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PACEs Science Champions

My positive childhood experiences tree

This is the third of three stunning illustrations showing how PACEs (positive and adverse childhood experiences) affected the family of Cendie Stanford, graphic artist and founder of the nonprofit ACEs Matter. This one looks at her positive childhood experiences. The day before her 16th birthday, Cendie Stanford’s older brother was shot and killed by a young man who, just two years earlier, had been her boyfriend. “I was heartbroken that two people I loved were out of my life forever,” says...

My ACEs family tree: Life after ACEs

This is the second of two stunning illustrations showing how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affected the family of Cendie Stanford, founder of the nonprofit ACEs Matter. Each leaf represents a family member affected by ACEs, and the health consequences they suffered. When Cendie Stanford, founder and president of ACEs Matter , finished drawing “My ACEs Tree—Genealogy” —she saw clearly the remarkable number of ACEs her grandparents, parents, children and extended family had experienced.

Christopher Freeze: From FBI Special Agent to hope-centered and ACEs science informed leadership advocate

An FBI Special Agent for 23 years, the last three as the Special Agent in Charge of all operations and activities in the State of Mississippi, Christopher Freeze was well acquainted with the pervasive and generational effects of ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences. But during most of his tenure with the FBI, Freeze says, “ACEs was not on my radar at all.” Freeze’s Southern accent belies his roots in Manchester, Tennessee, a small town 50 miles outside of Nashville, where he milked cows...

PACEs Champion Wanda Boone: A resilience rainmaker

WANDA BOONE: A RESILIENCE RAINMAKER Wanda Boone, executive director of a North Carolina nonprofit, Together for Resilient Youth (TRY), to combat youth and adult substance use, not only raised three children of her own but also fostered seven children with mental health and substance use challenges. Despite – or perhaps because – of her own high ACEs score, Boone said that early on she decided “my main goal in life was to be a fantastic wife and mother.” She’s exceeded her goal in many ways.

PACEs Champion Dr. Lourdes Valdez uses Reach Out and Read as one way to integrate practices based on PACEs science

Our interview for this profile took place over two continents, from the U.S. to Lima, Peru, where Lourdes Valdez, pediatrician in Butte County, California, for 23 years, was attending to family affairs after the death of her mother. Valdez grew up in Lima, and later earned her medical degree in Peru before moving to Iowa City, Iowa, in 1992 for her residency. She said her mother helped make her a resilient person. Although working full time as an economist and statistician, her mother made a...

PACEs Champion Flojaune Cofer drives public health policies to prevent ACEs in California

Dr. Flojaune Cofer is an epidemiologist who wants to improve health and prevent trauma, racism, and inequity in communities throughout California. That’s a big charter, but since 2019, as senior director of policy for Public Health Advocates, she’s making progress with a team focused on public health prevention and restorative justice initiatives. Those initiatives include My Brother’s Keeper, for boys and men of color, and All Children Thrive, which works with 20 cities to prevent youth...

PACEs Champion Lynnette Grey Bull spearheads trauma awareness, resiliency for Indigenous peoples

Lynnette Grey Bull (l) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Lynnette Grey Bull is founder and director of Not Our Native Daughters , a nonprofit created to educate and raise awareness of the missing, exploited, and murdered Indigenous women and children in the more than 300 tribes across the U.S. Grey Bull was raised in Pasadena, CA, where her parents, who met in college, had settled after leaving Billings, Montana. “I had great memories there,” she recalls. Her mother is Northern...

Dan Press traces how legal work for Native Americans led to advocacy to uproot trauma

L-R Dr. Mary Cwik, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, Dan Press, Dr. Zach Kaminsky, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Prewitt In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation. Dan Press “I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens...

Juleus Ghunta aims to make the Caribbean nations PACEs-informed

If Jamaican poet, children’s book author, and appointee to the nation’s Task Force on Character Education, Juleus Ghunta had his way, all 44 million people living in the Caribbean—from Barbados to Guyana to Grenada—would become PACEs-informed in the near future. To start off, everyone—including children, parents, teachers, social workers, doctors, and policymakers—needs to read his new book, Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows: A Story about ACEs and Hope , due out this December, just in time for...

Mary Ann Hanson a leader in PACEs movement in Humboldt County, California

Mary Ann Hanson grew up in Fortuna, a former lumber town situated on the Eel River in Humboldt County and a gateway to centuries-old redwoods into the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Humboldt is also one of the two California counties with the highest percentage of residents whose ACE score is 4 or more. Hanson herself has an ACE score of 8. Given her roots in Humboldt, a mostly rural county with a population under 150,000, and the difficulties she faced growing up in a family with substance...

Louisiana’s first lady is on a mission to help improve the lives of children and families

Improving the lives of children is a personal calling for Louisiana first lady Donna Edwards. Before her husband, Gov. John Bel Edwards, took office in 2016, Donna Edwards spent eight years as a music teacher for her local public elementary school. She knew that many children in her classroom faced unknown hardships at home, but she didn’t realize how deeply trauma impacts children in different ways until 2017. That was the year that Dr. Charles Zeanah, a leading authority on adverse...

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