February 2021

“Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience” builds on Carolyn Curtis’s lifetime experience. It is as if she had been predestined to teach people to overcome the adverse experiences in their lives. Like many of us, Curtis grew up in an alcoholic home. This gives her a deep understanding of the damage that comes from early childhood trauma – and a passion for helping others overcome it. Her experience eventually led her to become a marriage and family counselor. After 30...

[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she posts the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Walker CS, Walker BH, Brown DC, Buttross S, Sarver DE. Defining the role of exposure to ACEs in ADHD: Examination in a national sample of US children. Child Abuse Negl.

t is all too common to be closed off when discussing the worst experiences we have faced in life. Feeling scared, embarrassed, emotional, or that no one else can understand are all-natural reactions when approaching the difficult discussion of trauma.

Everyone on this site wants the world to be better. Yet, we are complicit to the very reasons it is the way it is. The core to everything we know is wrong, that is within our ability to address, is our lack of connection and logic. Child abuse, violence, racism, poverty, and so on, all of them exist because of our lack of connection and logic. And until we address those issues in us, we remain complicit to what is within our abilities to so easily with the hard work do. Most don’t know how...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A496QC-BMBc

Author, speaker and neuroscience educator Sarah Peyton is a friend to ACEs Connection. When I asked her recently to speak to the importance acknowledging the grief and trauma most of us are feeling during COVID-19, as we see the number of deaths increase and as people we know fall victim to the disease, she welcomed the opportunity. I wanted to ask Sarah to do this because recently, as I was listening to her “Your Resonant Self, Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s...

From National Sexual Violence Resource Center, February 3, 2021 When Black Women’s Blueprint purchased their Sistas Van in 2019, their original plan was to use it as a mobile healing unit that would help survivors of sexual violence access support, healing, and reproductive care. But when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Black Women’s Blueprint saw that there was an increased need for essential supplies like food, clothes, and hygiene products, so the Sistas Van shifted their services to meet...

By Sara Tiano and Susan Abram, The Imprint, February 11, 2021 Among the most iconic images of the early pandemic were those of cars lined up for miles outside of food banks. Millions of Americans for the first time felt the threat of food insecurity when they suddenly lost income and the school meals helping them feed their kids. Enrollment in California’s food stamp program, known as CalFresh, hit a record high in the spring of 2020, and the state is even boosting everyone’s benefits by...

By Jane Guttman, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, February 15, 2021 “ Always Running” is a book that I recommend to everyone. It is one of the best books written by Luis J. Rodriguez and for many years was on the banned book lists throughout the country. When I arrived at the juvenile court school library, it was off the banned list and one of the most sought-after reads. I brought it to book club on many occasions. It was originally banned and taken out of public and school libraries...

By SXSW EDU, PR Newswire, February 9, 2021 SXSW EDU is pleased to announce that Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry , the co-authors of the upcoming book What Happened to You (Flatiron Books out April 27 ), will open the 2021 virtual event as the keynote session on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 at 9:30am CT . The fireside chat will feature global media icon and philanthropist, Ms. Oprah Winfrey and world-renowned brain development and trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry , M.D. Ph.D. Together they will...

In an increasingly stressful, productivity-driven world, one might ask themselves, “Why would mental health professionals add more to their plates? Why would they agree to do a Trauma Intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (TiCCA) for clients, rather than a regular Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (CCA)? Are we just reinventing the wheel?” Benchmarks’ Clinical Coaches, Jacqueline Millican-Crabb, LCSW, LCAS, CCS of Nazareth Child & Family Connection, and Celena Ditz, MS, LMFT of...

( East Tennessee State University, Clemmer College Department of Counseling and Human Services) In 2015 when first beginning to raise awareness to the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study in Northeast Tennessee, I partnered with a longtime friend and East Tennessee State University Psychology professor, Dr. Andi Clements to help pioneer this work. Three years later, we had trained over 4,000 professionals from a wide variety of sectors. Among these trained were a few other ETSU faculty...