ACEs and resiliency featured in Sept. 17-18 Seattle Summit on Community Based Health Solutions

About 300 community and public health advocates, policy makers, educators and other leaders are attending the Foundation for Health Generations’ summit on September 17-18 in Seattle, WA. The conference, “Coalescing for Change: Community Based Health Solutions,” features four keynote addresses, including one by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and one by Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times, and workshops with Laura Porter and Dr. Rob Anda. There also will be a sneak preview of two ACEs-related documentary films by James Redford. “Resilience” explores the impact of toxic stress on the brain and “Paper Tigers” follows students at Walla Walla’s Lincoln High School, the school featured in a widely read story by Jane Stevens in ACEs Too High.

The Foundation for Health Generations---formerly Comprehensive Health Education Foundation (CHEF)---says the purpose of the conference is “to enable hope-filled action and enduring health equity by knowledgeably weaving together community wisdom, emerging science and effective policy.” Melanie Gillespie is the executive director of the foundation and Laura Porter heads the ACEs Learning Institute. The Foundation’s tag is “Creating Health Equity,” a more expansive mission than its past focus on health education. 

Here are a few highlights of the conference: 

• Washington State Governor Inslee will share his vision about improving the health of the state’s children. His public-private initiative “Healthiest Next Generation” seeks to help children maintain a healthy weight, enjoy active lives and eat well. He supports a coordinated approach to reduce childhood obesity that involves the Department of Early Learning and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
• Tina Rosenberg is a Pulitzer Prize-prize winning journalist and contributing writer for the New York Times with recent pieces in the Fixes series on how the health care system is beginning to use community health workers and how skilled tutors can improve reading skills.  She is co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, and the author of “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World” about the power of creative peer pressure.
• Dr. Michael Ungar, Killam Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University will present on “Resilience:  Nine Things Young People Need to Thrive”.
• Deborah Gray, founder of Nurturing Attachments, will present on “Attachment and the Brain’s Executive Functioning—Practical Ways to Influence Both”

Videotapes of selected keynotes and workshops will on the Healthy Generation web site after the event, along with the PowerPoints and resources used by the presenters for the workshops.