Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection , on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi's Youth Courts. “Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of...

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Mississippi needs to do a lot of things. In the scheme of things, are you sure hope is really all that important?” My answer is an emphatic, “Yes!” What I want to share are four lessons I learned from having been one of the event planners of the three-day conference.