The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...

RADICAL GRACE – WHAT I LET GOD SEE AND ACCEPT IN ME ALSO BECOMES WHAT I CAN SEE AND ACCEPT IN MYSELF. AND EVEN MORE, IT BECOMES THAT WHEREBY I SEE EVERYTHING ELSE. ~ RICHARD ROHR For the past three months, I’ve been driving through various parts of Florida witnessing events and gatherings of communities committed to creating safe, loving, trauma informed, and trauma healing spaces. On Friday February 22nd, I was in Tarpon Springs, attending the monthly gathering of Robin Saeger’s...

Photo by James Encinas Raising yellow “Visions & Commitments” cards, 550 attendees at yesterday’s Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing Conference pledged their enthusiastic support to create a more resilient Central Florida. The standing-room-only crowd heard Dr. Vincent Felitti deliver a morning keynote address detailing the findings of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) . He also shared moving testimonials of people who are...

Dr. Vincent Felitti, author of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE ) study, inspired the Young Parents Team by at the recent Global Health Summit on Violence and Abuse at Florida State University. Our team serves court-involved pregnant teens with histories of trauma, and often trafficking, to help cope and heal. We are grateful for Dr. Felitti’s research that guides our work to change the life trajectory for so many with ACEs. Thanks to FSU School of Social Work Dean James Clark and...

Thank you Governor DeSantis (and Zack Gibson in the Governor’s Office) for declaring today as Florida’s Trauma Informed Care Day . Many of Florida’s most costly, intractable social problems including our opioid and substance dependency crisis, our sky-rocketing public health costs, tragic school failures, and the multigenerational cycle of families into our criminal justice and child welfare systems, can be decreased by addressing early trauma. Initiatives are taking shape at both the state...

When Tiffany Harris and her two children emerged from their hotel after Hurricane Michael roared past, her 3-year-old son pointed to a sea of fallen trees and shattered buildings. "It's broken. It's broken, Mommy, fix it," she recalls her little boy Amari begging. Harris, who lives with her boyfriend, two children, plus her sister and her four children near Panama City, soon learned their town house was uninhabitable. Everything was a total loss after Michael powered inland across the...

Members of Florida's health, mental health, child-serving agencies, faith-based communities, law enforcement groups and others are invited to attend a free webinar tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. EST on trauma response and how to better help communities find resilience following natural disasters. You can register for the webinar now by clicking on this link . Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, will lead the webinar. It will be recorded and...

Dr. Mimi Graham is Florida’s Johnny Appleseed, but instead of planting apple trees, she’s been seeding hundreds of ACEs-science-informed schools, courts, juvenile detention centers, hospitals, childcare centers, home visiting programs, mental health agencies, law enforcement agencies, and drug treatment centers. Graham, who has served as director of the Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy in Tallahassee since 1993, focuses on early childhood,...

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...

Valencia College’s Peace and Justice Institute, the Early Learning Coalition of Orange County, the Orange County Health Department, along with partners and sponsors, invite you to a community conference, Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing on April 3rd, 2019. The event, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Vincent Felitti, co-author of the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, will be held at the Florida Hotel & Conference Center in Orlando. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. To learn...

Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...

The University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions partnered with Peace4Tarpon under the Robert Wood Johnson Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) grant. Together they created 2 online graduate courses that focus on addressing ACEs and creating trauma-informed and resilience-based programs from a public health approach. Peace4Gainesville and Peace4 TheBigBend have also contributed to these courses. This post is intended to showcase some of the work of the...

The World Health Organization has compiled a recent meta-analysis about how much ACEs cost us Millions of adults across Europe and north America live with a legacy of ACEs. Their findings suggest that a 10% reduction in ACE prevalence could equate to annual savings of $105 billion. Programs to prevent ACEs and moderate their effects are available. Rebalancing expenditure towards ensuring safe and nurturing childhoods would be economically beneficial and relieve pressures on health-care...

When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...

Are you interested in learning about new research that integrates the latest brain and social science? Then please join CTIPP’s next Community Action Network (CAN) call on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, from 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PT: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/ 742183645 Meeting ID: 742 183 645 +19292056099,,742183645# US (New York) Q&A session after presentations REGISTER / ADD TO CALENDAR The conversation will explore the integrated science of positive and adverse...

Former PACEs Connection employees Dana Brown (L) with Vincent Felitti, MD, co-author of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study, and Carey Sipp (R) in San Diego in January, 2024. The last few months have been quite challenging, but we pushed, persevered, and didn’t give up hope. The “we” is Carey Sipp and Dana Brown. We were long-time staff members of PACEs Connection determined to reinstate the website and the resources and information we provide to communities after the platform went...