MACON, Ga. — Macon Mental Health Matters has released the findings from its first-ever public Adverse Childhood Experience - ACE - survey aimed at addressing adolescent mental health issues.
Macon-Bibb scored a 4.07, showing parts of the county are currently experiencing high-risk levels of childhood trauma. This is based on a scale of 10, with 10 indicating more childhood trauma.
According to the survey, adults with a score of 4 or more are more likely to experience depression, use drugs, and attempt suicide.
More than 100 people responded to the ACE survey since its launch last month. It included ten questions that covered various types of adverse childhood experiences, including direct and indirect violence like abuse and neglect.
The survey received responses from 21 different zip codes, showing higher scores for residents in the 31204, 31201 and 31210 zip codes.
The survey shows the community is also concerned about other issues, including quality of education, economic stability and access to health care.
Christele Parham and director Andrea Cooke with Macon Mental Health Matters say participants were connected with resources upon their completion of the survey. Their team will be providing programs and resources aimed at the highly impacted areas.
"We're making this available for the entire community," Cooke said. "We hope that it informs the work that other agencies are doing to address trauma from a holistic perspective."
Macon Mental Health Matters intends to expand their programs based on their results.
"With the initiative, we're able to hear individuals that took the ACE survey and curate programming around them as time progresses," Parham said. "We'll be working on a project next year that we'll be announcing more around programming that caters to the feedback that we received from the ACES scores."
Christy Henry from Family Counseling of Central Georgia was part of today's panel addressing solutions to results. She and other mental health professionals participating within an 'Impact of Aces' panel were surprised by the score.
"That's a pretty sobering statistic for our community." Henry said. "I was very inspired by that and making sure that our agency is trauma-informed and meeting the needs of our clients but I also was very empowered to be part of the greater making community in addressing these issues."
Dr. Hanna Cespedes with Pacifica counseling was also surprised by the numbers.
"I audibly gasped when I saw those numbers, I don't know why it was surprising," Dr Cespedes said. "Working as a therapist in the Macon area, I do hear the stories of our survivors of childhood trauma from many different angles. But as a researcher as well, there's also just something so powerful with seeing the number itself. You hear a lot of the stories but to see the number was very impactful."
As for Macon Mental Health Matters, Cooke says it's amazing to get support from Macon-Bibb to help more people better understand the impact of community trauma.
"For our program, we will channel our resources to the neighborhoods that need it most. We want to make it the most mentally healthy city in Georgia," said Cooke.