PACEs Science Champions

Unlike some of her staff at Benchmarks , a nonprofit alliance partnering with private and public health agencies in North Carolina, Chief Research & Development Officer Jenny Cooper has an ACE score of 0. Jenny, who joined Benchmarks to work on the Partnering for Excellence Initiative , which seeks to enhance child welfare services and outcomes, attributes her low score to her parents. They made sure to treat her and her sibling well and provide opportunities in their lives. She notes...

Sonoma County ACEs Connection members Allen Nishikawa and Lena Hoffman at California Policymaker Education Day, 2018 Allen Nishikawa, a sansei, or third-generation Japanese American, majored in political science and American history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he participated in antiwar (Vietnam) marches. But it was his experience as a military brat — moving from school to school across the U.S. and even to Japan as a child — that shaped his own childhood experiences and...

Each year for the past 20 years, First 5 San Mateo County has spent nearly $7 million to help meet the needs of children from birth through age five, and support their families. In 1998, First 5 was established and funded in California by Proposition 10, which funneled tobacco tax dollars into transforming the early childhood system and guaranteeing better outcomes for all counties in the state. In January 2018, the First 5 San Mateo County started a planning committee based on incorporating...

Nemia with peacock used in therapy with children. Talking with an animal is often easier than talking with an adult for a child who's experienced abuse. _________________________________________ Toni Nemia, program and clinical director for the University of San Francisco Child and Family Center's School-Based Family Counseling, says that her graduate students are often surprised to hear that ACEs science (adverse childhood experiences) has an international reach. In fact, Scotland is an...

In foreground, Dr. Donielle Prince (l) and Saundra Davis (r) ____________________________ Saundra Davis, a financial coach and consultant who trains other coaches on building resilience among the working poor, knew she had met her partner in helping people deal with their “money disorders” when she first met Dr. Donielle Prince in Sacramento at a black women’s gathering in 2015. Dr. Prince works with ACEs Connection as its San Francisco Bay Area regional community facilitator. She also...

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative , won a U.S. Supreme Court case banning mandatory life sentencing without parole for anyone age 17 or younger. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, a state that officially celebrates Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King, Jr., day together , the Harvard-trained lawyer has dedicated his life to serving the poor, the incarcerated, and children prosecuted as adults. Stevenson keynoted the final day of the 2016 Conference on Adverse Childhood...

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...