ACEs Connection presents, "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL)" , an interactive webinar training series focused on developing existing and potential online community managers and IRL ACEs champions. If you are not a current online community manager, please know that ALL are welcome. This series is dedicated to providing insight into creating sustainable and effective online & IRL ACEs intiatives. "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities:...

ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...

Cissy's note: Donna Jackson Nakazawa has graciously allowed me to cross-post some of her current and future Facebook page posts here in the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care and Healing community on ACEs Connection . Hello Friends. As a SciComm journalist with 30 years of reporting and 6 books under my belt, which focus on how our stress response governs our immune health, I’ve been thinking about what I have learned, and how I might help you quiet your body and mind during this # pandemic...

CRACKED UP THE EVOLVING CONVERSATION TRAUMA AS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ADDICTION With DARRELL HAMMOND DIRECTOR MICHELLE ESRICK and RENOWNED TRAUMA AND ADDICTION EXPERT GABOR MATÉ, M.D. author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction MODERATED BY JANE STEVENS, FOUNDER OF ACES CONNECTION Hosted by ACES Connection Thursday May 21st at 2pm PDT / 3p MT / 4p CT / 5pm EDT FREE FOR ALL WHO REGISTER! IF YOU REGISTER, BUT CAN NOT ATTEND, YOU WILL RECEIVE A RECORDING WITHIN ONE WEEK.

Jane Stevens will be the special guest this Sunday evening on the "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" radio program. The LIVE radio program begins at 8:00 pm CST, Oct. 27, 2019, and the entire hour will be dedicated to Jane and her work with ACEs Connection. The "Breaking the Silence" radio show has over 1.6 million weekly listeners to the LIVE program and then the show goes to over 110 podcast networks around the world the following week. The host of the program is Dr. Gregory...

Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...

By Latanya West, San Diego Voice, May 15, 2020 In January 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as California’s first-ever Surgeon General. An award-winning physician, researcher and advocate, Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. Her work is equally dedicated to changing the way our society responds to one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of...

How to use the skills of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for self and others to be the calm in the storm as we face the unknown. Free Webinar Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT Speakers: Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW Linda Grabbe, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC Zoom Webinar Registration Link: https://zoom.us/j/715837300 Additional ways to join are listed at the bottom of this post. About the webinar leaders: Elaine Miller-Karas is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and...

first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...

The first time I ever heard the words trauma-informed care and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study was in the summer of 2014. At the time, I was working for the local Police Department as the Director of a grant-funded Crime Reduction Project aimed at reducing drug-related and violent crime. Of the many program goals, one was to develop a rehabilitative corrections program for felony offenders with addictions in order to reduce recidivism. Though I’ve lived in this region for...

Interested in learning what it takes to Grow a Resilient Community? Do you want to learn how to become a member of ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities? If so, please join us Tuesday, July 7th, 12-1pm PDT for our next 'A Better Normal' community discussion series. In this discussion we will be talking with Brian Semsem of Fresno's Every Neighborhood Partnership. We will be talking to Brian about what led him to work with ACEs and resilience. In addition, we will be discussing the path...

“In order to cope,” writes Mary Trump, “Donald began to develop powerful but primitive defenses, marked by an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absence and father’s neglect….In place of [his emotional needs] grew a kind of grievance and behaviors—including bullying, disrespect, and aggressiveness—that served their purpose in the moment but became more problematic over time. With appropriate care and attention, they might have been overcome.”

Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection , on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi's Youth Courts. “Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of...

By, Felicia Nelson, Christina Velez, and Mark Egan 7/19/21 A pioneer in the field of internal medicine, Dr. Vincent J. Felitti has over 50 years of experience with extensive knowledge in the areas of childhood trauma, the genetic disease Hemochromatosis, and obesity. Here at The Relationship Foundation, Dr. Vincent Felitti is our mentor and an inspiration to us all. He has spent a greater part of his life, serving as a co-principal for the ACEs Study. ACE stands for “Adverse Childhood...

How can brain science help a Pop Warner football team of 10-year-olds win the big game, and avoid depression when they're adults? Join us for the August edition of the Up2Us Sports Lunch and Learn Series and find out. The monthly lunch and learn session, usually exclusively for UP2US member coaches, is now open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Register today ! The session is Wednesday, August 11 at noon CST, and features the Rev. Dr. Clifford Barnett, Carey Sipp of PACEs...

On September 16, 2021, PACEs Connection hosted our second event in our Historical Trauma in America series . This event was led by Ingrid Cockhren, the director of the PACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities; and Porter Jennings-McGarity, our community facilitator of the Midwest Region. It featured guest speaker Agnes Woodward who is Plains Cree from Kawacatoose First Nation, Saskatchewan, Canada. To download the slide deck from this presentation, click here. Then click "download file".

This handout is based on the work of Donna Jackson Nakazawa , who worked with us and generously allowed us to paraphrase content from her book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology & How You Can Heal . Donna's book specifically addresses those of us parenting with ACEs (which she also does brilliantly in the powerful documentary, Wrestling Ghosts , which is about parenting and healing from ACEs). This handout can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. It is...

The Community Resiliency Model (CRM) is a set of trauma-informed skills that can help people monitor their bodily sensations and ground themselves towards their Resilient Zone. CRM is supporting individuals towards resilience in Georgia and across the nation. To read more about the basis of CRM and how it's being used today, check out our newest blog post here .

Please register now at this link to reserve your spot. You’re invited to participate in Building the Movement with Coalitions, the first of eight remarkable workshops featured in the series, “ Building a National Movement to Prevent Trauma and Foster Resilience ”. The first half-day workshop will occur virtually on January 7th from 1-5pm ET/10am-2pm PT. It focuses on the history and future of the movement and building community-owned, trauma-informed, prevention-focused, and healing-centered...

Since late 2021 and into 2022, the Georgia Essentials for Childhood Initiative has been encouraging parents, caregivers, professionals, all those who work with or around young people, and all those who may have experienced their own trauma to read the book "What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing" , coauthored by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD. The inaugural Georgia Reads initiative was launched in November 2021 with a webinar hosted by the Georgia...

Please join us on June 28 from 1:30-3:00 p.m. ET for a virtual conversation with best-selling author Bruce Perry. Ingrid Cockhren , CEO of PACEs Connection; Mathew Portell , PACEs Connections’ director of communities, and Perry, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, will engage in a conversation concerning historical trauma and Perry’s best-selling book " What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, " which he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey. Please share this blog...

PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.

(This is a review of what I believe is an important new resource for the PACEs [for positive and adverse childhood experiences] science movement. Opinions expressed are my own, and are shared as a parent, advocate, author, and longtime student of trauma, healing, and prevention. Thoughts are also shared through my lens as someone who believes, deeply, in the incredible importance of and value in building healthier, more compassionate communities to support and nurture pregnant and new...

Successful health equity strategies must be inclusive, and focus on all marginalized and minoritized persons and their communities. Any lesser view will continue to yield a faulty health equity equation.