Reports, Research & Policy

By Abigail Abrams and Abby Vesoulis, Time, March 18, 2021 When Maile Chand reminisces about her 2016 pregnancy, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t how she prepared her daughter’s nursery or vetted baby names. Instead, she remembers constantly struggling to find enough money for food and rent in San Francisco. Chand was just 20 years old at the time, living in the nation’s most expensive city, and working a low-paying retail job while attending community college. Navigating San...

By Simon Books, Moms, March 26, 2021 Parental attitudes play a huge part in helping children have healthy interactions with their surroundings. These attitudes create the most important social influence that children experience in their early childhood years. While there is limited research on the relationship between parental attitudes and child outcomes, experts are drawing on empirical evidence to understand the connection between the two. On the whole, experts have found that parental...

We at PACEs Connection are particularly interested in the interplay between positive and adverse childhood experiences. Here’s some of the relevant research:

From Every Family Forward, March 2021 OVERVIEW As America rapidly evolves into a more racially and ethnically diverse country, we see that future in our children. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation commissioned an in-depth research study to explore the experiences of parents and caregivers today as they raise the next generation of children. The project began with interviews and focus groups, culminating in a survey of approximately 2,000 parents and caregivers to hear directly from them...

Please join us for our next installment of A Better Normal, our live webinar series in which we imagine and create our society as trauma-informed! You may have seen we changed our name recently from ACEs Connection to PACEs Connection. Please join us to learn all about the groundbreaking research of Positive Childhood Experiences and how this is going to transform the work we are all doing. >>Click here to register<< PACEs and HOPE Live Event Friday, March 26, 2021 Noon PT / 1pm...

Parents and caregivers across the United States are facing unprecedented challenges, role shifts, and hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic that may negatively impact their parenting and their relationships with their children. Emerging research shows that parents and caregivers are experiencing more significant increases in stress during the pandemic than non-parents. For parents with unresolved histories of adversity and trauma —resulting from experiences such as abuse, assault, or...

By Rachel Zimlich, Contemporary Pediatrics, November 26, 2019 The lifelong negative effects that adverse childhood experiences have on adult mental health are well-established, but new research suggests that positive childhood experiences can help mitigate the damage. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, published a study in JAMA Pediatrics revealing that positive childhood experiences are just as important as negative ones, and can actually...

By Robert C. Whitaker, Tracy Dearth-Wesley, and Allison N. Herman, Academic Pediatrics, March 10, 2021 Abstract Objectives To investigate whether higher levels of childhood family connection were associated with greater adult flourishing and if this association was present across levels of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and childhood socioeconomic disadvantage (SED). Methods We pooled cross-sectional data from telephone and mailed surveys in the Midlife in the United States study that...

By Idaho Youth Ranch, May 1, 2020 Just as there are adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that play a role in the future success of kids, there are also 7 positive childhood experiences (PCEs) that can offset their damage. This recent discovery comes from a John Hopkin’s study published in 2019. Researchers were looking to determine if any “protective childhood experiences” could be linked with positive outcomes as adults—increasing resiliency and offsetting some of the trauma or damage...

By Jessica Grose, The New York Times, March 17, 2021 If your child is not potty trained, how many diapers do you have on hand right now? That’s a question I certainly wouldn’t have been able to answer with any specificity when my children were babies. But it’s a question that parents who struggle to afford the expense — about $70-$80 per month, per baby — can answer easily, because managing diaper need is among their most significant anxieties. That’s what a new study from Jennifer Randles,...

By Elizabeth Crouch, Elizabeth Radcliff, and Melinda A. Merrell, et al., Child Abuse & Neglect, February 27, 2021 Abstract Background: Examination of racial/ethnic differences in positive childhood experiences (PCEs) is needed, as the absence of supportive factors may hinder children from healthy processing and mitigation of adversity. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of PCEs in a nationally representative sample of children and determine whether PCE...

The Center for the Study of Social Policy, in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, is recruiting focus group participants for Our Identities, Ourselves: Antiracist Data Project which will uplift the voices of young people, parents and caregivers with lived experience and gather information to develop best practice guidance that supports child welfare agencies in collecting and using accurate data on race, ethnicity and other identities. We need help recruiting participants for the...