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Community members representing various races, ethnicities, ages, genders, and people with disabilities stand on rectangular bars from a bar graph while holding up a line graph, conveying representative data collection. Photo credit: Gracia Lam By Tina Kauh, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, December 7, 2023 To advance health equity, the research field and philanthropy must address underlying racism present in data collection. My parents, like so many other immigrants, moved to America with...

By Laura Newberry, Illustration: Patrick Hruby, Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2023 Woven throughout most of this newsletter is the understanding that our past informs our present. It shows up in the choices we make, our relationships, our work. No corner of our lives goes untouched by the shadows of our former selves. The concept that personal history plays a key role in our psychology has been formally recognized since the days of Freud . A younger, burgeoning field of study is now...

By Alexa Spencer, Photo: South_agency/Getty, Word In Black, December 6, 2023 Being locked away in a prison cell for years on end can be devastatingly lonely for people behind bars. Aside from mail, TV, radio, and guest visitation, their access to the outside world is limited. Perhaps, lesser known is how loneliness impacts the loved ones of incarcerated people. A 2018 report by Essie Justice Group found that 1 in 4 women in the United States, and nearly 1 in 2 Black women, have a loved one...

Left: On Dec. 7, 2022, family and friends released pink balloons in remembrance of Andreae Lloyd, whose boyfriend has been charged in her 2021 death. Right: Andreae Lloyd. Intimate partner violence is a serious public health problem that disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous women, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. States are encouraging more use of lethality risk assessments by law enforcement. Courtesy of Alfreda Lyons By Nada Hassanein, Stateline,...

The impacts of childhood trauma can follow people into adulthood causing what the CDC has determined is a 14 trillion dollar impact. Kira/RooM RF/Getty Images By Sujata Srinivasan, Photo: Kira/RooM RF/Getty Images, Connecticut Public, December 12, 2023 The U.S. economy could be $14 trillion larger if adult health conditions caused by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are prevented, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers at the Centers for...

To prepare for the year ahead, we have a few very special announcements we’re excited to share. First, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the 700+ community champions, facilitators, managers, and advocates in our COOP and Growing Resilient Communities program for your commitment.

Ariel Clinical Services , a Colorado agency that provides services across the state, participated in the Traumatic Stress Institute's IDD-centered Learning Collaborative (LC) in 2021 with three other client agencies. Ariel saw this LC as an opportunity to cement, deepen, and embed previous TIC efforts into the very fabric of their organization. Jesse Padilla-Goryl, the BCBA Program Manager for Ariel, was an essential leader of Ariel’s TIC change effort and has written a blog post about his...

Anyone who’s suffered a perinatal loss––the death of an infant due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal complications––knows too well the loneliness that accompanies such overwhelming sadness. In a society where men are encouraged to act rather than feel, even fathers of healthy newborns often bear the immense challenges of their role in acute isolation. One therapist has created networks of support where fathers can share their insights or explore their grief in community with other...

Since 2003, I have led a cartoon initiative called Cartoon Storytelling in which participants use real life experiences as prompt for a new story. Through a variety of creativity and writing exercises, participants learn about the art of cartooning while also creating a new story driven by a personal search to understand something about themselves. The stories are often motivated by a personal pain -- a response to being bullied, grappling with self-esteem issues, healing a damaged...

Click here to make your donation today. PACEs Connection is a social network that recognizes the impact of a wide variety of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in shaping adult behavior and health, and that promotes trauma-informed, healing-centered and resilience-building practices and policies in all families, organizations, systems, and communities. PACEs Connection supports local PACEs initiatives in neighborhoods, cities, counties, states, and nations. We provide initiatives with a...

Something amazing keeps happening in our CRC Accelerator program that we want to shout out from the rooftops this December. Thanks to our committed participants, the number of CRC graduates keeps increasing! The number of graduates has increased by 15x this year. As we head into a new year, w e are grateful for the unique role CRC Accelerator participants have played in expanding the PACEs movement through the willingness to explore healing-centered practices through a PACEs science lens.

As the world sees an increased need for trauma-informed interventions and systems transformation, PACEs Connection proudly announces the launch of the Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Fellowship program created to empower graduates of the CRC Accelerator program.