By Patrice Gaines, NBC News, October 11, 2019 Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has an ambitious dream: screen every student for childhood trauma before entering school. "A school nurse would also get a note from a physician that says: 'Here is the care plan for this child's toxic stress. And this is how it shows up,'" said Burke Harris, who was appointed California's first surgeon general in January. "It could be it shows up in tummy aches. Or it's impulse control and behavior, and we offer a care...

Will screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in California be mandatory? No, but it’s recommended. Will there be training for physicians and staff on how to screen? Yes. Who will be reimbursed for screening patients in California? Physicians who serve patients in the state’s Medi-Cal program — for now. For more answers to these and other questions that surfaced during a Dec. 4 webinar introducing Californians to a new statewide initiative, read on. Come January 1, California will...

When children and their parents first visit  Northeast Treatment Centers (NET) Children’s Behavior Health Services  in Philadelphia, they fill out a 10-question survey about their adverse childhood experiences so that therapists can...

When students show up for an appointment at the Elsie Allen Health Center , which is located on the Elsie Allen High School campus in Santa Rosa, CA, one of the first things they do is take an ACE survey. Instead of answering the...

Since August 2016, more than 300 three-year-olds who visited Kaiser Permanente’s pediatric clinics in Hayward and San Leandro have been screened for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as living with a family member who is an alcoholic or losing a parent to separation or divorce. But when the idea to screen toddlers and their families for ACEs was first broached at the Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center, the staff were, in a word, “angsty,” says Dr. Paul Espinas, who led the...

Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...

When the Youth Health Empowerment Project, a Philadelphia program for youth aged 13 to 24, did ACE surveys of those who visited their drop-in center over three weeks, it found that 81 percent had a score of 4 or more. That’s a significant result, because, based on the  CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study , an ACE score of 4 greatly increases the risk of health and social problems, including heart disease, alcoholism, cancer, autoimmune diseases,...

In October 2015 in Pueblo, CO, the staff members of a primary care medical clinic – Southern Colorado Family Medicine at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center – start asking parents of newborn babies to kids five years old about the parents’ adverse childhood experiences and the resilience factors in their lives. They ask the same questions of pregnant women and their partners in the hospital’s high-risk obstetrics clinic. The results are so positive after the first year that the clinic starts...

By Ariane Marie-Mitchell, American Academy of Pediatrics, October 2019 In the August newsletter, we provided an overview of the definition and impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (http://aapca2.org/aces). In this article, we will explore the argument in favor of screening for ACEs in pediatric practice, and describe the process and results of a California state advisory group on screening for trauma. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended screening for toxic stress...

Shasta Community Health Center The trust that many families feel for their child's doctor makes the primary care setting an essential place to screen for ACEs and begin the conversation with caregivers about potential risks to their child's health and well-being. Their experience has shown that when risk is identified and assessed early on, there is a better chance of offering interventions that prevent long-term health and behavioral problems. Screening for ACEs is also an opportunity to...

The  Child Parent Project , a five-year, $3 million federally funded project in Philadelphia, is the first research study in the U.S. partnering with public health agencies and family courts to gauge the impact of child-parent psychotherapy (CPP)...

Hi guys, I'm a big fan of visual storytelling, as a story told well can touch both the hearts and minds of those learning about it, and telling stories visually, e.g. through movies or interactive graphics, can engage people in ways that writing cannot (and especially children and young adults, which are important demographics). I made a crude prototype of a scribe-based visual storytelling about the ACE Toolkit (that will go though a number of iterations before it's anywhere complete, but...

This is an older article but it is appropriate for us as we seek system changes (in all systems affected by Adverse Childhood Experiences) including the Health Care System:  The article is from last year's Pediatric News and is by Dr. Howard who...

Do you or your organization screen for adverse childhood experiences? If so, how? Here are a few questions.

I am glad that this topic is being explored. As a person with a very high ACE score who has had the opportunity to mitigate most of the impacts over many years, I want to assure we screen for a purpose. I do not wish to be screened every year at a well-woman visit just for the purposes of a doctor checking that a screening has been completed. The screen has to be followed up with "have you had opportunities to address these ACEs as an adult and how do you feel these experiences are currently...

Hi Sylvia, This is a great post. I love that there are schools (and health centers) helping students learn about ACEs and also gaining meaningful data for their organization. We screen our students too - high school program. We call our screening tool, ACEs Plus. It asks the 10 ACEs questions, and then another 15 questions that we have identified as risk factors for our students. The whole survey takes about 10 minutes to complete, but we use it to provide additional support services in our...

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

PACEs Connection is excited to roll out our summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum dates. Members who complete the CRC will qualify for a fall 2023 fellowship program.

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...