As mentioned in the weekly newsletter, we'll be doing mini-profiles of ACEsConnection members. This week, we of the ACEsConnection team will go first, and we're taking different approaches to telling our stories.
I’ve known ACEsConnection founder Jane Stevens for many years as a pioneer in multimedia journalism, one of the first to incorporate video, community interaction, and grassroots reporting into the basic fabric of journalism. When she told me about the ACEs campaign, I said, “Sign me on!”
My mother and her sisters are all Holocaust survivors, and my father survived the trauma of a violent father subject to severe mood swings. Despite their childhood experiences, my parents were able to create a joyous life together, and my father, a music educator at a state hospital for developmentally disabled children, was able to empathize and teach children – even those who couldn’t hear – to experience the pleasures of music and dance.
I’m a high-tech publicist and connector, helping start-ups and nonprofits achieve success. I’d like to see technology companies adopt hiring and management practices that take into account traumatic childhood experiences and provide professional counseling. Depression and suicide are not uncommon in the high-tech industry, and taking into account ACEs could help improve employee quality of life as well as job performance.
My clients are always in flux financially, so it’s difficult when they lose funding or have investors turn them away. They often need to lay off employees. If I know those employees, I try to help them find new positions and stay in touch with them. I also help journalists, since many have lost their jobs at print publications. In fact, in an industry where job security is almost nonexistent, every day is a trauma, but it’s also an opportunity for change.
At ACEsConnection, I place articles and posts in mainstream media and hope to mainstream the ACEs concept by informing reporters, bloggers, and social media practitioners.
I learned about ACEs a couple of years ago, and more recently, since joining the ACEsConnection team, I began to understand why some people I know might act the way they do. Even with strangers I encounter on the street, I feel more compassion than I used to, although I don't know how to channel that compassion yet. I expect that within a few months, there will be even more changes in the way I interact with people because of ACEsConnection and the discussion there. I’d love to post about my different behavior at a later date.
Besides working as a consultant for start-ups and nonprofits using technology, I also host two monthly events, one for people in tech and the other for women interested in helping to make the world a better place. I plan to ask a member of ACEsConnection to speak at one or both of these events in the near future.
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