ACEs and Justice

Hi everyone, Happy Friday.😀 If any of you has a law enforcement background, this post is for you! Recently, we had the pleasure to virtually connect with Graham Goulden from Scotland. Graham is an experienced and committed leadership and violence prevention trainer. For thirty years he was a Scottish police officer and Chief Investigator specialising in criminal investigation, drug investigation, training and crime prevention. For the last eight years of policing career he was a Chief...

Hi everyone. We hope you're taking care of your spiritual, physical and mental health, wherever you are in the world. This has been a sombre week with the news of the discovery of the bodies of 215 precious children on the grounds of a residential school in Canada. Words cannot express the incredible pain those families must have felt for years, knowing nothing of the whereabouts of their babies. To have the revelation come at this time, during all that the world is experiencing and with the...

Hello ACEs Caribbean Community! Do you think that Trauma-Informed Courts will work well in the Caribbean? Before you say, "No", remember that some of the region's justice systems already have examples of problem solving courts. Last week, PACEs Connection staff member, Ms Carey Sipp posted that "p lans to integrate practices and policies based on the science of adverse childhood experiences in North Carolina’s 6,500-person,100-county statewide judiciary were announced... by Chief Justice...

Okay, so I want to share this article with you about the link between ACEs and sex trafficking in the USA. It is titled, " Youth Arrested for Trading Sex Have the Highest Rates of Childhood Adversity: A Statewide Study of Juvenile Offenders ". However, I need to explain something to you (i.e. vent) first... The researchers and article publishers use the term "arrested for trading sex" because in the early part of the century (c. 2014) that was the unfortunate state of the law in the USA...

Good Tuesday morning everyone. As we navigate the various systems of our nation, one in which trauma often manifests is the penal and criminal justice system. In our nation, thousands of men and boys and hundreds of women and girls are warehoused in some form of youth detention, pre-trial detention or incarceration after having been failed by dysfunctional or abusive families, and ineffective educational institutions. Often bursting at the seams due to overcrowding, these places of detention...

In observance of Mental Health Awareness Month and World Day of the Boy Child (WDBC) on May 16, 2021, ACEs Caribbean Community will be hosting its first "Live" online chat on the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Caribbean. In a virtual discussion titled " ACEs & The Boy Child ", we will speak with the founder of World Day of the Boy Child, Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh, and explore Mental Health and the effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences on boys with consulting psychologist,...

Hi everyone. If you missed the Feature Address of Picower Institute's symposium on Early Life Stress and Mental Health, you missed a treat. Bryan Stevenson blew everyone away with his flawless talk on racial injustice and how this has shaped the American judicial system to the devastation of persons, many of whom have suffered childhood and generational trauma. It was one of the most powerful opening talks of any conference I have ever heard! We shared excerpts of his talk using Twitter...

Good Monday morning, dear friends. We hope you are healthy and had a pleasant Mother's Day yesterday. Well, the day we told you about last week is finally here. It's the free symposium from the Picower Institute at MIT on Early Life Stress and Mental Health. Speakers will include Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, Mr. Bryan Stevenson and a mix of 'neuroscientists, policy experts, physicians, educators and activists'. They will discuss 'how our experiences and biology work together to affect how our...

Good morning, everyone. 😀 On Monday 10th May, there will be a full-day symposium (9am to 3pm) on "Early Life Stress and Mental Health" by the Picower Institute at MIT. Speakers include Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, California's Surgeon General and a renowned advocate for ACEs science, and the amazing, Bryan Stevenson, founder of Equal Justice Initiative (pictured above). Here's an extract from the promo: "In what ways are health and other outcomes affected by early life difficulty? What can...

Hi everyone. As everyone knows, the year 2020 was defined by a series of events, many of which linger to this day. Covid-19, as devastating as it and government efforts to curb it have been, may have been eclipsed for a time by the reporting and riots which ensued after the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in the USA. Last week, the tension of a 3-week trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd ended with a guilty...

Hello Community. It's Friday again! To kick off the weekend, we want to examine some research from the USA conducted by the Secret Service that has found a link to Adverse Childhood Experiences in youth who plotted or executed mass murders or shootings at school. According to the study, most of the perpetrators were "motivated by grievances against them, usually peers and bullying. Many were suicidal or had depression." Eight had a desire for fame or notoriety. "More than half had been...

The state of Tennessee in the USA has a comprehensive programme to build strong brains by reducing ACEs and combating toxic stress in children and youth. A really positive tone of the programme is that it emphasises Hope by reinforcing that while ACEs science is a FACT it is not FATE. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) website has a series of 6 short videos outlining the various components. The last 2 videos show how to get buy-in for your initiative from law enforcement agencies, state...