ACEsConnection.com’s secret sauce is in its groups — such as the ACEs in Education group, which has just over 200 members at this point. (ACEsConnection is 7,600 strong now!) Our goal is to make this group the go-to place for information about trauma-informed schools, or how to become a trauma-informed school or school system.
So far, you can find resource lists of guides & toolkits, research, reports, whole school training, online tutorials, webinars, activities & tools, and a list of articles about trauma-informed schools…to name a few items. Two ACEsConnection members will be facilitating the group, part-time: Susan Jones, a behavioral specialist in the San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento, CA, will be covering California. Leisa Irwin, former CEO of Paladin Career & Technical High School in Blaine, MN, will be covering the rest of the U.S. and the world.
Starting mid-March, they’ll be posting summaries of and links to news, reports and research; they’ll blog about latest developments; they'll host chats featuring guests who are implementing trauma-informed practices in their schools and school systems.
Just as on ACEsConnection, members of the ACEs in Education group can post blogs, discussions, videos, etc. And if you see something that you think should be included in the resource lists, add the information in a comment, and we’ll make sure it’s added to the list.
Most of you rely on ACEsConnection for the news, reports and research about ACEs research or how organizations could or are implementing practices based on ACEs research. And that comes to you through the daily digest and/or the weekly roundup, which Samantha Sangenito puts together and sends to you.
Although ACEsConnection is a social network, it’s a bit different from other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. It’s less about discussion and more about action….i.e., supporting communities as they figure out how to implement -- and then implement -- trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs research.
The best places on ACEsConnection where you can find that action is in the groups. They’re like mini-versions of ACEsConnection — they have all the same bells and whistles — only they focus just on one topic — such as education or pediatrics — or one geographic area, such as Yolo County, CA, or Washington, DC, or Philadelphia, PA.
The state, county, city and neighborhood groups support the ACEs or trauma-informed initiatives in those areas by providing a place where people from across sectors can post events on their own calendars; they can post videos and blogs, and keep an archive of documents, such as meeting minutes or reports. They can also use the tools in the Roadmap to Resilience to guide them as they develop their strategy to help all organizations in their communities transform to becoming trauma-informed.
Many other groups are in the development process: We’ll be launching an ACEs in Family Practice group later this week, and other city and state groups in the next few weeks.
If you haven’t done so, check out the list of groups on ACEsConnection, and see if there’s one or more that interests you. We’re still in the process of upgrading and restructuring many of them….ACEs in Education and Parenting with ACEs are examples of interest-based groups that have gone through the upgrade (and we’ll let you know more about the exciting developments on Parenting with ACEs next week); Yolo County ACEs Connection and Sonoma County ACEs Connection are examples of geographic-based groups that have been restructured.
And if there’s a group you’d like to start, please let one of us ACEsConnection community facilitators know.
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