Cope Family Center’s Advocacy projects include Resilient Napa, which focuses on building a protective local network of trauma responders, an approach that’s informed by neuroscience and the study of ACEs—Adverse Childhood/Community Experiences. Developing a deeper understanding of ACEs, and their huge long-term effects, is what brought together Resilient Napa’s first year-long RAISE class (Resilience, ACEs Integration, Support, Education), made up of professionals who work directly with clients in Napa County.
Deputy District Attorney Nina Jehle, RAISE Class of 2018-2019
Deputy District Attorney Nina Jehle is matter-of-fact about what the criminal justice system can seem like to crime victims. “It’s a very confusing, frustrating, upside-down world,” she says. “Nobody asks to come into it—unless they take a job in it.” She’s clear on the value of good communication with victims and their families, and in her work prosecuting cases of physical abuse and neglect of children in Napa County, Nina is particularly concerned with helping them get comfortable with the procedure. “The younger the person is, the more time and legwork goes into creating rapport. If you’re a six-year-old who I’m going to ask to come into a courtroom to tell their story, in front of a judge and people in uniforms, and the person who abused them will be there, that’s a very scary situation if you’ve never seen the room, if you’ve never met me before.”
When she joined RAISE, Nina was already familiar with the basic premise of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). “I’d seen the Resilience documentary, I’d taken the ACEs questionnaire,” she says. What she wanted was to “make the connections with WHY we do some of the things we do…the science. Now I’m doing these things and I figured out why they help.” Further, she says she now sees that for an adult victim, past traumas make the experience of telling their story as frightening as it can be for children.
“It’s very, very important for the work that I do, to understand the impact of the system. Trauma is this iceberg underneath things, that we don’t know much about. The impact we can have, something that can be done, is in how we handle the process.”
Most of the RAISE sessions incorporated some study of self-care, including Reflective Practice groups. Nina, who works with victims during some of the most stressful moments of their lives, says, “At first, I felt guilty spending the time on the personal development. But then I realized that it really is the core of taking care of yourself so that you can show up and not make the situation worse, so that you can be a positive part…not be reactive. It’s valuable to stay calm when someone else is riled up.”
One particularly meaningful takeaway about how her job can directly impact Napa’s trauma survivors came during a class discussion. Nina explains, “I represent the people of the State of California--sometimes that’s helpful for a victim to know. I talked about the role of going into court for somebody who’s been victimized to say, ‘As a society, we will not stand for it.’ Hearing other people in the class validate that,” she says, confirmed for her that there is an important role for the justice system in both responding to trauma and dealing with its aftereffects. Nina concludes, “this work has to be done by the system as a whole, and the community.”