By Sandy Bauers, The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 23, 2019 In 1946, Life magazine published an exposé on mental hospitals, focusing on the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry. The title: “Bedlam 1946.” That dreadful facility, like so many others, eventually closed. A good thing? Not completely, according to Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, who maintains that people simply went from one horrific situation to another, from the grossly inadequate institutions to the dangerous streets. In neither...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

By Joan Cook, The Hill, October 10, 2019 Today is World Mental Health Day. And, California, a state with 10 percent of the U.S. population, just announced that it’s introducing the first toll-free statewide mental health line for non-emergency emotional support and referrals. What a wonderful way to kick off this occasion. This Peer-Run Warm Line is a reason to celebrate. As a psychologist, I’ve witnessed first-hand the emotional pains people carry, and how hard it is for them to come in for...

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...