What is your ACEs in Higher Education Connection?

Hi - I have been working with individuals who have  experienced trauma as a practitioner and trainer for  many years .  The ACE and trauma informed conversations are still new in the UK (!!!!) and we have been working for the last couple of years to spread the word - England has a very poor rate of mental ill health issues in our university's and we would really like to  engage them on the debate so any research/ examples/ case studies of what anyone has done will be really helpful for us.

Thank you sue 

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Suzette Reed posted:

 

I have a doc student whose thesis and dissertation are examining the scope of ACEs in our students and coping mechanisms used to thrive in higher ed. As a community psychologist, I am interested in the context; what role does the setting play in allowing students who have survived high ACEs to thrive in higher ed?

It would be great to meet and share a bit more. Given we're at Harper, Morton and NLU, Cicero might be the best bet if you don't mind traveling Andrew.

Suzette and Dennis,

Our ACEs in Higher Education community of practice at Harper College is just getting started--we're conducting a literature review on the topic this semester, and then will use that information to inform next steps. We've discussed hosting a regional conference and perhaps this is a point of collaboration?

My e-mail is aanastas@harpercollege.edu. I would love to get together and don't mind traveling to Cicero

Best,

Andrew

I have worked as faculty in higher education for over 20 years. I have been teaching a class on trauma to MFT students for about 20 years.  I currently participate in training Title IX staff and others on trauma informed interviewing sexual assault complainants and other misconduct complainants on college campuses. Many of the colleges and universities want to know more about the impact of trauma on their students academic achievement and what can student services do to assist in matriculation. That is what brings me to this community. I want to develop more tools along with training for college and university campuses on this issue. 

It's great not to feel alone.

Suzette, FYI I started my professional career many decades ago working for the Chicago Area Project. I also, for time, was the director of the DuPage County CCBYS. What I find is that best practices have always been present but have not been supported by the hard science which ACEs provides.

I have found similar instances in senior services union services and services for individuals with disabilities. As a sociologist I am impressed by the similarities across all of these areas of service.

I sent Andrew a couple of my presentations. Here are some copies for you

Hello Andrew and Dennis. 

I am happy to see others in Illinois doing this work. I presume you are part of the IL ACEs collaborative?

Dennis, I could copy and paste your post, but change "Sociology" to "Community Psychology" and it would be a fairly accurate description of my work. I find it ironic that the field of community psychology does so little in this area. I recently sent out a post to our listserv asking for anyone who is doing work related to ACEs and found few people. What I did find was mostly overlapping work (trauma, stress). 

My work began examining child maltreatment as a community psychologist through a sociological frame (collective efficacy and social capital as buffers to child maltreatment). This evolved out of work I did years ago when I worked for Harvard on the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. My focus is on community resilience. I was made aware of ACEs work when a group in Washington State found my dissertation and wanted to add my resilience (collective efficacy and social capital) questions to their statewide survey. That was almost a decade ago. I am in the final stages of releasing that publication where we found that community resilience buffers against adult and children's ACEs at the community level and remains as a buffer even when individual resilience is not significant.

Andrew I see I missed a post you made almost a month ago related to my other work on ACEs in Higher Ed. Sorry I am new to blogging and keeping up with these posts. Feel free to contact me directly if I am ever slow to respond: Suzette.Frommreed@nl.edu. 

My response to your question also ties what I noted above to my focus on higher ed and Illinois.  After years of working on my community resilience work in Washington State and migrating some of that to Alaska, I wanted to bring the work home. I have pulled together a team of colleagues at my school, National Louis University, and our interest is on ACEs in higher ed. We consist of another community psychologists with a culture and linguistic focus, a clinician and a organizational leadership professional. Our student body is non-traditional, mostly minority students. I have a doc student whose thesis and dissertation are examining the scope of ACEs in our students and coping mechanisms used to thrive in higher ed. As a community psychologist, I am interested in the context; what role does the setting play in allowing students who have survived high ACEs to thrive in higher ed?

It would be great to meet and share a bit more. Given we're at Harper, Morton and NLU, Cicero might be the best bet if you don't mind traveling Andrew.

Dennis Haffron posted:

I am an applied sociologist (community development) I have worked at the forefront of services to seniors, union members, youth in crisis, and people with decision impairment's. I have been teaching introductory sociology at Morton College in Cicero Illinois.

I found that ACEs and Trauma Informed understanding provided the scientific underpinnings for what was already being done as best practices in all of these areas.

I was astounded to find out how little attention the field the sociology was paying to ACEs and their amelioration. ACEs is a socio-psycho- physiological phenomena and I could not find it in any of my texts. I am creating a webpage and a link within the NEA about ACEs in higher education particularly sociology. I have taught ACEs content in my sociology classes, conducted in ACEs awareness workshop for my adult and colleagues and presented on ACEs awareness for higher education at my statewide IEA/NEA conference. I have prepared materials for these venues.

I believe that ACEs it's awareness and amelioration can be looked upon sociologically as equal to feminist and minority viewpoints. I also believe that other disciplines such as English, Business, and the Humanities can be made ACEs aware and trauma informed.

I have felt very alone while doing these things and I am looking for contacts ideas and support.

Dennis,

Thank you for your post. I'm really excited to hear about your work and to learn that you're in Illinois! I don't doubt you speak for so many of us when you say you felt alone in noticing connections between higher education and your academic discipline. I teach English at Harper College in Palatine. Recently, a small group of admins, staff, and faculty joined together to conduct a small literature on ACEs in higher education (community colleges, in particular). We'd love to brainstorm with you as you develop your website and hear more about what you're teaching in your sociology classes. 

-Andrew

I am an applied sociologist (community development) I have worked at the forefront of services to seniors, union members, youth in crisis, and people with decision impairment's. I have been teaching introductory sociology at Morton College in Cicero Illinois.

I found that ACEs and Trauma Informed understanding provided the scientific underpinnings for what was already being done as best practices in all of these areas.

I was astounded to find out how little attention the field the sociology was paying to ACEs and their amelioration. ACEs is a socio-psycho- physiological phenomena and I could not find it in any of my texts. I am creating a webpage and a link within the NEA about ACEs in higher education particularly sociology. I have taught ACEs content in my sociology classes, conducted in ACEs awareness workshop for my adult and colleagues and presented on ACEs awareness for higher education at my statewide IEA/NEA conference. I have prepared materials for these venues.

I believe that ACEs it's awareness and amelioration can be looked upon sociologically as equal to feminist and minority viewpoints. I also believe that other disciplines such as English, Business, and the Humanities can be made ACEs aware and trauma informed.

I have felt very alone while doing these things and I am looking for contacts ideas and support.