More than a decade ago, I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases, one after another, including Guillain-Barré syndrome , which left me paralyzed twice while raising two young children. All told I spent six years in and out of bed and hospitals, learning, between crises, to use a cane or walker to navigate life as a working-mother-with-chronic-illness. My immune system was repeatedly and mistakenly attacking my body, causing the nerves in my arms, legs, and those I needed to swallow...

(retrieved from https://www.expressnews.com/news/education/article/UT-San-Antonio-researchers-pilot-ways-to-help-15015016.php#photo-18954339 ) Before 12-year-old Rihanna Briseño started taking classes at Good Samaritan Community Services, she was quick to dislike people and get angry. The Rhodes Middle School sixth-grader didn’t know why, but sometimes her brain told her the right thing was to beat another kid up. “I would say those things that I’m not going to say now,” Rihanna told the...

SAN FRANCISCO , Jan. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ The Center for Youth Wellness announces the release of an in-depth study on the health-related cost of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the state of California . A number of studies have investigated the cost of child maltreatment, but the current study, entitled " Adult health burden and costs in California during 2013 associated with prior adverse childhood experiences ," is the first to examine the cost associated with adult health...

Photo credit: Texasarchitects.org An updated map of laws and resolutions addressing ACEs science and trauma-informed policies is now available in the “Laws and Resolutions” section of Map the Movement (you can also find "Map the Movement" on the navigation bar on the ACEs Connection home page). The earliest law on the map was passed in the state of Washington in 2011, creating an ACEs science public-private partnership. The data base of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is...

We are proud to celebrate the 71 community initiatives that joined the ACEs Connection network in 2019. They are listed below, and can be found along with all existing ACEs Connection communities via the ACEs Connection map. Communities in the United States: Midwest ACEs Indiana Coalition Ardmore (OK) Behavioral Health Collaborative: Chisago County (MN) ACEs Initiative Franciscan Health ACEs Connection FH–Jasper & Newton Counties (IN ) FH–LaPorte County (IN) FH–Lake County (IN)...

By Renee Ryberg, Nadia Orfali Hall, Claire Kelley, Jessica Warren, and Kristen Harper, Child Trends, January 2020 In 2015, an average 15-year-old could expect to live to age 79. However, teens living in the 1 percent of neighborhoods with the lowest life expectancies could expect to live to 70—a lifespan nine years shorter. Educational attainment, a key social determinant of health, is one of the most powerful predictors of life expectancy. This association has strengthened over the past 20...

Photo caption and credit: Preston Gorman, now living in Austin, was disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder for years after surviving Ebola in 2015. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/for The Washington Post) December 27, 2019 When they wheeled Preston Gorman into a light spring breeze outside the National Institutes of Health nearly five years ago, he was, medically speaking, among the most fortunate people on the planet. Gorman’s doctors had just defeated advanced Ebola virus disease , one of the...

By Lucas Manfield, Dallas Observer, December 10, 2019 Last year, Dallas' police and fire departments teamed up with Parkland Hospital to rethink how they responded to 911 calls involving mental health crises. They placed a social worker inside the dispatch center to triage calls and sent out a special team staffed with a mental health professional whenever possible. They targeted South Central Dallas, the area with the highest concentration of mental health-related calls. The hope was that...

By Anastasiya Bolton, KENS5, December 9, 2019 By now, we all know what happens after a mass shooting: The breaking news alerts, social media updates, body counts, thoughts and prayers and the public moves on. The victims, survivors, families, people who witnessed the carnage don’t get to. At least not right away. All need some form of immediate help: Counseling, money, someone to talk to who’s already “been there.” A person to provide insight as to what’s to come emotionally, financially and...

By Katelyn Newman, U.S. News & World Report, November 18, 2019 RECOGNIZING TRAUMA AND grief in children and providing evidence-based interventions to help them cope with what they're experiencing in a healthy manner are key to reducing violence and improving their overall health and well-being later on in their lives, said Julie Kaplow, director of the Trauma and Grief Center and chief of psychology at Texas Children's Hospital. "We know that if we don’t address trauma, these kids can go...

Nicole Wetsman The Red River runs north, up along the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, before spilling into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Its water flows slowly through a 10,000-year-old glacial lakebed, in one of the flattest stretches of land in the United States, and because it points north, it’s sometimes blocked by ice jams—all of which makes the river prone to flooding . In March 2009, one such flood threatened the city of Fargo. Residents watched for a week as the...

We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...