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In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.

“In order to cope,” writes Mary Trump, “Donald began to develop powerful but primitive defenses, marked by an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absence and father’s neglect….In place of [his emotional needs] grew a kind of grievance and behaviors—including bullying, disrespect, and aggressiveness—that served their purpose in the moment but became more problematic over time. With appropriate care and attention, they might have been overcome.”

By Andrea Blanch, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 27, 2020 People are really stressed out right now. A recent national survey reports that “serious psychological distress” — the kind that can lead to longer-term psychiatric disorders — has more than tripled since this time last year. We are already seeing the consequences in Sarasota County, with the number of opioid-related deaths in the first half of 2020 more than double the number in all of 2019. And based on experience with SARS, experts...

By Barbara Plett Usher, July 12, 2020, bbc.co.uk. From FaceTiming worried families to helping doctors and nurses with "combat fatigue", spiritual care workers in hospitals have been thrust onto the pandemic's frontlines. Rocky Walker has come closer to death as a hospital chaplain in the coronavirus pandemic than he did as a soldier in the 1991 Gulf War. "It was very scary, very dangerous," he says. "Working in the ICUs and seeing all that suffering and seeing families being decimated by...

While we know that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can cause risk behaviors, research has told us that the presence of protective factors can help mitigate the effects of ACEs. Common risk behaviors such as smoking tobacco and alcohol misuse can be a result from the trauma of childhood disadvantage. In responding to ACEs, public health research proposes that protective factors such as safe, stable, nurturing relationships (SSNRs) with a caring adult can mitigate the long-term effects of...

Interested in learning what it takes to Grow a Resilient Community? Do you want to learn how to become a member of ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities? If so, please join us Tuesday, July 7th, 12-1pm PDT for our next 'A Better Normal' community discussion series. In this discussion we will be talking with Brian Semsem of Fresno's Every Neighborhood Partnership. We will be talking to Brian about what led him to work with ACEs and resilience. In addition, we will be discussing the path...

The first time I ever heard the words trauma-informed care and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study was in the summer of 2014. At the time, I was working for the local Police Department as the Director of a grant-funded Crime Reduction Project aimed at reducing drug-related and violent crime. Of the many program goals, one was to develop a rehabilitative corrections program for felony offenders with addictions in order to reduce recidivism. Though I’ve lived in this region for...

For the leaders of Sarasota Strong (or "SRQ Strong") Florida, anti-racism work isn’t about inviting people of color to tables long-occupied by white professionals fluent in academic jargon and theories of change. It’s about venturing, with humility and openness, into spaces where Black people worship, work and live. Helen Neal-Ali from SRQ Strong. Photo courtesy of Andrea Blanch. Which is why, before SRQ Strong even had a name or held a formal event, educator/minister Helen Neal-Ali launched...

Resilient Georgia recently presented a roundtable discussion, featuring a distinguished panel of professionals, on the trauma associated with racism and racial discrimination, as part of the Mental Fitness for Resilience Campaign. The distinguished panel for this Georgia Public Broadcasting production included Dr. Patrice Harris, MD, MA, psychiatrist and the first African-American woman to be elected president of the American Medical Association; Dr. Terri McFadden, a General Pediatrician...

Building Resilience with Children During Racial Discrimination & Violence: This attached Resilience Brief for Children has been the hardest one I have written yet. I have been an active advocate for the equal treatment of people from all backgrounds, religions, ethnic heritages, orientations, and families my entire life. It is hard to see the pain present today, not only due to COVID19 but also due to the harm and anger we see daily in the news. I want to share a story about the person...

"I think that all of us, regardless of our racial or ethnic background, feel relieved that we no longer have to deal with the racism and the sexism associated with the system of slavery. But we treat the history of enslavement like we treat the genocidal colonization of indigenous people in North America, as if it was not that important, or worse, as if it never happened." —Angela Davis, "The Meaning of Freedom" Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our...

Hi everyone! We'd like to introduce our new ACEs Connection Anti-Racism Resources List c ulled from resources shared by Learn4Life, Prevention Institute., Rise Magazine , V A TICN , Vital Village , 10% Happier . and our own ACEs Connection members and staff . You can access them from this widget on the top right side of our home page or by clicking here. The list has the following categories of resources: Racial Trauma, Historical Trauma, & Healing Police Brutality & Reform...