At this writing, ACEsConnection.com has more than 7,200 members. The number of members has been doubling every year since May 2012. In December, the network had just over 600,000 page views. In January, that climbed to nearly 750,000.
Not too long ago, Rosa Ana Lozada, CEO of Harmonium, Inc., in San Diego, CA, asked me: What is the philosophy behind ACEsConnection.com, and what guidelines did I use to organize it? I realize that, although I’ve told a few people, it might be useful to explain to everyone why we do what we do.
First, the basics of ACEsConnection.com: It’s a community-of-practice social network. In the social networking world, community-of-practice means a network that supports the day-to-day activities of people who are propelling the ACEs movement — developing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices. (btw, did you know there are millions of private and public social networks besides Facebook and Twitter?? We’re just one!).
I launched the ACEs Connection Network in January 2012. The network has two parts: ACEsConnection.com, the social network, and ACEsTooHigh.com, a news site where we post stories for the general public. Since 2014, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment have generously supported a small team of people — two who work full-time and seven who work part-time — to grow the network.
ACEsConnection members come from healthcare, education, criminal justice, law enforcement, civic, business, social services and faith-based communities, and are also parent and community advocates. We send everyone a daily digest about the latest developments in ACEs and how people and communities are implementing the research.
Basically, our philosophy is to create a network that’s a safe place and a trusted source. It’s a place where we tell stories, and encourage others to tell their stories. We do our best to shorten the time it takes useful information to find its way from one person who has it to another person who needs it. We’re using this distributed networking technology (anyone can communicate with anyone else….no bottlenecks to get to information) to eradicate the isolation caused by geography or silos.
This is how we practice that philosophy:
- All people applying to become members are checked to see if they’re real people, and if they know what they’re joining. We require first and last names, so that people know who they’re interacting with.
- We see all content that is posted on ACEsConnection, and, if necessary, we intervene. Overthe last four years, we’ve established a high level of civility and trust on the network; we’ve never had to ban a member.
- We require those who join to be individuals, instead of organizations, because part of safety is knowing who you’re communicating with…a person. Trust is built on relationships between individuals before it’s built between organizations.
At the heart of AC are the groups, which support the face-to-face activities of ACEs initiatives in communities, and within interest groups. Without those activities, the groups are of little use. And a community’s use of an ACEsConnection group can remove some barriers that can slow a local or state ACE initiative. We’ve been restructuring and updating the groups. Take a look at ACEs in Education — it’s now the go-to place for trauma-informed K-12 schools.
Thanks for joining ACEsConnection and making it the most active, influential ACEs community in the world!!
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