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

The Daily Journal staff report | May 15, 2019 Illinois is one step closer to becoming a trauma-informed state. Senate Resolution 99 and House Resolution 248, sponsored by state Sen. Julie Morrison and Rep. Karina Villa, designates May 15 as Illinois’ Inaugural Trauma-Informed Awareness Day to highlight the impact of trauma and the importance of prevention and resilience through trauma-informed care. Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a proclamation recognizing May as Mental Health Awareness Month and...

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 a mid-April conference call led by the Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), participants from around the country—many of them active in ACEs, trauma and resilience networks—discussed the wave of trauma that is certain to slam communities in the wake of COVID-19. They also cheered a bit of hopeful news: the announcement of $3 billion in federal funding, the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, a portion of the CARES Act. The funds are flexible block grants for...

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.

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...

It was more than a piece of parchment bearing the governor’s signature. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s resolution declaring May 15, 2019 as the state’s first Trauma-Informed Awareness Day marked a high-level recognition that, where state policy is concerned, trauma matters.

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...

On April 10 and 11, 2019, the Lake County ACEs and Resilience Coalition partnered with Northwest Indiana Community Action and the Northwest Indiana Reinvestment Alliance to host the reimagine conference. The first of its kind in Northwest Indiana, the reimagine conference provided an opportunity for groundbreakers and community leaders to explore the truth about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), to forge new partnerships, to create actionable recommendations, and to build a resilient...

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...

The Collaborative is excited to feature the new article, " Adverse childhood experiences and the onset of chronic disease in young adulthood ," from Preventative Medicine . The piece, co-authored by member Stan Sonu, highlights the link between ACEs and chronic disease in young people. Sonu, along with co-authors Sharon Post and Joe Feinglass, analyzed the responses of the more than 86,000 respondents to the 2011-2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to observe patterns of...

Join the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative and Andrea Bushala from the Theraplay Institute for a free webinar as she discusses the role of everyday play in preventing and responding to trauma. Andrea will highlight how the Theraplay Institute has utilized coaching parents, educators, and clinicians in the simple games of childhood to forge connections and resilience building in the children they support. Theraplay is a child and family therapy for building and enhancing attachment,...

Join the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative on Wednesday, December 18th at 10:30 EST/9:30 CST for this free learning opportunity highlighting the role of academic and community partnerships to address the effects of ACEs and trauma in a rural setting. The town of Boone, North Carolina and its home county Watauga, located in the rural Appalachian High Country region of the state, has served as a catalyst for change in addressing adverse childhood experiences and the health risks associated...

Join the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative for this free webinar highlighting provider burnout and the role of team wellness in trauma-informed transformation! In 2019, almost half of physicians reported experiencing burnout, and data suggest that other healthcare professionals experience similarly high levels. The costs of burnout to provider wellbeing, patient care, and the healthcare system are much too great to ignore and there are emerging promising practices to review and consider...

The March meeting of the New Jersey Education Association’s ACEs Task Force opened without an agenda. It was a virtual gathering with more than 50 people—educators, social workers, professionals in pediatrics, juvenile justice and child abuse prevention. The pandemic had landed emphatically close to home, with a governor’s order to close all schools on March 18, and participants were grappling with what that meant for their students, their families and themselves. So ACEs Task Force co-chair...

Five years of convening Newark’s ACE Impact Team has taught Keri Logosso-Misurell a crucial lesson: Fight the urge to reinvent the wheel.

Mary Mueller likes to call herself an “opportunistic infection.” What that means is that Mueller, project coordinator for trauma-informed systems in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), is determined to share the science of ACEs and resilience wherever she goes. After Mueller attended the state’s first ACE master trainer two day session hosted by the Michigan ACE Initiative , she wanted to bring the foundational science shared by ACE Interface back home—to her MDHHS...

The third annual gathering of Minnesota ACEs collaboratives—“Growing Resilient Communities: Collaboratives Addressing ACEs”—began with a sober recitation of inequities: We acknowledge that the wealth of this country was built on stolen land and with enslaved and underpaid labor of African American, Native, and Immigrant people…We acknowledge that the recent global uprising, which was sparked by the murder of George Floyd right here in Minnesota, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, makes for a...

In 2015, the pieces that became ACE Nashville began to fall into place. A five-year Community Health Improvement Plan included the support of mental and emotional health as one of its three goals. A core team of individuals from the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD), Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee and the Family Center, a non-profit focused on breaking generational cycles of child trauma, began to meet weekly. And a citywide “consensus workshop” in April of that year—drawing 44...