Join the Illinois ACE’s Response Collaborative and Andrea Ortez of Partnership for Resilience to discuss how organizers, educators, and clinicians can utilize community partnerships to provide trauma-informed support to both teachers and students. Partnership for Resilience, originally known as the “Southland Education and Health Initiative,” works to increase the capacity of teachers, administrators, and health care professionals by establishing meaningful and impactful partnerships between...

Perhaps it wasn’t the optimum time to update the network’s vision and values statements: a virtual meeting held in the midst of a global pandemic. But a record number of people—51, compared to the typical 30—tuned in for the May 1 Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health (OCMH) Collective Impact Council, and they gave the new values statement, which highlights inclusivity and collaboration, an enthusiastic thumbs-up. At the virtual table were members from key state departments—Children...

FROM BRIEF: We all benefit when a child receives a strong start in life. Policymakers now recognize that investments in a child’s first years will pay dividends for society throughout the rest of the child’s life. Waiting until a child reaches preschool age at 3 or 4 may well be too late to provide the support parents and caregivers need to give children a fair start in life, especially children starting with economic disadvantage and facing racial bias. BRIEF LOCATED HERE: ...

Dear Illinois ACE Connection members, Children and families from all demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds in Illinois experience trauma, adversity, and chronic stress. Social determinants such as where we live, work, and play, can further exacerbate positive or negative physical, emotional, and behavioral health issues. The critical factor that determines if a child, family, and/or community can manage trauma, adversity, and chronic stress successfully is resilience : the process by...

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,...

The developmental neuroscience seems to indicate that we should be focussing on the Prenatal to Two Years stage of development. I am so pleased to see Illinois starting earlier than most.

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...