All states want to be family-friendly. It’s an easy slogan to adopt but a much harder reality to arrive at. All states have in common is a long list of challenges that many families face daily. A few of the most alarming include:

1. Addiction to opioids, alcohol and various substances which numb emotional pain temporarily.
2. High rates of childhood adversity, abuse and neglect
3. A public education system that is failing to graduate students prepared for employment in a radically changing job market
4. Untreated mental health challenges, due to lack of accessible behavioral health care, that impacts learning, job readiness and employment
5. Local governments that seem less and less able to ensure that every family has access to the basics of survival.

Any state wishing to be a serious contender for the mantle of “family-friendly” will have to address these five realities.

So, how do state leaders confront the decades-long challenges related to addiction, trauma, schools, mental health disparities and less-than family-focused city and county governments?

Amid a nation content to endure finger pointing, partisan name-calling, and overall apathy about our families’ decent into hopelessness, New Mexico has one radically simple strategy: create a state entity that has as its mission empowering each county to become truly family-friendly and child-centric through a process of local continuous quality improvement.

It starts with a basic understanding of the social determinants of health. A quick online search of the Centers for Disease Control and public health programs will explain: the environments our children grow up in and their parents navigate determines, to a large degree, their physical and emotional health, as well as their prospects for intellectual growth, a good job and longevity. Essentially, a well-resourced community is key to raising safe and successful families.

Now that we know this, the strategy for becoming family-friendly is clear. We mobilize each county, reaching out to county commissioners, mayors, city council members and school board members, along with leaders in higher ed and nonprofit organizations, to ensure that 10 vital services are of high quality and accessible to each family member: child, parent and guardian.

“Which services are vital?” you may be asking. In New Mexico there are five services for surviving: stable housing, secure nutritional food supports, behavioral health care, medical/dental care and transportation to vital services.

The five services for thriving are parent supports, early childhood learning programs, fully-resourced community schools with behavioral health care staff, youth mentors and job training.

Ten services meeting the needs of 100% of families is the radically simple solution. Doing this requires a collective vision, shared use of data to track progress, transparent plans that promote alignment of all governmental and non-governmental activities, and a belief that every child is a priority.

Is this easy? This will take countywide cooperation. And people have proven, time and time again, when we set our minds to a goal, we arrive. Think moon landing, seat belts, no smoking on planes, medicare, HIV tests and iphones.

Is this too bold an idea? Ask New Mexicans engaging with their 100% New Mexico initiative, supported by the Anna, Age Eight Institute. Experiments are unfolding in counties across New Mexico, in the first phase of assessment, to learn just how big the gap in family services are. From assessing, we move on to planning, acting and evaluating.

As for our challenges, we can watch those decrease when the best minds in the public and private sectors work together, county by county, to ensure trauma-free and thriving families. Becoming a “100% Community” is the radically simple strategy with a truly family-friendly New Mexico as the goal.

Social work has never been the focus of my professional life. I was born and raised in the IT world, so it was a surprise when someone suggested that childhood trauma was something that I could help solve.

When I first heard the term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), I was asked to take a ten question survey about experiences that may have impacted my life. No problem, I thought, my childhood wasn’t perfect but “trauma?” Nah!

It’s amazing how triggering ten questions can be. As I considered each one, so much of my childhood came rushing back that I literally became lightheaded. I started the survey certain that I would score a zero, but my actual score was… troubling.

In the days and weeks afterward, I spoke to friends and coworkers about my ACEs score and the trauma behind it. Surprisingly, it resonated with nearly everyone. I went from never having heard the term before, to realizing that its impact is everywhere.

The most fascinating discovery was learning all the ways that I, a “tech” guy without a background in social work or psychology, can help solve the problem. Technology has a key role to play in ending the epidemic of childhood trauma, which SURPRISE! doesn’t end in childhood.

But in my haste to explain how I got to that point, I neglected to define childhood trauma and ACEs. Childhood trauma can be described as very difficult or unpleasant experiences that cause someone to have mental or emotional problems. This trauma can stay with us for a lifetime, getting in the way of concentrating at school and making it difficult to become a productive, reliable employee. The worst part is that, unless there are services in place deal with the trauma, it is then passed down from one generation to the next. This is why, when you start looking into adverse childhood experiences, you quickly come across the phrase “the cycle of trauma.”

So back to the tech world I live in: what do the unique knowledge, talents, views and ideas that collectively exist in the tech sector have to do with ending an epidemic of childhood trauma that diminishes just about everyone in one way or another?
Everything.

The professionals who have been dealing with the most visible results of ACEs over the years are knowledgeable, talented, dedicated, resilient and resourceful. But, they have been working alone for the most part. This problem affects all of us, yet we have been content with letting them “get on with it” as best they can even if their departments struggle just to buy pens or have more than one whiteboard in an office of dozens of people.

This area is ready for technical innovations both small and large that will help them tackle the complex problem of ACEs. And when I talk about innovations, I am not referring to Elon Musk-level ideas involving brain implants and ugly cybertrucks. Know of a way to assemble a community-based resource directory for little or no cost? Can you show a team of overworked people how to carve out free time by automating repetitive tasks without investing in expensive software? Know anything about machine learning? Want to get more out of life than making the leaderboard in the latest MMOG?

If so, you will find that your skills can do more than make someone else’s stock price go up. Your knowledge can help save lives, heal families and build a future for your local community that is supportive, family-friendly and trauma-free.

Getting started is as easy as going to AnnaAgeEight.org. While you there, download the book Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment and sign up for a copy of 100% Community: Ensuring trauma-free and thriving children, students and families. Send the authors a message on the contact page and offer to help.

You are just what your community needs.