In March 2017, more than thirty Belmont-Cragin stakeholders, including community residents, parents, local politicians, faith leaders, and representatives from community development, education, physical and mental health care, social services, after-school programming, philanthropy, universities, and the police, met to explore how adopting a Childhood Adversity/Resilience/Healing framework could enhance existing community work and collaboration in the Belmont-Cragin. Since March, the group has met four times to learn more about ACEs, develop a vision for what a thriving Belmont-Cragin would look like and to create accompanying action steps. The following are highlights of what the group has accomplished in 2017:

• Ongoing collaborative learning about childhood adversity, neuroscience, equity and healing at each meeting through presentations, TED talks and discussions
• Growing collaboration with the group’s university partner, National Louis University
• Group attendance at two community capacity building workshops, one presented by Laura Porter and one including a key note address by Renee Boynton-Jarrett
• A facilitated community visioning workshop for what a thriving Belmont-Cragin would look like
• A funder’s breakfast including a presentation to the foundation community about ACEs and resilience
• Formal presentations followed by ongoing facilitated conversations about ACEs, resilience, self-care and healing and the connection to work and workers, at the Northwest Side Housing Center (NWSHC) and at Steinmetz, a neighborhood CPS high school
• ACE Interface Train the Trainer training provided to a both a parent and youth liaison with the goal of their presenting widely throughout the community and, when ready, training others to present. The Belmont-Cragin participants were the youngest, and only Latinos, in this Illinois cohort.
• Exploring ways to connect the ACE Resilience/Healing framework with the existing Belmont Cragin 2015-2018 Quality of Life plan
• Informal conversations facilitated by group members among their peers to spread the word about ACE science
• Submission of an abstract to a Community Psychology journal regarding this community work
• Polling members to choose a formal name for this group
• Inaugurating an ACEs connection page

The goals for 2018 will build on the work begun in 2017, fueled by the enthusiasm and hard work of participants. Some of these goals include: involving even more members in leading the work, presenting a CPS network-wide ACE Interface training for teachers and administrators, hosting one to two community-wide awareness raising events, gathering resources in Spanish and Polish, supporting the ACE Interface presenters in their trainer certification process, submitting an academic paper, posting minutes and events on ACE Connection for broader dissemination, and raising funds to support the implementation.  2018 looks to be an exciting year!