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,...

The Center for Youth Wellness' National Pediatric Practice Community on ACES (NPPC) is a co-designed community committed to collaborative learning. To promote this learning, we have been working with six pilot sites over the last year, representing practices of various sizes and service delivery settings, to implement ACEs screening and intervention. Beyond supporting these practices with the logistics of implementation, the broader goal was to discover and share real-world best practices,...

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...

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...

He says: Addiction shouldn’t be called “addiction”. It should be called “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking”. He says: Ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking (what traditionalists call addiction) is a normal response to the adversity experienced in childhood, just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed. He says: The solution to changing the illegal or unhealthy ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking behavior of opioid addiction is to address a person’s adverse childhood...

I was amazed to learn a bit of how Vermont is responding to this matter, in response to the 2013 Legislature's House Bill 762. I did find the instruction manual that the World Health Organization (WHO) uses with their ACE International Questionaire (and the translation function, as well), to be quite comprehensive. The WHO ACE Questionaire and 'instruction manual/comments' can be found on the WHO website.  

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)...

A father in county jail is ordered to take a parenting class, but isn’t too enthusiastic about it. As part of the class, he learns about the ACE Study, and does his own ACE score. “Oh my god!” he announces to the class. “I have 7 ACEs.” His mother’s an alcoholic. His dad’s been in and out of jail. He himself started dealing drugs at age 11, and doing drugs at 14. “I’ve got two kids at home experiencing the same things I did,” he says. The light bulb goes on. A few days after a woman who’s...

Case 1: Eighteen Month Old Head Banging, Violent Temper Tantrums •Maternal ACE Score – 8 –Domestic Violence –Emotional, Physical, Sexual Abuse –Emotional, Physical Neglect –Alcoholic Parent, Parental Mental Illness •Child ACE Score – 6 –Parental Loss –Domestic Violence –Alcohol Use in Home, Parental Mental Illness –Emotional, Physical Neglect Before behavioral evaluations, I ask about parental ACEs by using an edited 14 page modified developmental screener from Indiana University to which I...

Very interesting I am really excited to learn about this!!!!

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...

The Transform Trauma with ACEs Sciences FREE Film Festival continues this weekend. Please join us to watch parts 1, 2, and 3 of the PBS Whole People series at your convenience, on ACEs Connection, by clicking play on the videos below: Whole People | 101 | Childhood Trauma | Episode 1 (27 min) Preview: Whole People | 102 | Healing Communities | Preview | Episode 2 Whole People | 102 |Healing Communities Episode 2 (27 min) Whole People | 103 |A New Response | Episode 3 (27 min) This is one of...

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.