Q: What personal or professional moment or event in your life inspired you to work on ACEs?
A: I am the daughter of a psychologist and a social worker, so at times I have joked that I was genetically predisposed to be a professional helper. Whether this is the reason I have always worked with vulnerable people or it is some combination of growing up with ACEs in my own family, being part of a spiritual community that stresses our collective responsibility to repair the world, or growing up in an urban Chicago neighborhood surrounded by deeply impoverished communities afflicted by high rates of interpersonal and community violence I cannot say. I do know, however, that when I first learned about the ACE Study, what I had always known anecdotally as a social worker began to make so much more sense.
Q: When did you learn about ACEs, and how did that change your work?
A: I first learned about the ACE Study in 2006 when I was preparing for an interview for my current role as director of the Multiplying Connections Initiative in Philadelphia. Ironically, this followed 10 years of working for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, where I directed the region's Early Start Program. The program was designed to intervene early with pregnant women who were using alcohol and other drugs. We had been collecting data on childhood abuse and knew that the vast majority of pregnant women who struggled with substance abuse and chemical dependency had experienced abuse as children. Often the involvement with alcohol and other drugs was a way to cope with that early abuse. As so many others have said, reading the original ACE Study was both an "Aha" moment, as well as such validation of a lifetime of work with people who suffered from many mental health and physical health ailments. Learning about ACEs then lead me to learn about the whole field of trauma-informed practice, the concept of toxic stress and the life course perspective. Applying this trauma-informed lens to my work -- in particular, understanding and practicing reframing the key question from "What is wrong with you?" to "What has happened to you?" -- has been personally and professionally transformational.
Q: What does resilience to early childhood adversity mean to you?
A: I struggle with the term resilience, and prefer to think about this concept in terms of "protective factors" and the human capacity for healing. Resilience to me connotes "bouncing back" -- this works for some of us, but for others the journey to healing and recovery is much slower. There is a growing body of evidence that strongly suggests many protective factors that children are either fortunate to be born with or that adults have the capacity to cultivate, nurture and provide for children help to prevent and mitigate the impact of early childhood adversity.
Q: How would you like to see trauma-informed practices shape your field?
A: I would like to see the field of social work more fully integrate an understanding of the prevalence and pervasive impact that trauma, exposure to violence, and adversity have on essential work of the field. As a social worker, I live by the mantra "start where the client is" -- I apply this concept to my work with individuals, communities, and organizations. Connecting this concept with the fundamental understanding about how trauma affects the client (be it an individual, community or organization) needs to become an imperative of the profession, starting with embedding it in social-work training programs.
Q: If you encounter or deal with trauma often in your work, what coping skills do you rely on to stay happy and healthy?
A: I have support from wonderful colleagues who are trauma-informed and understand secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma. I work for an organization that invests in reflective supervision and consultation that provides workers with a place to safely discuss how our work affects us. I also cope by spending time with family and friends who make me laugh, encourage me to exercise regularly and eat well. I attend professional conferences and read ACEs Connection, where I am constantly re-inspired by learning about the amazing work that others are doing. I try to regularly visit places that reconnect me to the wonder, beauty, awe and possibility in the world.
Q: How do you hope to contribute to and gain from ACEs Connection?
I already gain tremendously by regularly visiting the ACEs Connection web site. I have gained connections to people who help me advance the work I am doing, I have been inspired by what I learn others are doing and I have been challenged to form my own opinions and take stances on issues that others have raised. I hope to contribute by being a source of information and support for others. I am particularly interested in raising awareness about secondary traumatic stress and the need for regular reflective supervision. I hope that ACEs Connection can help promote this as an organizational imperative for those who are doing trauma-informed work.
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