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SAN JOSE — After a childhood growing up a victim of human trafficking on the streets of San Jose, Diana Carreras was held prisoner by the grip of post-traumatic stress and depression. It was sheer luck that she found Recovery Café San Jose ; a friend asked for a ride to the downtown healing community and training center, a place Carreras hadn’t heard about. But once there, the 59-year-old found the support that helped her overcome the emotional trauma that had consumed her for so long. “When...

Title Photo: (L) Donielle Prince, post author and ACN Bay Area Community Facilitator; (R) Nicole Powell, Branch Librarian at North Branch, Berkeley Public Library at the first gathering for an ACN trauma informed community collaborative in Berkeley. Meeting notes and future plans are described in this post.

How do you build a narrative around ACEs science, bolster it with data and convince your leadership that integrating it is critical for the community you serve? Representatives from San Francisco Bay Area health and social service agencies had an opportunity on December 5 to learn about ACEs science, find data sets to help them make a case for supporting ACEs education and resiliency programs, and then role play ways to deliver powerful messages. Donielle Prince, ACEs Connection Network’s...

A 90-MINUTE PLAN FOR SHOWING "RESILIENCE" "Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope" KPJR Films (2016) is a 60-minute documentary film. Depending on your audience and your circumstances, you might consider the following 90-minute plan for showing the film. PART I (1) Screen first 20 minutes of "Resilience." (2) Ask participants to reflect, "What are your thoughts about the film so far?" Instruct participants to reflect silently and write some notes. (10 minutes) PART II (1)...

Genentech is excited to launch a new philanthropic initiative, The Resilience Effect , to address childhood adversity and its long-term effects on health. For more than 40 years, our company has pursued groundbreaking science to improve the lives of people facing serious and life-threatening diseases. That’s why, when we learned about the emerging science behind the effects of toxic stress and the connection between early adverse childhood experiences and diseases later in life, we knew we...

Released in August 2017, an article by Prevention Institute's Board member, Howard Pinderhughes acknowledges that the understanding of ACEs and affect on individual health risks has grown, but highlights the need to expand our focus to understand the influence of Adverse Community Experiences have on health, safety and equity outcomes. He writes: The pervasive presence of community trauma can become a significant barrier to efforts to improve population health and health equity, including...

Several ACEs Connection members should be feeling proud about now. Karen Clemmer, Carla Denner, Jessica Hackwell, Nick Dalton, and several others joined the 4CA Campaign to educate legislators about ACEs and trauma . Our partners with First 5, Maternal Child Adolescent Health, and the County Board of Supervisors also wrote letters to state policy makers urging consideration of a bill requiring trauma screenings for all children who receive MediCal support. And....drum roll please... As of...

A product of the Essentials for Childhood Initiative (EfC), the Child Adversity and Well-Being Dashboards contain indicators of child adversity, health and well-being utilizing data available on kidsdata.org . For more information about the dashboards, please refer to the California Data Dashboards page. The Santa Clara County Data Dashboard contains select indicators of child adversity and well-being. The dashboard is a product of the Shared Data and Outcomes Workgroup of the California...

On October 16, I joined in Santa Barbara's Second Annual Bridges to Resilience Conference . Surrounded by "our people" or 300+ folks like us who care deeply about ending childhood adversity, I basked in the waves of passion passing back and forth between presenters, participants, and organizers. With the fires raging in our community at the same time, it was hard for me to consider leaving my post at one of the shelters to participate in this event. However, I convinced myself attending this...

To see the conference agenda, list of all-star speakers, and to register go to: http://www.theresourceinnovationgroup.org/california-2018-conference/

Princeton, N.J. —In a recent article from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), "new national data show that at least 38 percent of children in every state have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience or ACE, such as the death or incarceration of a parent, witnessing or being a victim of violence, or living with someone who has been suicidal or had a drug or alcohol problem. In 16 states, at least 25 percent of children have had two or more ACEs. Findings come from data in the...

Thanks to Alejandra Labrado from First 5 Sacramento for providing the links to these resources! Sesame Street's Traumatic Experiences: https://sesamestreetincommunities.org/topics/traumatic-experiences/ When a child endures a traumatic experience, the whole family feels the impact. But adults hold the power to help lessen its effects. Several factors can change the course of kids’ lives: feeling seen and heard by a caring adult, being patiently taught coping strategies and...