Blog

PACEs Connection's Race & Equity Workgroup will be examining historical trauma in the United States of America and its impact on American society in a series of virtual discussions. This series will highlight each unique region within the United States and outline how unresolved historical trauma has impacted every aspect of American life and directly shapes the socio-political landscape of today as well as the overall well-being of Americans. Discussions will make connections between...

As we continue our three-part series, we are exploring how healing-centered practices can be used as a complementary approach to trauma-informed practices. This second installment of the series will examine what it takes to resist trauma and heal at both the community and institutional level. We will explore strategies for advancing healing that challenge the status-quo and authentically engage the community.

In this three-part series, we will explore how healing-centered practices can be used as a complementary approach to trauma-informed practices. Often the story of New Orleans stops with our history of trauma. As we work to shift the narrative to healing, consider this series from the lens of New Orleans and how the information provided could be applied to our vibrant, authentic, and interconnected city.

Welcome to the New Orleans ACE’s Connection community. This space is for community members who want to make New Orleans a more compassionate, equitable, and healing-centered city.

A healing centered approach to addressing trauma requires a different question that moves beyond “what happened to you” to “what’s right with you” and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events.

The New Orleans Pair of ACEs tree is planted in soil that is steeped in systemic inequities and dysfunction, robbing it of nutrients necessary to support a thriving community.

The implications for a better understanding of the factors that allow children and families to thrive are potentially game-changing.

Full Article by Monique W. Morris Black girls are vulnerable to disciplinary approaches that push them out of school - and sometimes into the legal system. In March, when 6-year-old Madisyn Moore took candy from her teacher's desk, this black girl was handcuffed and placed under the stairs to "teach her a lesson" (Roussi, 2016). Last fall, a sheriff's deputy in South Carolina violently threw a black high school girl to the floor and dragged her across the classroom. Although the officer was...

The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...

By Tatiana Sanchez, San Francisco Chronicle, August 24, 2020 Elaine Shelly has lived with multiple sclerosis for 30 years. But she said she still panics whenever she has to see a new neurologist because of racial discrimination she’s experienced in the past. Even getting a proper diagnosis for her illness was a battle. “I’d go to these neurologists who would tell me that Black people don’t get M.S. and that I must be mentally ill,” said Shelly, 63, of San Leandro. A former print journalist,...

Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, has a lot in common with the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris—Jamaican heritage, surname, home state—and a commitment to addressing ACEs and toxic stress. As reported in the New Yorker article by Paul Tough, “The Poverty Clinic,” Dr. Harris told Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, about ACEs in 2008 and in response, she offered to help. District Attorney Harris then introduced her to professor of child and...

Monica McCasklill, left, and her daughter Kena Johnson, at their home in Greenwood, Missisppi. They respectively lost their grandmother and great grandmother, Ethel Huntley, to Covid-19. Huntley lived in a nearby nursing home and the family allege failings in her primary care. Photograph: Rory Doyle/The Guardian. By Oliver Laughland, The Guardian, August 5, 2020 Poor access to healthcare, failed political leadership and the endurance of segregation and racism have contributed to a surge in...