Although it’s too soon to tell if integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) sciences is making a difference for the teens living at Home on the Range , a residential treatment center in Sentinel Butte, ND, it’s made a huge difference for the people who work there. They now understand that kids aren’t born bad. “ACEs has enlightened us,” says Mike Gooch, clinical program director for the center, which is located on a 1,600-acre...

For our second community spotlight interview, I spoke with Dr. Richard Honigman, a pediatrician at Central Nassau Pediatrics in Levittown and infant mental health advocate. We discussed the importance of addressing childhood adversity and the relevant work he is doing both inside and outside his practice. Please note that responses have been adjusted for length and clarity. Dr. Honigman is also the first recipient of the 2019 Ed Tronick Award for Distinguished Contribution to Infant-Parent...

Dr. Flojaune Cofer and Ben Duncan , each from public health backgrounds that focus on health disparities, addressed ACEs in the context of health equity for their panel entitled ACEs, Race, and Health Equity: Understanding and Addressing the Role of Race and Racism in ACEs Exposure and Healing . Cofer and Duncan co-presented to a standing-room-only audience at the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access co-hosted by ACEs Connection and the Center for Youth Wellness Oct.16-17 in San Francisco.

  More and more people from across different sectors are screening people for ACEs . They’re also educating them about ACEs at the same time. I’m working on a couple of stories — one is about home visiting programs in Washington...

By Patrice Gaines, NBC News, October 11, 2019 Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has an ambitious dream: screen every student for childhood trauma before entering school. "A school nurse would also get a note from a physician that says: 'Here is the care plan for this child's toxic stress. And this is how it shows up,'" said Burke Harris, who was appointed California's first surgeon general in January. "It could be it shows up in tummy aches. Or it's impulse control and behavior, and we offer a care...

Will screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in California be mandatory? No, but it’s recommended. Will there be training for physicians and staff on how to screen? Yes. Who will be reimbursed for screening patients in California? Physicians who serve patients in the state’s Medi-Cal program — for now. For more answers to these and other questions that surfaced during a Dec. 4 webinar introducing Californians to a new statewide initiative, read on. Come January 1, California will...

When children and their parents first visit  Northeast Treatment Centers (NET) Children’s Behavior Health Services  in Philadelphia, they fill out a 10-question survey about their adverse childhood experiences so that therapists can...

When students show up for an appointment at the Elsie Allen Health Center , which is located on the Elsie Allen High School campus in Santa Rosa, CA, one of the first things they do is take an ACE survey. Instead of answering the...

Since August 2016, more than 300 three-year-olds who visited Kaiser Permanente’s pediatric clinics in Hayward and San Leandro have been screened for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as living with a family member who is an alcoholic or losing a parent to separation or divorce. But when the idea to screen toddlers and their families for ACEs was first broached at the Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center, the staff were, in a word, “angsty,” says Dr. Paul Espinas, who led the...

By Kentucky Reports, November 9, 2019 Dr. Vincent J. Felitti has over 50 years of experience in the field of Internal Medicine with extensive knowledge in the areas of childhood trauma, the genetic disease Hemochromatosis, and obesity. Serving as a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California since 1982, Dr. Felitti’s knowledge and experience is broad and significantly biopsychosocial. Dr. Felitti achieved his Medical Degree from Johns Hopkins in 1962 after being inspired...

By Jesse J. Helton, Jason T. Carbone, et al., JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 For children who have been sexually abused, emergency department (ED) professionals provide immediate medical care, including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, prophylaxis for potential HIV exposure, and emergency contraception. In some cases, ED clinicians conduct forensic examinations to assist with child protection and criminal investigations. Physicians and nurses in EDs are among the...

Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...

The Center for Youth Wellness' National Pediatric Practice Community on ACES (NPPC) is a co-designed community committed to collaborative learning. To promote this learning, we have been working with six pilot sites over the last year, representing practices of various sizes and service delivery settings, to implement ACEs screening and intervention. Beyond supporting these practices with the logistics of implementation, the broader goal was to discover and share real-world best practices,...

In October 2015 in Pueblo, CO, the staff members of a primary care medical clinic – Southern Colorado Family Medicine at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center – start asking parents of newborn babies to kids five years old about the parents’ adverse childhood experiences and the resilience factors in their lives. They ask the same questions of pregnant women and their partners in the hospital’s high-risk obstetrics clinic. The results are so positive after the first year that the clinic starts...

He says: Addiction shouldn’t be called “addiction”. It should be called “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking”. He says: Ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking (what traditionalists call addiction) is a normal response to the adversity experienced in childhood, just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed. He says: The solution to changing the illegal or unhealthy ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking behavior of opioid addiction is to address a person’s adverse childhood...

The aptly named Great Starts program at the Helen Ross McNabb Center in Knoxville, TN, provides a six-to-nine month residential treatment and two-year follow-up program for pregnant mothers and moms with newborns recovering from substance abuse. Earlier this year, curious about the early childhood history of its residents, the center started asking the women about their ACEs history. The results would not have been surprising to those familiar with ACEs: Of the 16 moms who filled out the...

The  Child Parent Project , a five-year, $3 million federally funded project in Philadelphia, is the first research study in the U.S. partnering with public health agencies and family courts to gauge the impact of child-parent psychotherapy (CPP)...

Here is an excerpt from a recent blog post by Dr. Claudia M. Gold. Pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton was among the first to recognize the tremendous capacity of the newborn for complex connection and communication. Developmental psychologist Ed Tronick, drawing on this observation, designed the famous Still-Face Experiment to show the devastation, for both parent and baby, when they struggle to connect. Extensive research at the interface of developmental psychology, neuroscience, and...

A father in county jail is ordered to take a parenting class, but isn’t too enthusiastic about it. As part of the class, he learns about the ACE Study, and does his own ACE score. “Oh my god!” he announces to the class. “I have 7 ACEs.” His mother’s an alcoholic. His dad’s been in and out of jail. He himself started dealing drugs at age 11, and doing drugs at 14. “I’ve got two kids at home experiencing the same things I did,” he says. The light bulb goes on. A few days after a woman who’s...

By Joan Cook, The Hill, October 10, 2019 Today is World Mental Health Day. And, California, a state with 10 percent of the U.S. population, just announced that it’s introducing the first toll-free statewide mental health line for non-emergency emotional support and referrals. What a wonderful way to kick off this occasion. This Peer-Run Warm Line is a reason to celebrate. As a psychologist, I’ve witnessed first-hand the emotional pains people carry, and how hard it is for them to come in for...

Hello Dr. Anthofer-Fialon, Thank you for incorporating the ACEs screening into your work at the 13th Circuit Court here in Michigan. In my opinion, when any court in America identifies the ACE entitled "Divorce/Separation from a Biological Parent" , they should swiftly and clearly intervene to help that person protect their known legal rights or help them establish court ordered custody/parenting time rights. Teaching more 'coping skills' will not help eliminate the real life problems in the...

Case 1: Eighteen Month Old Head Banging, Violent Temper Tantrums •Maternal ACE Score – 8 –Domestic Violence –Emotional, Physical, Sexual Abuse –Emotional, Physical Neglect –Alcoholic Parent, Parental Mental Illness •Child ACE Score – 6 –Parental Loss –Domestic Violence –Alcohol Use in Home, Parental Mental Illness –Emotional, Physical Neglect Before behavioral evaluations, I ask about parental ACEs by using an edited 14 page modified developmental screener from Indiana University to which I...

Leisa, Love the extra questions. Those first ones are AWESOME!!!! The types of day to day stuff that make it really hard and what the kids are struggling with. I think it is great and will bring it up at our next trauma-informed community meeting. Thanks Tina

We use the 10 questions from the original ACE questionnaire which is completed by clients when they register at the initial visit. Usually the first encounter is with one of our 2 fellows and a faculty member after. One or tbe other or both go over the questions one by one with the client. Interesting is that we find patients often self report lower scores than when reviewed with the staff. Prior to the fellowship I did the same thing and just did it myself. We also use the ACE in group...

PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.