April 2017

Last Friday, on a sunny Spring day in Santa Clara, CA, about 100 people gathered to celebrate a milestone: Over the last 10 months, 65 trainers from Trauma Transformed, a regional trauma-informed center and clearinghouse in the San Francisco Bay Area, have educated 4,048 people in six counties about trauma-informed principles and practices.

Meetings of the San Diego Trauma Informed Guide Team (SD-TIGT) now start with a moment of mindfulness. That could mean a breathing exercise or a quick round-robin with each participant saying a positive word before the group dives into that day’s agenda, says Heidi Echeverria, Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project manager. “We’re trying to make it a habit to start with positivism. Taking the time to do this creates a calm environment and a lightness among members.”...

President Trump just fired the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Dr. Murthy later posted some of his final thoughts on his Facebook page. These are words to live by, for anyone interested in ACEs and trauma. Kindness is more than a virtue. It is a source of strength. If we teach our children to be kind and remind each other of the same, we can live from a place of strength, not fear. I have seen this strength manifest every day in the words and actions of people all across our great nation. It...

I'm thrilled to announce our NEW Live Chat series!!! Starting in May, once a month, we will have a live Chat Event. It will take online in the Parenting with ACEs Group the second Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST). We'll learn from our featured guests (below) about ACE-related issues. We'll have discussions and share experiences, stories, and resources with each other. Here is who and what we have scheduled for 2017. 2017 Monthly Chat Schedule / Time is Always: @ 10 AM PST (1...

Abuse and trauma survivors are incredibly strong people. We know our strength is what helped us survive, and it’s what keeps us going now. Yet we know something is missing. This missing link is courage. We know we’re strong. But we’ve never allowed ourselves to realize that we’re also courageous people. And we always have been. That’s because courage is risky. The only thing we’ve ever wanted is what we never had as abused children: safety. Risk makes you vulnerable. No thanks, right? Hey, I...

As I wrap up my doctoral studies, I am excited to see how the concept of becoming “trauma-informed” in ministry is starting to pick up steam across the country. A large part of the credit for furthering that conversation goes to you--my friends and colleagues here on ACEsConnection! It's been humbling to see how our relatively small ministry in Montana has something to add to the conversation. In fact, far from being behind the curve here in Montana, we are on the cutting edge in terms of...

I am the child of a parent with an alcohol use disorder . My mom didn’t stop drinking until age 79. She died at 84. There was no warning, no lingering illness. She died two days after an unsuccessful emergency surgery. But we had five years during which she did not drink, after forty-five years during which she did. You see, my mom knew she had a drinking problem. So did we, the rest of her family. There were times when she fought mightily to stop or control it. There were times when the...

Gandelina Damião, 78, is permanently hunched, carrying her sorrow. She lost three children to heroin in the 1990s. A quarter century ago, her cobblestone lane, up a grassy hill from Lisbon's Tagus River, was littered with syringes. She recalls having to search for her teenagers in graffitied stone buildings nearby, where they would shoot up. "It was a huge blow," Damião says, pointing to framed photos on her wall of Paulo, Miguel and Liliana. "I was a good mother. I never gave them money for...

Warning: This article does include spoilers for the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why”. On March 31, 2017 Netflix released a new series titled, “13 Reasons Why”, based off the book by author Jay Asher. This series depicts a young man, Clay Jensen, and his journey to bring justice for his friend Hannah Baker. Hannah, a seventeen-year-old high school junior with nothing but the future before her, took her life on a seemingly calm afternoon. Why is this important? The Centers for Disease Control...

Ian Manuel spent 26 years behind bars after he shot a woman in the face when he was just 13 years old, but he rarely felt alone. That’s because the woman he hurt, Debbie Baigrie , decided to forgive him — and more. The night he shot her, in Tampa, Florida, on July 27, 1990, is something they both still relive. Baigrie, then 28, was out with friends for the first time since giving birth to her second child, and she was walking back to her car to head home. Manuel, who had a history of minor...

Through the plate glass window of the café where I sipped my coffee, I watched an older gentleman bend to pick something off the ground. He did this repeatedly: down and up, down and up. I learned that he did this every day for hours, picking up fallen leaves. The man had dementia and lived in Hogewey, a community outside Amsterdam where older people with advanced dementia lead largely autonomous lives in familiar, welcoming surroundings. This particular gentleman liked to pick up leaves—and...

Originally written by Jessica Rabaey on Unwritten It’s been almost two years since I walked into a depression and anxiety treatment center. I vividly remember the car ride there with my parents ― they were both trying to be strong for me and reassure me it was the right place for me to be at the time. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact I had to be admitted to a treatment facility. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact I couldn’t beat the depression on my own as I had so many times...