New state agency to help Hawaii children with impacts of trauma

Hawaii government leaders are embarking on a broader and more coordinated approach to reduce and address traumatic experiences among children along with resulting effects.

A new semi-autonomous state agency is to be established initially within the office of the governor to take up this task, and is described as the first of its kind in the nation at a statewide level.

“This is historic,” Danny Goya, a local trauma­-informed care trainer, said at an event Monday celebrating the recent enactment of a new state law establishing the Office of Wellness &Resilience. “This is epic. The eyes of the nation in some ways are upon us.”

The new office is to be led by an executive director appointed by Gov. David Ige and supported by five full-time-equivalent employees and two contracted consultants at an initial cost of up to $894,528.

Achieving its mission could reduce the number of children who end up incarcerated, homeless, engaged in prostitution and other tragic situations that include taking their own life in connection with trauma.

Historically, work to prevent or address trauma that can include physical or sexual abuse at home has been silo-based within state agencies such as the Department of Education and Department of Health, as well as nonprofit organizations. The new office, Goya said, will provide a cross-sector approach that involves public and private entities.

The office is being established through Senate Bill 2482, which became law July 12 with Ige’s signature.

Efforts by the new office will support and build on work being produced by an 11-member trauma-­informed care task force that lawmakers created after passing House Bill 1322 in 2021. The task force is scheduled to be disbanded July 1, 2024.

Tia Hartsock, an official with the Department of Health’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Division who chairs the task force, said she is hopeful that an executive director appointed to the new office in the next couple of months can get the office fully staffed and running within a year.

“We know this approach works — this community collaboration, this cross-agency work,” she said at Monday’s event, which was held at the The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center at Kewalo Harbor, managed by local nonprofit Kupu.

Laurie Tochiki, executive director of the local nonprofit EPIC ‘Ohana Inc., largely focused on the welfare of children, said the formation of the new office gives her hope that more innovative and effective strategies will be produced along with better results.

“Sometimes we work against each other and there are unnecessary barriers, and so it’s so exciting to have this office help us coordinate those efforts,” she said at the event.

State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee and also participated in Monday’s event, said he is hopeful that statistics for incarceration, prostitution, suicide and other harmful experiences among youth in Hawaii go down a year or two after the new office is running.

“This is really just the beginning,” said Dela Cruz (D, Wahiawa-Whitmore-Mililani Mauka). “I don’t want to encourage anyone to get too excited, because there is a lot of work to get done.”

The new office is required to submit a report to the Legislature every year explaining what it has achieved.

Dela Cruz said the office was created within the governor’s office to put it at the highest level in the state administration, but eventually it is expected to be attached to another agency because only temporary offices can be created within the governor’s office.