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Every generation since the 1950s has experienced a decline in free play. During the holidays in my parent’s generation, kids left the house in the morning and were told to be home by dinner. They went out into the streets, met up with other neighbourhood kids and played all day long. During my own childhood things were a little more supervised, but we still had ample time to play beyond the watchful eyes of our parents. Today most children are rarely left to their own devices. In an attempt...

Hello, I thought I would post a little bit about the Health Starts at Home project we have began in West Virginia and some of the tools we are providing to parents. Our project is in a federally qualified health center and is aimed at screening for ACEs in children and prenatal patients. We are hoping to capture patients and children who have experienced 4 or more ACEs and provide information, education and resources to alleviate the effects of the toxic stress ACEs cause. In terms of...

Hi ACEs Parenting Community! Wrestling Ghosts , a new documentary about breaking the cycle of trauma, will be premiering at LA Film Festival on September 27th. The Wrestling Ghosts team wants to give away 5 tickets to the ACEs parenting community. We want the film to promote wellness in the ACEs community, and get watched by folks who would really love it. Tickets are first come, first serve; if you'd like to purchase one after the giveaway, try to get them this week; earlybird tickets are...

Fathers’ hormone levels and brain activity may change when they spend time with their children, helping them adapt to parenthood in a way that has been overlooked until now, according to Professor Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg, who studies children and family relations at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and was until recently at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is conducting a series of studies with new fathers, to investigate the role that hormones can play in how they bond with their...

The challenge of the fast pace and the strain of living in the 21 st century is the chronic stress of keeping up with volume of information, expectations and adverse experiences that leads to stressors of daily living. Adults have become good at adjusting to and compartmentalizing these stressors. Children and adolescents however are struggling to keep up and are in fact caving under the weight of the stresses. In addition, many children lack adequate nurturing and supports needed to give...

photo by Rhoda Baer/Wikimedia Common Life as she knows it: The effects of adverse childhood experiences on intimate partner violence among women prisoners [Child Abuse & Neglect] "Most incarcerated women suffer from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse (e.g., physical, sexual, emotional), neglect, (e.g., physical, emotional), and chaotic home environments (e.g., witnessing domestic violence), and adult intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet the majority of research on the...

What is an ACE score, and why should I care? Research has shown that people who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are more likely to have health conditions, participate in harmful behaviors, have relationship problems, and struggle with emotions and handling stress. Our ability to overcome ACEs depends on our resiliency. Some of us are able to work through our trauma, “DO the WORK”, and move forward, and for us with higher ACEs, we might need more support, but the WORK...

We are thrilled to announce the premiere of Wrestling Ghosts , a documentary about breaking the cycle of trauma, at the LA Film festival on Sept. 27th. “Incredible. Haunting and strange and beautiful and incredibly moving.” -Dan Cogan, Founder Impact Partners Wrestling Ghosts follows the epic inner journey of Kim, a young mother who, over two heartbreaking and inspiring years, battles the traumas from her past in order to create a new present and future for her and her family. In this...

Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health The first relationship—usually this is between the mother and her infant—has an enduring impact on all later stages of human development. This relationship which occurs has been described by Bowlby’s attachment theory, which at its core, is about how the mother helps the infant regulate emotion. The mother-infant attachment communications are essential because they directly affect the development of the brain. Dr. Allan Schore, the...

Young children who are regularly engaged in conversation by adults may have stronger connections between two developing brain regions critical for language, according to a study of healthy young children that confirms a hypothesis registered with the Open Science Framework. This finding, published in JNeurosci, was independent of parental income and education, suggesting that talking with children from an early age could promote their language skills regardless of their socioeconomic status.

When Marin Community Clinics (MCC) first considered screening their patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) they already had decided that if they were going to prevent children from acquiring ACEs, they had to take a radical approach.

Katie Raftery was in a Massachusetts prison for drug-related crimes when she found out she was pregnant with her second child. A longtime heroin user, she was released to a residential drug treatment program where she stayed for seven months, until her baby was born. She got through pregnancy and drug treatment without a hitch and delivered a healthy baby boy with no complications. But at exactly six weeks after childbirth, Raftery said she started feeling lonely, empty and disengaged. The...