Centracare Health and Twin Cities Public Television introduce a documentary series on childhood trauma and how these experiences impact health

CentraCare Health has partnered with Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) to raise awareness of childhood trauma and its effect on health. Research has shown that life experiences – especially during childhood when brains and bodies are developing rapidly – play a major role in overall health later in life. The health and social effects of these events, known as ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), are featured in a series of five documentaries – much of which was filmed in St. Cloud and the surrounding area. The series will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Sunday nights Jan. 13 – Feb. 10 on TPT. The series is also available on www.centracare.com/aces or can be streamed online at www.tpt.org/wholechild. The documentary series will have a study guide that can be found on the CentraCare web page in the near future.

The documentaries were filmed over a three-year period and highlight different partnerships and experts in Central Minnesota and beyond. The documentary series, called “Whole People,” will focus on five areas:

• Documentary #1: Defining Childhood Trauma: Understanding what childhood trauma is from multiple perspectives.
• Documentary #2: Healing Communities: Trauma interrupts normal child development and exacts deep costs, to both the individual and the community. Witness one Minnesota neighborhood working to change its destiny.
• Documentary #3: A New Response: Traumatic experiences injure children and can put them on a path toward troubled adulthoods. Explore how one Minnesota county is working to change that.
• Documentary #4: Family Solutions: Traumatic experiences can deeply damage children. But we now understand this issue better than ever, and there are community-based solutions to help families heal and prevent trauma.
• Documentary #5: Healing Journeys: Many Somali-Minnesotans have survived traumatic experiences most of us couldn’t imagine. And yet, they are resilient survivors, creating a new vision of health for their community.

The goal of the documentaries is to start new conversations about how we can join together to transform our communities and work toward the prevention of adverse childhood experiences.