and trauma on childhood development and how each person can play their part.
Burke Harris is the former attorney general of California and an internationally renowned pediatrician, public health advocate, and author. She is best known for her pioneering work in the field of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress.
175 by-special-invitation-only attendees filled the Venetian Ballroom at The Breakers while more than 200 from around the globe joined virtually. The event took place during Celebrate Babies Week–a week dedicated to celebrating infants, toddlers, young children, their families, and early childhood professionals across the globe.
Prior to the main address from Burke Harris, David Lawrence, Jr., founder and board chair of The Children’s Movement of Florida, underscored the essential role that each attendee plays in “ensuring the workforce–the people–are equipped with the skills and support we need to help children and their families in this world with so many with adverse childhood experiences.”
Lawrence shared his understanding of mental health is based on “our first relationships–how our parents care for us, love us, talk to us, smile at us or don’t smile at us–shape how our brains and bodies develop.”
He emphasized that every child deserves nurturing and caring adults and that all children deserve to be safe and loved: “You can’t build a movement based on those people, those children. It’s about our children and everybody’s child.”
Both Lawrence and Burke Harris echoed that science clearly confirms what happens early in life impacts everything–early events are carried with us for the rest of our lives and into our future families and communities.
Dr. Burke Harris is the one who thrust the subject of adverse childhood experiences into our national consciousness and dialogue. The understanding of ACEs today is due to her insights and work in revealing how early adverse events affect lifelong health and well-being—for individuals, families, and communities. Burke Harris gave the overview of how society is grappling with big, complex issues: a youth mental health crisis, crime and overflowing jails, uncontrollable addiction, and generational cycles of abuse and trauma left on repeat. These dilemmas are often the result of unbuffered, untreated trauma experienced early in life.
Despite this bleak outlook, she gave hope and reason to celebrate “that ACEs are not destiny…with early detection and evidenced-based intervention, we can transform health outcomes.”
Emphasizing that our babies can be better from birth–for the rest of their lives–Dr. Burke Harris energetically described a systems-based solution and stated, “We can do this, and we don’t have to do it alone.”
“In addition to doing the evidenced-based work that we know makes a difference on the individual level, it’s also really important for us to align our systems so that they can actually generate better outcomes.”
As Attorney General In California, Burke Harris led the way in deploying a coordinated public health approach, inclduding: research on toxic stress; screening for ACEs in primary care; trauma-informed clinical care; county and local network of care coordination; cross-sector training and competency (for educators, the justice system, and across the board); and public awareness and education. Through California’s statewide ACEs Aware initiative, they helped teach primary care providers how to screen for ACEs. Using the results of the ACE screenings, they changed patient’s access to care by changing eligibility through medicaid.
“In most of the country, in order to get access to services–mental health services–a person has to have a mental health diagnosis. In fact, if you don’t have a mental health diagnosis, the mental health provider can’t even get paid. They can’t bill…but we know that exposure to ACEs dramatically increases the risk that someone will have an adverse outcome. So, if you’re telling me that you can’t even get services until you’ve proven that you had an adverse outcome, guess what we’re going to keep on seeing? Adverse outcomes! So, this is the reason why we have a system that systematically generates poor outcomes, because you can’t get access to services until you’ve had a poor outcome.”
According to the CDC, the cost in Florida for untreated ACEs is $796 billion: nationally that cost is $14.1 trillion per year.
Burke Harris touted our nation’s ability to treat public health crises, citing: the reduction in cigarette smoking amongst high school seniors from 25% in 1976 to 3.6% in 2018; death rates from HIV AIDS dramatically declined over the course of 30 years from a six month mean mortality to now the life expectancy being greater than 50 years from diagnosis.
She exclaimed, “We have done it before, we can do it again, and for $14.1 trillion a year we can’t afford not to. The time is now!”
In her final statements, Burke Harris acknowledged that “so many of us are living with our own ACEs and that to do this work, self-care is not selfish. Do not forget to put your own oxygen mask on because we need you in this fight.”
She advised the audience members that as much as they likely want to fix the whole system at once to: “Start where you are, do what you can…You don’t have to boil the ocean, you just have to play your position.”
Burke Harris gave the examples of philanthropists targeting their dollars; policy makers elevating policies that recognize and support healthcare providers to do their work in ways that prevent adverse outcomes; educators learning about ACEs and toxic stress and recognizing some of the best practices for providing safe, stable, and nurturing environments in the classroom.
In the closing remarks of the luncheon, CEO of Center for Child Counseling Renée Layman thanked Dr. Burke Harris “for significantly moving the science and humanity of this work forward on behalf of all of us who envision a world without ACEs for our babies and children.”
As a Palm Beach County based nonprofit, Center for Child Counseling focuses on a public health approach to building awareness and action around addressing childhood adversity and trauma. CFCC was founded in 1999 with the vision that every child will grow up feeling safe and nurtured in communities where they can thrive. Using a prevention and healing-centered lens, CFCC focuses on changing the systems and practices that keep adversity and trauma firmly in place.
Center for Child Counseling partners with other agencies in the community and throughout the state, such as FAIMH, to host events like “Celebrating Babies” in order for all community members to understand and own the idea that we each have a stake and role in child and family wellbeing.
According to Layman, “Children have tremendous potential–which our society needs–and which we have a shared obligation to foster and protect”.
CFCC announced they will welcome back Dr. Burke Harris in person to their Lead the Fight 2025 event on Friday, February 28 at the Kravis Center. For more information on the upcoming event and joining the fight against ACEs, visit: centerforchildcounseling.org/leadthefight.
About Nadine Burke Harris, M.D.:
Nadine Burke Harris, M.D., MH, FAAP is an internationally renowned pediatrician, public health advocate, and author–best known for her pioneering work in the field of ACEs and toxic stress.
Dr. Burke Harris is the founder and former CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco, an organization dedicated to improving the health of children exposed to ACEs. Dr. Burke Harris served as California’s first Surgeon General, where she focused on addressing the root causes of health disparities and promoting early interventions for childhood trauma. Her influential book, “The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity,” has brought widespread attention to the impact of early adversity on long-term health and well-being.
About Center for Child Counseling
Center for Child Counseling has been building the foundation for playful, healthful, and hopeful living for children and families in Palm Beach County since 1999. Its services focus on preventing and healing the effects of adverse experiences and toxic stress on children, promoting resiliency and healthy family, school, and community relationships. www.centerforchildcounseling.org Twitter: @ChildCounselPBC Facebook: @CenterforChildCounseling Instagram: @childcounselpbc
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