Minnesota Communities Caring for Children (MCCC) is the only nonprofit in Minnesota to focus on the prevention of child abuse and neglect before it starts. One way we do this is by educating communities about how our early experiences shape lifelong health and well-being. A lot of our work is influenced by the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, which showed that certain experiences in childhood can cause toxic stress and result in physical changes in brain development. Using a...

Linsey McMurrin, an SEL and Prevention Specialist with Peacemaker Resources, is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She is program manager of Girls Lead on the Go!, a leadership program for young women, and is an organizer of the Bemidji Area Truth and Reconciliation Initiative, a grassroots effort to promote truth-seeking, healing and change through increasing understanding and building relationships among area indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Linsey is certified...

ACE Interface Presenter Ruth Charles, MSW, PhD, LCSW Professor, Social Work Dept Winona State University What led you to want to become a certified ACE Interface presenter? I teach at Winona State in the social work department and coordinate the IV-E Child Welfare Scholar program which integrates social work students into the public foster care system. I am always looking for new information to bring to my classes. When I learned about the ACE research, it made perfect sense! The evidence...

Great to see this in Minnesota! So much good stuff going on there. Congrats, Barb!

Join us NEXT WEEK for our free, virtual Annual Growing Resilient Communities Gathering! This event develops and implements community-wide approaches to Building Self-Healing Communities. Participants are encouraged to attend who are involved, or want to be involved in, addressing the root causes of childhood adversity: this can include Collaborative, tribal, and other community partners, such as health, law enforcement, education, social services, parents, businesses, and nonprofit service...