A terrific networking opportunity took place on June 3 in downtown Washington, DC when my daughter, ACEs Connection member Liz Castaneda, Peer Projects Coordinator for Via Hope in Austin, TX (left), along with her son Mateas, and I (center) met for...

When U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stepped down last week after seven years on the job, he didn't talk about test scores or teacher quality. Rather, fighting back tears, he used the opportunity to talk about what he called the "greatest frustration" of his tenure — Washington not passing gun control legislation. "If I can leave you one number: 16,000. That in my first six years as Secretary of Education that's the number of young people who are killed across our...

Social worker Darryl Webster has a conversation with Nickolas Armstrong during a town hall at Houston Elementary School in Washington, DC, in June 2016. Houston Elementary has worked to become a trauma-informed school. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post) In the District, 47 percent of children and teens have experienced a traumatic event, 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 who has a drug or...

Notes from April TiCong Meeting April 28, 2016 2:30-4:00PM ET (next meeting May 26, 2016 2:00 – 4:30 PM EDT Please register : https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6551284277068720388 ) Discussion of the PowerPoint Presentation on “Building Resilient Communities through Trauma-Informed Communities – We discussed this draft presentation: meant to be shared after participants have been introduced to ACES 101 and the Physiology/Neurophysiology of Toxic Stress and Trauma. This is the first...

Please join DC CARE and our partners Ribbon Consulting Group, PWN-USA, Us Helping Us, People into Living, Trauma  Informed DC Initiative and The Women's Collective for a special lunch event to discuss and explore ways to end the culture of...

Father Jeff Putthoff, SJ, Founder, Hopeworks N’Camden (center), was ecstatic about the reach of his presentation the day before—well beyond the Department of Labor (DOL) auditorium in Washington, DC and out across the country to more than...

An exciting initiative—Building Community Resilience collaborative established by Nemours (part of Moving Health Care Upstream )— is underway in five communities across the country to help child health systems connect with community-based resources to address social determinants (e.g., housing and access to public transportation) in places where children live, learn and play. This post by ACEs Connection member Wendy Ellis includes a short video (less than 3 minutes) about the initiative and...

Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), Wendy Ellis, Olga Acosta Price (obscured), Monica Battle, Kathryn Larin, and Whitney Gilliard ______________________________________________________ The first comprehensive trauma briefing in the U.S. House of Representatives was held on July 26 to an audience of Hill staff, interns, and advocates. The briefing included substantive content from a variety of perspectives—academia, government, education—and unexpected moments of moving personal testimony. Rep. Danny...

“Calo Programs partners with three non-profits, on a five-city, childhood trauma awareness bus tour, ending on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Calo Programs , innovators in healing the effects of early life trauma in young people, is partnering with three of the nation's leading authorities on attachment, trauma and adoption: the American Adoption Congress (AAC), the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) and the Association for Training on Trauma and Attachment in Children (ATTACh). Together...

Leaders in ACEs/trauma/resilience movement from nine states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and the District of Columbia gathered for a networking call on May 1 to learn about flexible funding opportunities for states under the CARES Act, ways to get involved in advocacy, and share their successes and challenges in building statewide coalitions. The meeting of leaders was organized by ACEs Connection and the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) in response to COVID-19...

****Hanna Teklu speaks at August, 2015 School to Prison Pipeline event**** This NPR story describes how Together We Bake has helped women who have been imprisoned gain invaluable work experience and regain lost independence. I met one of those women, Hanna Teklu, when she told her story at a forum on dismantling the school to prison pipeline last August at the University of the District of Columbia David E. Clark School of Law, sponsored by the DC Trauma-Informed Initiative and ACEs...

Michael Lamb, Executive Director, Washington D.C., Turnaround for Children sent the following message about a new paper, Building Blocks for Learning, just released by Turnaround and three new positions it is seeking to fill. Take a look: "Hi friends and colleagues, it’s an exciting time for Turnaround in Washington, D.C. as we work towards our vision that one day all children in the US attend schools that prepare them for the lives they choose. In addition to our exciting work in schools,...

Join us in Hagerstown, MD, for the next training in our series focused on trauma informed strategies for the community! Unconditional Care features three dynamic speakers focused on how addressing issues of self- care and self-awareness lead to the outcomes we all are striving for children, families and neighborhoods. Group rates are available for organizations registering ten or more attendees, contact Kerry Fair at 240-513-6370 or kfair@besterhope.org to arrange. Our last several trainings...

The video of the [S&R Foundation] Illuminate Series conversation, The Adversity Epidemic: Science, Schools, and Social Equity is available on the Illuminate website, and can be viewed here: http://www.illuminateseries.or...-and-social-equity-0 . Introduction: Human beings are the only mammals on the planet whose thinking, feeling and learning brain develops extensively after birth. Young brains are wired for growth, but their anatomical structure is...

A diverse group of school staff, mental health professionals, justice advocates, and city employees recently crowded the Moot Court Room at the University of the District of Columbia David E. Clark Law School to begin dismantling the school to prison...

Two-and-a-half years ago, a school administrator confronted District of Columbia Councilmember David Grosso with a stark and surprising reality when he visited the Walker-Jones Education Campus to learn about a literacy intervention program. At the...

The student comes in for a pregnancy test - the second time she's asked for one in matter of weeks. She's 15. She lives with her boyfriend. He wants kids - he won't use protection. She loves him, she says. But she doesn't want to get pregnant. She knows how much harder it would be for her to finish high school. At many schools, she would have gotten little more than some advice from a school nurse. But here at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C., she gets a dose of midwife Lorel...

Elizabeth, Thank you so much for this rich update! I am meeting with three members of my children's public school in Montgomery County to talk about Trauma-Informed Practices in mid-November. I'd like to invite them to contact and/or join this group. We have SOME PBIS-program schools, but most schools (and teachers) are uneducated about childhood adversity and all the trauma they bring inside the classroom. These three Board members seem very emotionally intelligent. I know it will be a slow...

Becky Antle, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and esteemed University Scholar at the University of Louisville, won The Dibble Institute’s national competition to evaluate Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience in 2019. As a result, Dr. Antle and her colleagues have conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of Mind Matters on a host of outcomes related to trauma symptoms, emotional regulation, coping and resiliency, and interpersonal skills for at-risk...

A webinar offered by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) Thursday, September 30, 1:30 - 3:00 pm EDT Register today . Addressing the mental health needs of child care providers and children in care is vital in the face of the pandemic, a population-level traumatic event. CTIPP is offering a "plug and play" framework to ease the process of developing a continuum of training, reflective coaching, and consultation to build the capacity for supporting relational health...

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