Elaine Miller Karas , key creator of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM), will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC, Allison Wine , behavioral specialist, and Kelly Purcell , instructional coach and multi-tiered support specialist for this free, two-part training. Register now for two, FREE 90-minute sessions May 7 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST and May 14 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST (The complete overview requires attendance at both sessions. Registration link below registers you...

I will always remember the day that, as a student teacher, I watched as a student entered my second-grade room covered in blood. After quickly establishing that he was not injured, we learned that the blood was that of his brother who had been shot the night before. No parents were around that night, so this second grader became the sole caregiver of his bleeding brother. My student would never be the same. We didn’t care about grades or test scores. We just knew that this moment would...

Thank you and an invitation to other communities affected by Dorian. Thank you Mebane, for this inspiring, helpful post and for allowing me to share it with other communities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. As the Southeast Region community facilitator for ACEs Connection, I am praying for all in the path of this powerful hurricane, and all those who've already experienced its devastating impact. I have seen communities come together, as New Hanover County has, to...

By Maria Godoy and Daniel Wood, National Public Radio, May 30, 2020 In April, New Orleans health officials realized their drive-through testing strategy for the coronavirus wasn't working. The reason? Census tract data revealed hot spots for the virus were located in predominantly low-income African-American neighborhoods where many residents lacked cars. In response, officials have changed their strategy, sending mobile testing vans to some of those areas, says Thomas LaVeist , dean of...

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...

ACEs initiative participants in communities where there is tension between the community and law enforcement will want to join Becky Haas in a compelling conversation on law enforcement, ACEs science, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Haas is a nationally recognized adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) science initiative builder and trainer. She and colleagues Renee Wilson-Simmons, the head of the ACE Awareness Foundation of Memphis, Tennessee, and Maggi Duncan,...

The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...

The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice ( CTIPP ) is inviting individuals and organizations to express their support for a set of executive actions for the Biden-Harris Administration to take “to address trauma and build resilience throughout the country.” Most of these actions could be taken early in the Administration and would not require congressional action with the exception of some recommendations that could be included in a new stimulus package. The recommendations are...

Southeastern ACEs Connection and national CTIPP leaders on the quarterly leader call welcomed guest speaker Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz (top left) for their quarterly call. Also among those present were (top row l-r) Carey Sipp, Jesse Kohler, Jesse Hardin, (second row, l-r) Patti Tiberi, Mebane Boyd, Jen Drake-Croft, Dan Press, (third row, l-r) Mimi Graham, Christopher Freeze, Margaret Stagmeier, (fourth row, l-r) Emily Marsh, Liz Peterson, Alyssa Koziarski and Janet Pozmantier. Also present was...

UNCW has partnered with local school and community groups on a pilot program that uses art integration to help students develop resiliency skills. WCE professor Janna Robertson wrote the curriculum for “JUST US” in collaboration with WCE students Schala Harper and Kia Thompson as well as artist, Dare Coulter. The interdisciplinary curriculum incorporates North Carolina middle school standards for social emotional learning, language arts, social studies and visual arts. The program was...

We have so many wonderfu https://www.acesconnection.com/fileSendAction/fcType/0/fcOid/508261416693856202/filePointer/508261416693856263/fodoid/507698389112989542/Coping%20With%20Stress%20During%20the%20COVID-19%20Pandemic%20One-Pager_Accesible_English.pdf l resources shared by members. However, a few of you have asked me for help in retrieving them. Here's several of the most commonly shared ACEs handouts, info graphics and one pagers, with links to download. PLEASE share yours! I'm working...

(l-r) Judge Andrew Heath, Chief Justice Paul Newby, District Attorney Ben David Plans to integrate practices and policies based on the science of adverse childhood experiences in North Carolina’s 6,500-person,100-county statewide judiciary were announced today by Chief Justice Paul Newby. The announcement featured a presentation by Ben David, district attorney for North Carolina’s 13th District, that focused on building community health, the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs),...

In 2019 and 2020, dozens of states enacted nearly 60 laws and resolutions that reference adverse childhood experiences or trauma. In this post, there's an interactive map that shows them all.

Members of the four Cape Fear Area resiliency initiatives celebrate their joining the PACES Connection Cooperative of Communities and thank United Way - Cape Fear Area leadership for "leaning in" on the work being done to prevent and heal childhood trauma, and build on positive childhood experiences to create individual, family and community resilience. The United Way-Cape Fear Area (UW-CFA) board of directors has voted to fund four North Carolina resiliency initiatives to join the PACEs...

The science in clear. Resiliency is built – and communities play a key role in promoting safe, secure and nurturing environments where all residents can thrive. Like many states, there has been a lot of momentum in North Carolina to develop initiatives addressing trauma and resilience. But how can agencies, service providers, and other organizations leverage that momentum and align this work across systems to holistically address the needs of community members across their lifespans? The...

Join us next Wednesday for two excellent CTIPP CAN presentations to begin our 2022 lineup. Baltimore Councilman Zeke Cohen will discuss the work, started by the late Congressman Elijah Cummings, that is making the city of Baltimore trauma-informed. Claudia Remington will describe new trauma informed initiatives by the State of Maryland, including legislation that created a Commission to develop a comprehensive strategy to make the State trauma informed. We will also report on the first...

Resilient & Thriving Communities Week June 6-12, 2022 Boone, NC: June 8, 2022: A voluntary statewide coalition of people from local community collaboratives, interested staff from North Carolina non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies has organized and are facilitating the first ever “Resilient & Thriving Communities Week” in North Carolina, June 6-12, 2022! This special week is the result of discussions that began two years ago. A volunteer leader of a local North...

(l-r) Judge J. Corpening; Ben David, district attorney, New Hanover County; Chief Justice Paul Newby; Judge Andrew Heath, executive director, Administrative Office of the Courts of the Chief Justice's ACEs Informed Courts Task Force. David and Heath serve as Task Force co-chairs . “There is not any more important work going on in the State of North Carolina,” said Ben David, District Attorney for New Hanover County and co-chair of the Chief Justice’s ACEs-Informed Task Force . The Task force...

Information from Summit Brochure and registration site available here . North Carolina’s first Statewide Trauma Summit – a virtual and in-person summit – will beheld Thursday and Friday, April 27-28, in Raleigh, at The McKimmon Conference and Training Center, Summit leaders announced recently. “Momentum is growing in NC for building trauma-informed systems that strengthen resilience and weed out systemic and often intergenerational sources of child trauma. To advance this work, it is...

More than 550 researchers, advocates, educators, community stakeholders, clinical and practitioner groups, persons with lived experience, legislators, and representatives from state agencies, among others, attended a statewide summit in Raleigh, North Carolina—“Leveraging North Carolina’s Assets to Prevent Child Trauma,” April 27-28. Diana Fishbein, Ph.D., senior scientist in the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, and the...

Ben David, co-chair of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Task Force on ACEs-Informed Courts, shares plans to sustain the work done during the two-year term of the Task Force, to "care for our own" speaking of North Carolina's children, youth, families, communities, victims of crimes, members of law enforcement, the judiciary and court officers and staffers. He also shared Chief Justice Paul Newby's hopes of "getting ACEs-informed courts" into the culture, and said a national conference for...