We’re Hard Wired for Connection
Written by Tim Buckley, March 2025
CBEL’s guest speaker, Amelia Franck-Meyer of Alia Innovations, said that, depending on how we’re raised, we’re either wired for connection or for protection. “A stressful home environment can wire you to always be reactive,” she said. “In that world, everyone is a threat.”
L to R: Maribel Hernandez, Maribel Mora-Martinez, Eduardo Angulo, Elizabeth Heredia, Amelia Franck-Meyer, and Maria Cisneros
As part of the program, a panel of four local people addressed the audience of about 60 attendees, discussing the stresses of parenthood and economic hardship. Each of those grassroots leaders also holds a position on one of the neighborhood family councils (NFCs):
Maribel Mora-Martinez, Washington NFC Chair & CBEL Board Member
Maria Cisneros, Kennedy NFC Chair
Eduardo Angulo, Hallman-Northgate NFC Chair, CBEL Board Member, and CBEL Neighborhood Family Councils Initiative Director
Elizabeth Heredia, Cummings NFC Secretary
Maribel Hernandez, Highland NFC Chair & CBEL Board Member
Each spoke of their experience as NFC members, answering the following questions:
Which council are you a part of and what led you to join?
What accomplishment are you most proud of during your time so far as an NFC member?
In their own way, each underscored the main points that Franck-Meyer was making.
“Community resilience has a lot of components, but building connection and empathy must be part of the foundation.”
“Proximity builds empathy. For children to feel safe, they need nurturing physical and emotional proximity to their parents, preferably both.”
“It is usually far better to keep children in their homes, with their parents, than to take them away and place them in the care of strangers.”
“Institutions (agencies and service organizations) can reflect and perpetuate the sense of isolation now epidemic in our country, felt equally by children and adults.”
“We have to build parents’ resilience to be in the fire of stress”
“It’s not a clinical fix; it’s a connection fix.”
“For kids to be okay, we must make things better for families.”
“It’s not about saving or rescuing. It’s not ‘for’ or ‘to’, but ‘with’.”
Normal Attachment for Children. “The most stressful thing for kids is the death of a parent,” Amelia said. “The second most stressful thing is separation from their parent.”
She then summarized “the circle of security” with five components that lead to security:
I have a need (nutrition, safety, connection, etc.)
I express a need (crying, acting out, verbalizing)
I respond warmly when my need is met
I feel relief
I develop trust
“If the primary caregiver is okay, it’s likely that I will also be okay,” she added. By extension, she said that we all need “co-regulating partners” to deal with stress and traumatic experiences. “If we don’t get support, we tend to react out of proportion to the event.”
In the last half hour of the gathering, the audience discussed in small groups how her presentation, and the questions she posed to the panel, applied to each participant’s life. Young and older, financially secure and those less so found out that regardless of our heritage or upbringing, the wisdom of Amelia’s words seemed to fit our experience.
CBEL’s emphasis on “families are the solution, not the problem”, originally coined by Amelia, underscored the method the nonprofit chose to build social cohesion in one neighborhood at a time. With trust built, it is easier to build social capital, which translates into healthier parents, healthier families, better academic outcomes and a healthier financial outlook for these neighborhoods, and the city at large.
