Orange County—the sixth largest county in the U.S.—is home to over 3.2 million residents. Despite its popular association with wealth, many OC families are in deep poverty and at greater risk of exposure to trauma. Nearly half of all the county’s children are on Medi-Cal, and 70 percent of them are children of color. Orange County ranks 39th among California counties for the availability of mental health providers. A significant share of that burden falls on marginalized communities.

“Our community’s complex systems have not kept up with changing needs, and many OC families struggle to navigate and access care,” said Iliana Soto, Director of the Orange County Network of Care, an Accountable Community for Health (ACH) administered by Orange County United Way. Recognizing that no one sector alone can solve these pervasive problems, community organizations, healthcare institutions, and public agencies have united to build a more connected, coordinated, and optimized health and social service system. Organizers believe that addressing these core challenges will also help turn the tide on the related issues of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Orange County Network of Care has positioned itself as a convener with a shared vision to help all residents achieve their full potential by enacting radical cultural shifts that promote trauma healing, center equity and inclusion, and create systemic change. Together, the network works to ensure individuals, families, and communities are connected to resources, with partners accompanying them on their journey. "We see this work as creating a thoughtful and compassionate pathway to screening, treatment, and healing that overcomes barriers, prevents re-traumatization, and effectively connects people to the services they need," said Soto.

The network was developed as part of the ACEs Aware Initiative, which was launched by the California Surgeon General and Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) to reduce adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and toxic stress by half within one generation. Orange County leads in the screening of ACEs with over 42 percent of Medi-Cal members 0-20 years old having been screened. "Building on our momentum and on previous work, we're aiming to take the existing efforts as the foundation for the ACH to continue to build, refine, and make these efforts more systematic, inclusive, and sustainable,” shared Terri Iller, Director of Community Clinical Outreach in the Division of Population Health at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC).

The Orange County Network of Care strives to create a continuum of care that includes care coordination, improved accessibility, and interoperability. This approach helps break down silos, facilitates data sharing across organizations, and enables closed-loop referrals that better track and support improved health outcomes while strengthening connections to the social determinants of health. Iller shared, "I would love to see a system where we can safely and securely share data across organizations, informing our efforts to support and care for our shared families. Systems like closed-loop referral platforms would help us better track patients’ connections to needed resources, ensuring that once families are referred, they're actually connected to the services they need. A system of data sharing and care coordination that expands across both clinical and community-based organizations would be ideal."

Moving forward, the Orange County Network of Care will focus on building resilient communities, fostering multi-sector partnerships, and advancing community- and equity-centered leadership development. A key component of this effort is the new Equity Table, where individuals with lived experience and expertise can share their perspectives with partners to inform and drive systems change. “We’re all moving towards alignment and building an enduring collective impact movement that inspires cooperation and leads to advancing health equity,” according to Soto.

"One of the greatest opportunities is aligning everyone around a shared vision for our county—who we want to be, how we want families to be supported, and ensuring they have access to the resources they deserve. By sharing data, we can enhance our efforts and work even more effectively together. We have great potential to strengthen our collaboration and connectivity across all areas of our work,” says Elizabeth Andrade, Executive Director of 2-1-1 Orange County, Orange County United Way.