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“I was 17, I was almost an adult and they couldn’t put me back into foster care,” Ashley tells us as she shares her foster care journey. But they did. And for good reason. Her father, who she had met for the first time when she was a teenager, was sexually abusing her. “He got six years in jail and I’m going to be scarred for life,” Ashley said. While her story is incredibly sad, the fact that she used her voice to talk about it, and got some redemption, is powerful. After last year’s news...

One of the first ACEs study conducted in Ireland - this one amongst the Cork Simon Community, an organisation caring for adult-homeless people. This link is a very visual presentation, including 2 locally-made videos , plus 2 standard ACEs videos at the end. In another link we will present the more text-and-data version of the study. Authors : Dr. Sharon Lambert & Graham Gill-Emerson. March 2017 >>> ACE's at Cork Simon

When it comes to ACEs, Cork appears to be indeed the capital of Ireland. From Noel Baker in the great Irish Examiner newspaper, September 2017 : Almost one-quarter of men and women aged in their 50s and 60s were found to have suffered an ‘adverse childhood experience’, with research showing higher odds of depressive symptoms later in life among that group. A newly published study looked at baseline data from 2,047 men and women aged 50 to 69 in the north Cork town of Mitchelstown and found...

From We need to talk about Children's Mental Health Throughout my twenty year career as a psychologist working in Specialist Children’s Mental Health Services (SCAMHS) two frequently repeated mantras have been amongst the biggest sources of frustration for me: “It’s a social problem, not a mental disorder” and “the child needs to be stable to access therapy”; the latter often responded to with the helpless reply “but the child need’s therapy in order to be stable”. Indeed, much of the...

A miracle cure for a patched-up society? By Contributor 19th April 2018 The recent lidocaine (Versatis) patch controversy seems to be a wider debate about health resources — one which could be resolved by just sticking a plaster on it (pun intended), GP Dr William Ralph supposes The recent lidocaine (Versatis) patch debate seemed, on the surface, to be just another healthcare resource allocation decided by the media in the face of Health Service Executive (HSE) intransigence, and a disregard...

How the ACEs were born - Dr Felitti - in his own words (7min video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3cCAcGeG8E

Between Cork and Belfast, Ireland will have seen an unprecedented amount of trauma speakers, all world specialists, and we hope that this will transform the nation. But although science confirms these findings on an almost daily basis, this information is not new as the ACEs have been in the public domain for the last 20 years. There is therefore no need to re-invent the wheel. With the launch of < ACEs-in-Ireland > we hope to bring the best and most relevant facts and to soften the...

This was produced by KPJR Films, and edited by Jen Bradwell.

ACEs in Ireland is a hub for all things trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences here in Ireland, and for those who strive for change and follow ACEs science. The island of Ireland is host to one of the most traumatised people on the planet. There can therefore only be one way, and that is up and better. We welcome all your questions, from your very own special interest or position, and surely among us, we can provide information, answers, support, and more importantly, solutions. You are...