2021 COMBAT Funding: $159,970.00

In Calvary Community Outreach's Own Words

The Calvary Community Outreach Network will expand the Helping Youth Plan for Excellence (HYPE) program to provide Trauma Assessment and treatment/referral services aimed at improving the well-being of youth. HYPE will provide additional after-school and evening classes that integrate STEM, Visual & Performing Arts, and Nutrition & Healthy Living practice. In addition, CCON will convene and mobilize a Congregational Action Group empowering congregations located in "hot spot" zones to help reduce violence in their neighborhoods with targeted activities.

Childhood Brains Are Especially Vulnerable To Stress

Research shows a strong relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and high-risk behaviors, diseases, disabilities and workforce issues. Studies demonstrated that stressful or traumatic childhood experiences such as abuse, neglect, witnessing domestic violence or growing up with alcohol/substance abuse, mental illness, parental discord or crime in the home are a common pathway to social, emotional, and cognitive impairments that lead to increased risk of unhealthy behaviors, violence or revictimization, disease, disability and premature mortality. Additional research is exploring how dangerous levels of stress can derail healthy brain development resulting in long-term effects on learning, behavior and health. 

The early childhood brain is highly malleable, which causes it to be particularly sensitive to chemical influences such as elevated stress hormone levels. When elevated stress hormone levels are frequent or sustained, normal brain development is disrupted. Such disruptions in brain development during childhood can have damaging effects on learning, behavior and health across the life course, according to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. 

The More Adverse Experiences The Higher The Risks

The use of the ACE score as a measure of the cumulative effect of traumatic stress exposure during childhood is consistent with the latest understanding of the effects of traumatic stress on neurodevelopment. While they were first identified as risk factors for chronic disease, they have more recently been identified with immediate negative consequences, such as chromosome damage and functional changes to the developing brain. 

Thus, the more ACEs experienced, the greater the exposure of the developing brain to the body’s toxic stress response and the greater the likelihood of developmental difficulties and health problems later in life.

Focus On Reducing HIV Risks

Illicit drug use results in higher risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and violent behavior.

According to combined data from 2005 to 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 81% of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH/A) had consumed an illicit drug in their lifetime, only 16.6% of which was consumed intravenously.  The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that "drug abuse impairs judgment and good decision making, leaving people more prone to engage in HIV risk behaviors, including risky sexual behavior and non-adherence to HIV treatment.  As a result of this undeniable correlation between illicit drug use and the transmission of HIV/AIDS, SAMHSA has emphatically stated that “drug treatment is HIV prevention.”  One may also conclude that proactive HIV/AIDS prevention and education efforts may be one of the most effective ways to abate drug use and addiction and violent behavior among young people. 

Research shows a disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on African American Community, locally and nationally.  Although regionally only 8% of residents in the 11-county bi-state Kansas City metropolitan area are African American (U.S. Census 2010 data, State and County QuickFacts), African Americans are disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. 

For the first time in recent history, non-white People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) surpassed White PLWHA in the Kansas City region: non-White PLWHA totaled 52% in 2014. In Missouri counties in the Kansas City region, 55% of all men Out of Care, not receiving primary HIV medical care, are non-White. Among newly diagnosed, HIV+ males, 38% were Black. Of four pregnancies / deliveries to HIV+ women, three were born to Black women. Black women total 52% of newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases for all females.  

CCON Impacts Substance Abuse, HIV Risk Behaviors & Violence

 The disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on the African American population found locally correlates with a national trend noted by the Center for Disease Control that "African Americans face the most severe burden of HIV of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States.  Compared with members of other races and ethnicities, African Americans account for a higher proportion of HIV infections at all stages of disease—from new infections to deaths," according to the CDC Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.

Although many youth receive some degree of HIV/AIDS prevention education, substance abuse and violence prevention in school, many young people depend on peer-to-peer exchange of information; unfortunately, there is a high level of misinformation about HIV/AIDS passed from peer-to-peer resulting in confusion and increase risk of spreading HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, information that drug use alone (not just intravenously) is a high-risk factor in acquiring HIV/AIDS because of impaired judgement and lowered inhibitions is not common knowledge. CCON's program seeks to address these behaviors by changing social norms.