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When school children were asked if they’d like to be police officers someday at a tour of a local Mid City police station, dozens of tiny hands shot up in the air. Children from the San Diego area toured a Mid City police station on Wednesday morning for a pilot program that aims to encourage positive relationships between local police and the community, starting with young people. The students selected are participating in the “Readers in the Heights” program from the United Way of San...

Mobilizing action can be intimidating. Creating a movement even more so. John Hagel provides the following definition of a movement: “an organized effort mobilizing a large number of independent participants in a grassroots effort to pursue a broad agenda for change.” He indicates that there are two key ingredients in movement making: 1) compelling narratives and 2) fostering creation spaces. In Buncombe County, we are experimenting with both of these notions. Opportunity-based Narrative A...

The crowd arrived to the aroma of freshly popped popcorn that wafted through the Cherokee Point Elementary School auditorium. With bags of popcorn and plates filled with fresh-cut fruits and vegetables from trays on tables lining the wall, the service providers, policy makers, community advocates, graduate students, teachers and parents settled in for a movie and a panel discussion that brought many to tears. Dr. Dawn Griffin, a professor in Alliant International University departments of...

(A version of this post was emailed to all ACEsConnection.com members yesterday.) Join us on Sunday, April 10th, for a free sneak peek of Resilience , the critically acclaimed documentary by KPJR Films that chronicles a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators and communities who are using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction and disease. The streaming event will begin at 6 p.m. PT (3 p.m. HAST, 5 p.m. AKDT, 7 p.m. MT, 8 p.m. CT, 9 p.m. ET). For...

Resilience , a documentary that looks at the birth of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and how it spawned a movement across the world, will be coming to your personal screen in April, says Lynn Waymer, KPJR Film’s community engagement strategist. The production team is working out the details to make the documentary, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival to sold-out houses, available to ACEsConnection.com members on Sunday, April 10, at 6 pm PT/ 9 pm...

Image: Thank you to Los Angeles County Group member Olivia Piacenza for sharing the Collective Impact Forum link which guides the reader through the steps of Collective Impact succinctly. Another great tool available to you on your trauma informed, resilience building journey as we collaborate and ignite collective momentum. Please click on the link; http://collectiveimpactforum.org/what-collective-impact

Harmonium staff pictured (left to right ) Front row: Brian Newcomer, Rosa Ana Lozada, Heidi Echeverria, and Janice Tangback Back row: Amy De Meules, Natalie Kessler, and Justin Campbell There’s almost a Zen-like feeling when you walk into the office of Rosa Ana Lozada, chief executive officer of Harmonium, Inc. The deep red accent wall, large corner windows, and small Japanese fountain send a message that a trauma-informed, resilience-building mindset starts at the top of this...

As a college student, Rob Bonta had a summer job working as a counselor for troubled kids. Now, two decades later he is bringing legislation to address some of the needs he saw then. “I worked with some of these kids as a counselor out of college, and I’d walk them home and hear some of these stories,” Assembly member Bonta (D-Oakland) said. “Shootings they heard. Or shootings they witnessed the night before.” It was the summer of his junior year at Yale, when...

Just moments into watching "Paper Tigers" last August, Angie Dillon Shore and Socorro Shiels found themselves wiping away tears.  By the film's conclusion, Angie, a former youth counselor and current Upstream Investments Program Manager, and Socorro, then the Superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools both felt compelled to take immediate action.  What if together, these two women could bring the film to local educators and parents?  Could the film change the conversation...

Here's a great article about a grassroots effort in Teralta Park in City Heights started by Arturo and Gabby Soriano called Youth Empowerment.   Instead of dodging bullets on the street, they’re dodging paintball pellets in a park. Instead...