Lara Kain is an experienced educator, consultant, and national speaker on implementing ACEs science and trauma-informed practices into schools and communities, with a focus on building holistic trauma-responsive systems.
She brings over two decades of experience at the local, state, and national level. Before joining ACEs Connection, she developed trauma-informed community schools in Los Angeles, worked for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction supporting school improvement and as the state homeless coordinator, and — her first love — teaching 'at-risk' youth.
Her wide range of experience — from supporting individual teachers in the classroom to designing a trauma-informed schools pilot currently being implemented in 20 schools across the country leads — her to understand the macro and the micro. She has worked both as a teacher and administrator putting the science of building resilience into practice. She has a bachelors degree in education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a masters in public administration from The Evergreen State College.
As a trauma survivor and 'at-risk' youth herself, and then an educator for 'at-risk' youth in Washington State, this work is deeply personal. She is a mom to two adopted boys, which greatly personalizes her understanding of developmental trauma and what it takes to overcome. Lara originally hails from the Midwest; she spent over a decade in the Pacific Northwest, and now lives in sunny Southern California with her husband and two sons. The beach is her happy place.
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