On April 6th, 2015, the Philadelphia ACE Taskforce convened the members for the quarterly meeting. The meeting included two presentations from experts on adverse childhood experiences and trauma.
- Jonathan Purtle, PhD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Management & Policy, School of Public Health Drexel University
Presentation: Trauma Policy Research: Charting a Course (download it from the bottom of this post)
Jane Aronson, MD Orphan Doctor-World Wide Orphans Foundation http://www.orphandoctor.com
Discussion on: Toy Libraries
The Philadelphia ACE Taskforce has four unique workgroups focusing on different areas of action at the 4/6/2015 each workgroup met and reported out with the following updates:
- Priority Area/Workgroup #1 - Community Education
- Michael O’Bryan, Co-Chair, and Leslie Lieberman reported that through the generous support of the Atlantic Center for Population Health Sciences and First Hospital Foundation, a series of three, 1/2 day workshops will be held in which professionals and community members in Philadelphia and New Jersey can collaborate with one another to gain content knowledge about ACEs and toxic stress, read and discuss the book Contagious: Why things Catch On by Jonah Berger, Ph.D., and finally, work with Jonah, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The goal of these trainings is to create accessible and compelling messages about ACEs that educate, inspire and galvanize activism for the general community.
- Priority Area/Workgroup# 2 - Practical Interventions
- Esther Chung, Co-Chair, reported that the workgroup is creating Google Docs that will eventually be shared with the full ACE Taskforce. Google Docs will include a survey of trauma-informed agencies in Philadelphia, a master list for the audience of the survey, and a collection of trauma-informed definitions and trainings. As of now, the SAMHSA definition was established as our guiding definition. Specifically, three buckets were established for the survey: education and prevention resources, clinical services, and community organizations interested in trauma-informed care/reducing ACEs. The group will review the Google Docs again and add their edits and/or fill out the forms.
- Priority Area/Workgroup# 3 - Workforce Development (Higher Education)
- Suzanne O’Connor, Co-Chair, reported that their group was provided with an overview of the progress on the Philadelphia Web-based Environmental Scan. The discussion focused on the next steps of the Casey Grant as there was a debate among working group members regarding the goals of the workforce development group. Members engaged in a dialogue about developing different standards for each of the disciplines and discussed the difficulties that might be involved in creating a course. The group seemed to agree that lobbying accrediting boards to include some level of competency in ACEs-related material might be a more effective alternative. The group then agreed that new members should be added to include individuals from each of the targeted disciplines. The group will meet in the coming weeks to make broader decisions about how to move forward with this work.
- Priority Area/Workgroup# 4- Philadelphia ACE Study Working Group (Research & Publication)
- Joel Fein, Co-Chair, reported that the workgroup will be meeting between now and the next PATF meeting, to discuss and coordinate more opportunities for the Philadelphia data set to be incorporated in research and further published.