Today, I will be co-hosting a summit in Northport called “From ACEs to Resiliency: Promising Practices for Thriving Communities.”
ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, can exert an astounding influence on adult physical and mental health and even cause early death. The good news, though, is that humans are remarkably resilient with a little positive attention in their lives.
The small philanthropy for which I work finds the ACEs and resiliency topic promising enough that we have spent the last seven years raising awareness of it. If we could prevent some ACEs before they affect the health and well-being of our population, we could decrease a wide range of coping behaviors such as smoking, drinking and drug use, and the results of those coping mechanisms — chronic health conditions such as heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity, a variety of mental health issues and even fetal death, something seemingly unrelated to what happens in childhood.
This list is just a fraction of some of the physical and mental health problems that have been found to be related to adverse childhood experiences. Fortunately, we know how to spark resilience, which can provide an antidote to trauma. Experiencing trauma early in our lives doesn’t have to define us.
[For more of this story, written by Karen Heck, go to http://www.centralmaine.com/20...recover-from-trauma/]
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