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In 2015, the pieces that became ACE Nashville began to fall into place. A five-year Community Health Improvement Plan included the support of mental and emotional health as one of its three goals. A core team of individuals from the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD), Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee and the Family Center, a non-profit focused on breaking generational cycles of child trauma, began to meet weekly. And a citywide “consensus workshop” in April of that year—drawing 44...

Summit Explorations During this event we’ll explore some of the most potent questions of our time: How can we reimagine and embrace new forms of activism? How do we take effective action in the world to respond to social justice issues? How do we become the change we wish to see, and what does it look like from an embodied perspective? How can we stay grounded and centered and increase our capacity for sustainable change? Our current understanding of how trauma impacts the body has...

Since 2018, The Nicholson Foundation has been working hard to make New Jersey a leader among states in how it addresses, treats, and prevents Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—traumatic events that can cause children lifelong physical, mental, and social damage. Over the past two years, The Nicholson Foundation has invested $3.5 million in efforts that directly prevent ACEs or build resilience to their effects and complementary programs and services that support healthy child development...

How do our biological systems work together to respond to chronic stress? What do these responses mean for early learning and lifelong health? And when we say that early experiences matter, what do we mean by early? This episode of The Brain Architects podcast addresses all these questions and more! To kick off this episode, Center Director Dr. Jack Shonkoff describes the body’s stress response system, how our biological systems act as a team when responding to chronic stress, and the...

By Amanda Adams Imagine pulling into a school parking lot and seeing a garden full of flowers, fruit and vegetables, a spacious playground and well-paved walkways to several building entrances. As you get out of your car and approach the building there is clear signage, in multiple languages, to help you find the main entrance with welcoming and uplifting messages for students and their parents. When you walk in the building there is soft music playing over the intercom and someone is near...

Childhood trauma impacts millions of Americans, and its consequences can be devastating. Those experiencing high levels of trauma can see dramatically lower life expectancies, and the CDC estimates it accounts for billions of dollars in healthcare costs and lost productivity. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports as part of our series, “Invisible Scars: America’s Childhood Trauma Crisis."

In the News: Debate Starts Over COVID-19 Vaccine for Children in New Jersey Schools have been the front line in universal childhood vaccination in the United States since nearly the beginning of childhood vaccines, from the debates in the late 1800s and early 1900s over whether all Massachusetts students get a smallpox vaccine to more widespread mandates for measles and other shots in the 1970s. And in recent years, of course, they have also proven the new battleground in the heated debates...

In 2015, Dr. Beth Pletcher, a pediatrician and associate professor specializing in genetics, was at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington D.C. when she heard two speakers that forever changed her work with medical students. Dr. Beth Pletcher “I went to two talks on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that were so mind-boggling to me that I decided on my drive back to New Jersey that I had to do something about it,”says Pletcher, director of the Division...

On October 28th over 1,000 people assembled in the Dale F. Halton Theater at CPCC for TEDx Charlotte 2016. The event has grown in popularity every year and 2016 was no exception. Attendees came looking for ideas worth spreading and to hear thought provoking talks. Few left disappointed. There was one talk in particular that stood out to me and most everyone I have spoken to since. That talk, “What Trauma Taught Me About Resilience” was delivered by Charles Hun t, the founder of the Audacity...

https://www.newswise.com/articles/rutgers-institute-for-health-receives-10m-to-study-health-and-well-being-in-new-jersey

Helping Children Heal: Resilience; The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope December 4, 2020 December 7, 2020 https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4504282835155688464 Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and DCF Commissioner Christine Norbut Beyer invite you to watch this documentary and engage in an interactive conversation about how New Jersey can address Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in our children. Watch: December 4, 2020 , You will receive a link to watch the documentary...

Native American Heritage Month When COVID-19 hit the Navajo Nation, it limited students’ educational opportunities after schools closed, eliminated essential school services, exposed ongoing inequities, and made health and economic hardships families face worse. Navajo health officials said COVID-19 started spreading across the nation after a tribal member attended a basketball tournament in early March then went to a church revival the next day in Chilchinbeto, a small community south of...