Download Briefing Leader Script 30-minute Best Starts for Kids Briefings 30

Briefing Leader Script
30-minute Best Starts for Kids Briefings
30-minute Best Starts for Kids Briefing Outline
1. Welcome and Introductions (2 minutes)
2. Problems surfaced through listening--and how they affect you (3 minutes)
3. Best Starts for Kids
a. Why we chose to work on BSK (>1 min)
b. Explanation of BSK and activity (9 min)
4. Quick reactions/responses to activity (1 min)
5. Discussion (in pairs): Does this link between adverse childhood experiences and bad
outcomes later in life make sense to you? How about the resiliency factors that help
people overcome ACEs? Have you witnessed or experienced this? (4 minutes)
6. Relationship between institution's values and mission and BSK (>1 min)
7. Do you see how working on BSK reflects your institution’s values and mission? (5-7 min)
8. Call to Action (3 min)
SCRIPT
Briefing Leader: Hello and welcome to the 30-minute briefing on Best Starts for Kids! Thank
you everyone for coming. We have a lot to cover, so we are going to start right on time. I am
NAME from INSTITUTION. Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. Please say your
name. (Note: if lots of people at briefings, have people introduce themselves to their neighbors
or tables)
Briefing Leader: Let’s get started. As a Sound Alliance, our institutions come together to take
action for the Common Good. In January 2015, Sound Alliance institutions listened to their
members to discover what issues were most urgently and deeply affecting members in our area.
Across church social halls, classrooms, and union halls, we heard that people’s priorities were
mental health, homelessness, access to health care, barriers to learning, particularly funding for
these services.
These issues affect many members of our community, and connecting our experiences with
these issues can motivate us to action. That was true for me. I became engaged around these
issues because BRIEFER TELLS STORY.
Briefing Leader: As an Alliance, we take action on the problems in our community by making
them into concrete, specific, and winnable issues. That is, instead of getting overwhelmed by
huge problems, we break them apart into ways that we can take action. These particular
problems - access health care, homelessness, barriers to education, and mental health - are
huge and complex, but we wanted to find something to take action on RIGHT AWAY. We found
an opportunity to take action on all of these issues through the Best Starts for Kids Levy.
Briefing Leader: BSK levy is a property tax levy that focuses on prevention to save the cost of
disability, disease, and incarceration. That is, the funding aims to prevent bad things from
happening to kids aged 0-5 that increase their risk for chronic disease and incarceration later in
adulthood. The funding also supports and expands proven prevention programs to reduce
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(socio)economic and ethnic disparities across King County. To understand why BSK is an
important opportunity to improve equitable support for kids, we have to first understand the
impact of adverse childhood experiences, or ACES.
Adverse childhood experiences were first discovered in the 1990s when researchers began
looking for exposures that were driving the major causes of death in our county. They are
traumatic childhood experiences (reference slide) that include different forms of abuse, neglect,
and family disruption such as parental mental illness, incarceration, substance abuse, or
conflict. Since then, we’ve learned that ACEs directly affect a child’s brain development,
immune functioning, and even the way their DNA works. We soon realized that ACEs were the
glue connecting the issues raised in our community.
There are two big take-aways about ACEs as it relates to Best Starts for Kids:
· Adverse Childhood Experiences are incredible common. (2/3 people have experienced at
least one such experience in their childhood.)
· The more adverse experiences a child has, the worse his health outcome in adulthood AND
the more likely she is to be incarcerated.
[Adults with 4 or more adverse childhood experiences are 4 times as likely to experience
depression, 12 times more likely to attempt suicide, and 3x as likely to have heart disease (the
largest killer in the US). Research shows 85% of youth in jail have experienced 2 or more ACEs,
and ACE number was directly related to likelihood to reoffend.)]
We’ll see how these ACEs play out in reality with this short activity. (As you explain the
directions, pass out the identity cards and have the people line up shoulder to shoulder.
Depending on the size of the group, ask for 6-10 volunteers.
NOTE--ACTIVITY OUTLINE:
Exercise Overview:
1. Hand out 1 card to each person (perhaps have them on the seats before the training
starts).
2. Read out Explanation Language below. It must be clear to participants that these cards
represent experiences that happen in the first 5-years of childhood.
3. Start Activity
a. Have participants stand in a line shoulder to shoulder (or multiple lines if necessary).
b. Moving forward is moving towards health in adulthood. Moving backwards is moving towards
chronic disease and risk for incarceration.
c. Read the ACEs off one at a time. Each person who has that ACE is to take a step back.
d. Ask everyone to look at how the projected health and incarceration status changed for our
community of kids.
e. Read off each susceptibility factor. Each person who has that factor on their card is asked to
take another step back.
f. Ask everyone to look at how this risk for our community of kids changed further.
g. Read out resilience factors supported by BSK Levy funding. Each person who has a BSK
factor will step forward.
h. Ask participants to notice how their childhood character’s risk for disease and incarceration
was changed from baseline for each set of events. Notice how the community’s risk changed as
well.
4. Ask participants to sit down for the wrap up.
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Briefing Leader: Please read over the card you just received, and try your best to embody that
child’s identity. Listed are a few typical adverse childhood experiences, some current
susceptibility factors specific King County, and some resilience factors the BSK levy will fund.
The BSK levy encompasses more than what is depicted in this activity, but even on this smaller
scale, we will demonstrate the importance of protecting our kids now from the outcomes of
adverse childhood experiences later.
Please line up here in the middle of the room, shoulder to shoulder. Think about the back of the
room as being high risk for chronic disease and incarceration. The front of the room is
representative of adult health and wellbeing. I will start off by reading off possible ACEs. Please
step back if it is listed on your card.
ACEs - take 1 step back as you hear each one called
· Emotional Abuse,
· Physical Abuse,
· Sexual Abuse,
· Emotional Neglect,
· Physical Neglect,
· Mother Treated Violently,
· Household Substance Abuse,
· Household Mental Illness,
· Parental Separation or Divorce,
· Incarcerated Household Member
Please look around the room and notice where you are as an individual child and how our
community of kids have changed.
Now I will read each possible susceptibility factor, or factors that are environmental and affect
the entire community. When you hear any depicted on your card, please take an additional step
back.
Susceptibility factor - take 1 step back as you hear each one called
· Poverty status
· food desert location
· food insecurity,
· homelessness
· unstable housing,
· poor daycare options,
· Lack of access to primary care
· lives next to highway (air pollution),
· Lack of access to parks
· high crime neighborhood.
Again, please look around the room and notice where you are as an individual child and how
our community of kids have changed.
Now I will read each possible resilience factor, and this is where BSK levy comes in. With more
funding, we can change disease and incarceration outcomes. When you hear any depicted on
your card, please take a step forward.
Resilience - take 1 step forward as you hear each one called
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quality nutrition,
stable housing,
Maternity Support Services
Quality daycare,
developmental screenings,
parental education and support,
Investing in healthy youth opportunities,
Community cohesion
Access to walkable neighborhoods
depression screening and connection to mental health support services
educational readiness
We’re not done. The BSK levy also will invest directly in ACEs prevention. The domestic
violence program will decrease abuse, so if your card has physical, mental, or sexual abuse,
please take a step forward. This is to represent that if you had had this program growing up, you
would have one less ACE to deal with. Please take a step forward if you have household mental
illness on your card. The mental health screening and resource matching funded by the BSK
levy could prevent household mental illness. Please stay standing for a minute more. Notice the
difference of how our King County community of children have changed with BSK support.
By passing BSK we can work as a community to secure preventative funding to reduce disease
and detention in our community. Please be seated; thank you for participating!
Briefing Leader: Ask for quick reactions. We now want to take this chance for you to connect
your own experiences to this activity by talking with those around you. Does the link between
adverse childhood experiences and bad outcomes make sense to you? What about the
resiliency factors that help people overcome ACEs? Have you witnessed or experienced this?
Remember to speak from your own stories, not opinions, and not to share anything confidential.
Each person will have about 1 to 2 minutes, and I’ll give you a warning to switch. Okay, please
turn to a partner now. (Note: if you are able, mill around the room and notice who is engaged or
seems to have a story to share--give them a two minute warning, they have four minutes for the
exercise)
Briefing Leader: Okay, everyone, time to come back! Thanks for sharing. There seemed to be
a lot of engagement around this question, and the issues seemed to resonate with your own
experience.
Briefing Leader: Passing Best Start for Kids also gives us an opportunity to act on our
institutional values to form the community we want to live in. As members of INSTITUTION OF
BRIEFING, we believe INSTITUTIONAL VALUE. Working on Best Starts for Kids gives us the
opportunity to WORK ON INSTITUTIONAL VALUE/BRING MISSION OF X INTO WORLD.
Our 30 minutes are almost up, but we want to open up a few minutes for discussion and
reaction. First of all, do you see how working together on Best Starts for kids reflects the values
and mission of your institution? (Note: give opportunity for reaction...some may be specific
policy questions, feel free to try to answer and/or direct people to the FAQ sheet. Remind
people that they can write down questions and we will try to get back to them with answers).
Briefing Leader: With our last few minutes, I want to move onto the last thing on our agenda taking action. There are many ways you can continue to learn about and work on Best Starts for
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Kids with us. Over the next few months, we will act on our institutional values and ask your
elected officials to endorse Best Starts for Kids by holding assemblies in several locations
around King County. We also invite you to train to be a Briefing Leader, my role today, at other
30-minute briefings around King County, and to participate in Neighborhood Walks right before
the vote make sure that this levy gets passed! We can work together and show our collective
power.
Please take the response card at your seat and let us know how you want to be involved. (Note:
give them a minute to fill the card out) Now stand up if you will take action with us to ensure that
all kids in King County have their Best Start!
Briefing Leader: Thanks to everyone for participating today. We look forward to continuing this
work with you!
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