The 2018 Building Strong Brains Tennessee ACEs Summit took place last week in Nashville, TN. The theme of this year’s summit was “Celebrating Successes and Imagining Possibilities” and there is plenty to celebrate. Tennessee is one of the most innovative states when it comes to ACEs awareness. Tennessee understands that childhood trauma is the root cause of its poor health outcomes, high rates of addiction and other ailments. And Tennessee is doing something about it. Tennessee’s leadership...

No, we don’t need the president nor congress. We do need the following people in your county to stop business as usual and focus on preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). City mayors City counselors County commissioners School board members These local elected leaders—many of them your neighbors and colleagues—have the capacity to collectively understand the emotional and financial costs of ACEs and trauma. We can’t have family-friendly cities and counties while we live in an...

One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...

A huge thank you to The Boys and Girls Club of Reno County for allowing us to present the Brain Architecture Game to them. We had 27 staff members attend and participate in discussion!

Building individual and community resilience is a cornerstone to most community coalition efforts - whether you are working to prevent substance use and abuse, addressing social and health disparities, or creating healthy environments for people to live, work, play, and pray. In this month's installment of their monthly Kansas Prevention TalKS podcast, our friends and partners at the Kansas Prevention Collaborative kindly invited me to talk more about what "resilience" means and what it...

Friday, April 12, 2019 marked an exciting, auspicious, and perhaps pivotal day in the history of Monroe County, Indiana. That’s a lot of adjectives—and pressure—to pile onto just another glorious spring day in Bloomington. But I think many folks who virtually congregate on a site that supports communities implementing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices grounded in ACEs science would agree that a county’s first-ever ACEs conference deserves a little ballyhoo. But this ACEs...

This was just posted by Harvard. I thought all of us could use access to it, for use in our schools and the settings we work in. The full image is on the attached PDF.

We were very blessed to receive the following: Resilience Reno County, $5,840 x 3 years – Resilience Reno County 3.0 : First year of a three-year grant for an AmeriCorps Volunteers In Service to America (VISTA) position to strengthen this collaborative effort to equip community members and organizations with resources on healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Ultimately, Resilience Reno County aims to create a trauma-informed community that is more empathetic and able to connect...

Patients would carry soda into Dr. Gerard Clancy’s office, with cigarettes tucked away for after therapy. Often victims of abuse or violent crime, they would seek soothing but risky behaviors to cope. Overweight. Chronic pain. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Type II diabetes. His former patients will die younger than they should, he said. Clancy conducted therapy sessions until he became president of the University of Tulsa in 2016. At his psychiatry clinic, he saw firsthand how a...

Life expectancy is highly correlated with ACE scores and complex childhood trauma. Enter your address or zip code to know what the health outcomes are in your neighborhoods and communities. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Life Expectancy Calculator

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the annual National Council for Behavioral Health Conference. I have been to my fair share of conferences but #NatCon19 was one of the best. First, I'm biased. It took place in my city, Nashville, TN . And the venue was the world renowned Opryland Hotel's Gaylord Convention Center . And, I love, love, love the Opryland Hotel ! As any seasoned conference goer, I had a strategy when it came to which sessions and events I wanted to attend. My game...

I'm excited to announce the newest ACEs Connection geographic community for my region, the Midwest & TN: Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative . This community is a partnership of local organizations taking a trauma-informed stance on behavioral health in Carter County, OK. Their goal is to build a healthy, connected and resilient community. The community manager is Ashley Godwin . Ashley Godwin joined Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative in March 2017 as the Director where she...

In October, I attended the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Conference in San Francisco. It was really inspiring. Below please find share some of the books, videos, and resources that I learned about. All the best, Natalie BOOKS 1) The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, MD https://centerforyouthwellness.org/the-deepest-well/ 2) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, MD...

The first session of the Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & IRL (In Real Life) was a success. Over 100 ACEs Connection members tuned in despite some issues with registration. I have embedded the video in this post. You have also find the video on the ACEs Connection site here . If you have any questions about the series, please contact Ingrid Cockhren , TN & Midwest Community Facilitator.

Childhood trauma comes in many forms. Whether it’s the shock of a friend’s sudden death or violence in school, we’ve heard far too many stories about students having to recover from traumatic events. But trauma can also rear its head in more subtle ways. It’s easy to write off a misbehaving student as “troubled.” But often, this behavior is a direct result of continued trauma at home. Abuse, neglect, struggles with poverty are all part of a particular type of trauma called Adverse Childhood...

Today I had the opportunity to meet with some parents and staff from the Transitional Learning Center. I presented the ACES Science, the ACES questionnaire and then we had some group discussion about resiliency and needs in the community. Issues discussed in our community that need attention were: *Childcare *School discipline *Transportation *Mental Health *Housing We ended the session with discussing mindfulness and the importance of healthy support systems.

After having 37 individuals at its first two meetings, there was a huge turnout for the first of three meetings targeting a study of the book Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Fifty-three community members, representing more than 20 agencies spent their lunch hours going deeper. Conversations about the impacts of childhood trauma were wide spread, but as one shared "in chapter three we are already talking about solutions." These meetings have lead to new connections being built...

What if I told you that I was a victim of child sex abuse? As a survivor of child sexual abuse , I have a clear understanding of the importance of addressing stigma and shame as it pertains to sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Victims, especially young children, often do not disclose sexual abuse. Those who are witnesses of child sexual abuse, or who are trusted by survivors enough that they confide in them, are often ill-equipped to handle the responsibility. And, many times, parents...

This is great! What was the parents' reaction to learning about ACEs science, Felicia? How many attended? And what were some of their suggestions to improve services, based on what they learned? Keep up the great work!

We had three families and four staff members attend. Their initial reaction was shock. They could not believe the potential health outcomes that may affect their children. It is one thing to talk about somewhere across the country, but we were talking about them and their children. One mother was ready to join our movement. The others focused on really wanting mindfulness to play a part in healing, not medication

thanks Rick! Great to you connected with Donna Jackson Nakazawa about questions - I bet that made for an even richer discussions! This is a nice model for that other communities may want to replicate.

There was incredible energy in the room and people are plugged in. I am so excited to watch this unfold.

HI Rick- I wonder if you can share any tips or the outline of how you structured the book study? Thank you!

Hi, Gail. We selected 4 questions from chapter 1-3 with assistance from the author. The "extra" question was for attendees to share anything gleaned from the reading which they deemed was relevant to their particular organizations. We allowed about 45 minutes for discussion and gave time updates every 10-15 minutes to keep groups on task. Each table group captured their most important ideas on chart paper. At the end a representative of each table shared their "big idea". I took snapshots of...