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By Elizabeth Lawrence, The Washington Post, November 8, 2020 Betial Asmerom, a fourth-year medical student at the University of California at San Diego, didn’t have the slightest interest in becoming a doctor when she was growing up. As an adolescent, she helped her parents — immigrants from Eritrea who spoke little English — navigate the health-care system in Oakland, Calif. She saw physicians who were disrespectful to her family and uncaring about treatment for her mother’s cirrhosis,...

First-year medical student Sean Sweat "didn't want to tiptoe around" issues of race when she sat down with 11 of her classmates to write a new version of the medical profession's venerable Hippocratic oath. "We start our medical journey amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and a national civil rights movement reinvigorated by the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery," begins the alternate version of the oath, rewritten for the class of 2024 at the University of Pittsburgh...

Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise Proudfoot RN, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be...

Register for A Better Normal- Our reckoning with race and equity at ACEs Connection

Systematic racism is at the core of mental health disparities and social determinants of mental health (SDoMH).Upstream factors obstruct patient access to needed and appropriate assessment, timely intervention, with treatment for these populations often reflecting poorer quality, and ending prior to completion of treatment. COVID-19 and the recent pandemic have only amplified meso and micro-level gaps in care. considered, provided, and reimbursed.

In a conversational style, join physician Drew Factor who will speak with Dr. Tracy Gaudet, Liza Guroff and An é Watts in a discussion entitled "Reimagining Health Care". Dr. Gaudet will speak about her experience engaging in transformational change at the Veterans Administration and how this has shaped the development of her own Functional Medicine Institute , while Ms. Guroff and Ms. Watts will speak about their knowledge of a Trauma-Informed Approach both at a systems (National Council...

The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not. What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.

Beginning in early 2019, leaders representing family-serving state agencies, community organizations, and stakeholder groups came together to address Georgia’s high rate of child abuse and neglect. It was determined that in order to truly impact this pervasive problem in our state, we would need a unified, collective impact approach and they decided that the state’s Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Plan, originally developed in 1993, should be updated. Over the course of the next year,...

By Anna Printess, August 31, 2020, Florida State University News. Florida State University’s College of Social Work recently launched a new level in its successful Professional Certification in Trauma and Resilience online series. The curriculum series, developed by the Clearinghouse on Trauma and Resilience within the college’s Institute for Family Violence Studies in conjunction with the FSU Center for Academic and Professional Development , enables professionals to develop the knowledge...

The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...

The National Indian Health Board, in collaboration with CDC, has launched a new resource hub! Many Tribal individuals, families, and communities have been impacted by childhood experiences causing physical and mental health adversities throughout the lifespan. However, with understanding and effort, individuals and communities can confront Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) for positive health outcomes. This information hub, launched by the National Indian Health Board includes a "resource...

Thank you to those who attended our first Annual Georgia Essentials for Childhood meeting! Attached below are the meeting notes and presentation slides from the meeting on Monday, August 17. You will also find attached below the initiative’s one-pager (also available at https://abuse.publichealth.gsu.edu/files/2020/07/Essentials-One-Pager7.23.2020-citation.pdf ) if you would like to learn more about the initiative. We have also attached below the just-announced ACE Fact Sheet from Georgia...