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...

Friday, April 12, 2019 marked an exciting, auspicious, and perhaps pivotal day in the history of Monroe County, Indiana. That’s a lot of adjectives—and pressure—to pile onto just another glorious spring day in Bloomington. But I think many folks who virtually congregate on a site that supports communities implementing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices grounded in ACEs science would agree that a county’s first-ever ACEs conference deserves a little ballyhoo. But this ACEs...

Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...

Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...

Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...

ACEs Connection has updated our 3 Realms of ACEs Graphic to represent recent and pressing events. The 3 Realms of ACEs are Community, Household, and Environment. ACEs in these realms intertwine throughout people’s lives, and affect the viability of families, communities, organizations, and systems. Environment has been updated to include "Pandemic", as the entire world continues to survive through the COVID-19 crisis. The Community Realm has been updated to include "Discrimination" and "Food...

The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not. What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.

A webinar offered by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) Thursday, September 30, 1:30 - 3:00 pm EDT Register today . Addressing the mental health needs of child care providers and children in care is vital in the face of the pandemic, a population-level traumatic event. CTIPP is offering a "plug and play" framework to ease the process of developing a continuum of training, reflective coaching, and consultation to build the capacity for supporting relational health...

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...