Billboards! Social media! PSAs! Celebrities!...The largest and only national public awareness campaign ever to come out of the adverse childhood experiences movement launches May 13 with Numb
er Story.
The campaign was created and is organized by Anonymous, an organization that helps "funders achieve more impact and experience greater fulfillment through their philanthropy", according to its website. Its funder is, well, anonymous.
We do know that it is an individual who's obviously very interested in ACEs science, and who talked with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris a few years ago when she was CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness. Fast-forward to today: Burke Harris is California's first Surgeon General, and leads the ACEs Aware Initiative, whose goal is to educate and screen adults and children for adverse childhood experiences to reduce ACEs in California by half in one generation. She also leads the advisory board for ACE Resource Network, a website of which Number Story is a part.
The purpose of the campaign is to educate the general public about the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). This includes the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and subsequent ACE studies, the neurobiology of toxic stress, developmental effects of toxic stress, the short- and long-term health consequences of toxic stress, epigenetics, and resilience research and pr
actices. It even has a section on ACEs and COVID-19.
The main sections are: Discover Your Story, Healing & Prevention, The Science of ACEs, and information for healthcare providers.
The content for Number Story relies heavily on the 438-page Roadmap for Resilience: The California Surgeon General's Report on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Toxic Stress, and Health published in December 2020.
The site is in Spanish and English.
Note: Some people in this PACEs Connection community may wonder why the name of this campaign doesn't refer to PACEs science. Earlier this year, we changed our name from ACEs Connection to PACEs Connection to acknowledge and officially integrate the emerging science of positive childhood experiences with the science of adverse childhood experiences. The Number Story campaign focuses on the science of adverse childhood experiences. We've been told that this campaign will last at least a year, and that updates will be made.
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