Blog

Dr. Elisa Nicholas, a pediatrician and chief executive officer of TCC Family Health Clinics in Long Beach, California, relays an example of how the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the lives of the clinics’ patients. Most had already been struggling financially prior to the pandemic. “Both the mother and father came down with coronavirus,” said Nicholas. “Their child was in on a telephone visit with one of our doctors. They did not have any way to get food. They had no money to pay for...

In Fresno, volunteers from local churches were already working with the schools, mentoring kids and running weekend recreation programs. Community-based non-profits were in conversation with educators; pastors were talking to social-service providers. The problems were clear: nearly 30% of Fresno’s residents living in poverty (the rate tops 40% for Black residents), with a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest parts of this sharply segregated city. For several years,...

Five years of convening Newark’s ACE Impact Team has taught Keri Logosso-Misurell a crucial lesson: Fight the urge to reinvent the wheel.

By National Family Support Network and Families Canada, August 2020 Play and outdoor activities have positive and measurable effects on young children, such as increased educational performance and achievements, health, well-being, as well as social and personal development. Play is also a way to bring families together, strengthen relationships, build trust and bonds, and have lasting impacts on family health and well-being as a whole. This webinar will explore how can programs promote the...

State Rep. Ramon Alexander , D-Tallahassee, plans to bring out a bill “creating a Victim Compensation Crime and Trauma Fund for victims of police shooting incidents and their families.” Alexander said on Monday that he will introduce the legislation for next year’s legislative session. “Trauma experienced by survivors and loved ones can be social, physical, and emotional. As lawmakers, it is imperative that we provide trauma-specific services and a greater awareness of the effects of...

An important new report based on data from the National Survey of Children's Health identifies significant economic and racial disparities in the frequency of adversity among children ages 0-3. Adversity in Early Childhood: The Role of Policy in Creating and Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences from the Center for American Progress underlines the importance of social policy initiatives to advance primary prevention and racial and economic justice. See...

Transform Trauma with ACEs Sciences Film Festival & Follow-Up Discussions The following weekend watch parties and follow-up discussions are co-hosted by ACEs Connection, The Relentless School Nurse , and The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy & Practice (CTIPP) . We appreciated the filmmakers for making these films free to watch for our members and for the public programming of PBS. The films we’ll feature are as follows: Portraits of Professional Caregivers Whole People Part 1...

As we enter the school year, with so much uncertainty… one thing IS certain. We are ALL going show up, whether in person or virtually, with BIG FEELINGS. Here are some resources to make processing those emotions more manageable.

The March meeting of the New Jersey Education Association’s ACEs Task Force opened without an agenda. It was a virtual gathering with more than 50 people—educators, social workers, professionals in pediatrics, juvenile justice and child abuse prevention. The pandemic had landed emphatically close to home, with a governor’s order to close all schools on March 18, and participants were grappling with what that meant for their students, their families and themselves. So ACEs Task Force co-chair...

By Randi B. Hagi Across video conference screens, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield and Kirby Broadnax MA ’20 sit down together. Their topic of discussion: learning from our pain. “For me, there’s not a moment or a particular event that I think about, but just a continual deepening of my understanding of the ways that structural traumas like racism and sexism in particular, have impacted, continue to impact my life and my body,” Broadnax says. “So...

By Ty Bechel, August 31, 2020, riverbend.com. There are many elements to drug and alcohol addiction. One of the most heartbreaking and gut-wrenching elements is trauma. I have worked with individuals struggling with drug and alcohol addiction for nearly five years. If you heard some of the trauma people had to experience, you would want to escape reality, too. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect are just a few forms of trauma some human beings have had to forcefully experience. Yes,...

The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...