Jody:
I love all of what you said and especially this:
"Perhaps the bill that needs to go before the legislature is state-wide support for professional development on the practices that shift toward being trauma responsive. That would improve outcomes for ALL students, not just the students impacted by adversities because ALL students (and educators too!) benefit from systems that build a sense of I belong, I matter and I'm safe here."
The last thing we need is for an ACE score to be another label or diagnostic, which is ridiculous as it only indicates what happened to us and not how we coped with it (or not), what resources we did or didn't have, not what we need or require to heal, not what our individual risk factors are (or are not).
While it's very true that we know, on a population level, children and adults are impacted by ACEs, it's the concept that is important as there aren't sweeping generalizations or precise interventions. After all, the original ACEs miss much. What we do know is that safe and kind and just places and spaces benefit everyone, that room and space and tools and access to healing is important, but also that our systems must first BECOME healing so that they don't retraumatize, or continue to marginalize and stigmatize people. We can respect and understand that trauma has impact without labeling, scoring, or weaponizing ACEs. We need to share information ABOUT ACEs with people not use an ACEs history or score against people - which is what has already been done too often with the DSM.
Cissy