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 I heard this vignette, I realized the full potential of the documentary  Paper Tigers  to change how people think about childhood adversity and mobilize them to demand trauma-informed practices and policies—in schools, in...

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...

The Washington Post just published the following opinion piece by prison reform activist, Taylar Neuvelle, who was also interviewed recently by Scott MacFarland of NBC News Washington, DC about the condition of the DC jail . Neuvelle also participated...

“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...

The first year of Trauma-Informed DC (TIDC) has been action filledthere have been several large public events ( screenings of Paper Tigers and Wounded Places, a School to Prison Pipeline forum and more) as well as small gatherings that have helped gauge where community interests lie and that have built a network, now comprising nearly 600 people. The founder of TIDC, Leah Harris, felt the time seemed right to pause and take stock of what had been accomplished and plan for the future. Harris...

Statement for the Record for the Public Roundtable  “The Value of Investing in Trauma-Informed Public Schools and Support Services” The Council of the District of Columbia Committee on Education June 23, 2015   Elizabeth Prewitt,...

****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...

Approximately 30 people from around the Washington, DC metro area gathered on April 23 at the Benning Neighborhood Library for the second community meeting of the Trauma Informed Washington DC Metro Area Initiative. The participants included trauma...

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,...

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...

ACEs Connection presents, "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL)", an interactive webinar training series focused on developing existing and potential online community managers and IRL ACEs champions. This series is dedicated to providing insight into creating sustainable and effective online & IRL ACEs initiatives. In this fifth session, we’ll talk about why it's so critical to tell your story far and wide. This incudes how to blog and share...

Hi Brenda, thanks for your feedback. I admit I am not so good with this interface, but here it is attached as a Word announcement. When I saved it as a PDF the registration link kept failing for me. Technical difficulties! Originally Posted by Brenda Yuen: Is it possible, as a future goal, to ask that these events be available in .pdf form so ACESConnection members can forward them on to others who may not be ACESConnection members yet, but potentially interested in the meeting (and then...

Attached is the flyer for this event. Please share with others who might be interested in attending. Elizabeth

When members of Maryland’s State Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (SCCAN) began in 2006 to examine what their state was doing in the realm of prevention, they discovered a gaping hole. Many participants in the 23-member Council—people working in child welfare, mental health, law enforcement and advocacy groups—knew about ACEs and about the corrosive effects of early childhood maltreatment. But they discovered, through informational interviews across different sectors and an environmental...

After a shooting at a historic Baltimore high school in February 2019—a 25-year-old man, angry about the school’s treatment of his sister, who was a student there, shot a special education assistant with a Smith and Wesson handgun—conversation in the city centered on whether school resource officers should be armed. Students said that was the wrong question. When City Council’s education and youth committee, chaired by council member Zeke Cohen, held hearings on school violence following the...

I am a member of Done for DiDi: White Labor Collective - an international direct giving collective instructed by Black women and non-men organizers and executed by a network of white labor. We are redistributing white wealth - money, land, time, skills, and resources - to Black women and non-men. I’m sharing with your group the opportunity to participate and amplify an incredible campaign called 40 Acres and a School. The project is led by DiDi Delgado and Black Marginalized Genders (MaGes).

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...