Over 250 people from around the United States participated in “Historical Trauma in the American South” on July 15, 2021, the first of six events in PACEs Connections’ Historical Trauma in America Series that examines the impact of intergenerational trauma on the health and well-being of individuals today.
Historical trauma—another term for intergenerational trauma—is defined by Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart as multigenerational trauma experienced by a specific cultural group resulting in “a cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma” (Brave Heart, N.D.). As recent advances in the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs science) continue to show the profound impact of historical trauma on society today, PACEs Connection launched this series to educate and empower people to take action to mitigate its adverse impact and promote resilience in their regions.
Ingrid Cockhren, PACEs Connection director of PACEs Connection’s Cooperative of Communities, and Carey Sipp, who is the organization’s community facilitator for the Southeast, facilitated the first event. It focused on the specific cultural and historical factors that have shaped intergenerational trauma in the South, including the treatment of Indigenous Americans, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and segregation.
Cockhren, who is an expert in historical trauma and critical race theory, provided an introductory overview of PACEs science and the role of intergenerational trauma. Sipp described the trauma that Southern Indigenous tribes—such as the Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees—experienced during their battles with white settlers during the American-Indian Wars between 1622 and the late 19th century (Drake, 2004). Cockhren followed by discussing historical trauma among African Americans in the South, including chattel slavery and the Jim Crow Era to lay the foundation for the systemic racism present today.
The event concluded with a conversation among participants from different geographic locations—including California, the Carribean, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee—and different sectors—including mental health, social work, and healthcare—to share experiences.
“My heart is so very heavy,” said one participant. “Our Indigenous sisters disappear, and their remains are found, the reporting process and forensics causes me to ask myself if we have really progressed as a nation.”
Many participants expressed surprise at the extent to which historical trauma still impacts people of color living in the South today in the modern forms of discrmination such as environmental racism and microaggressions.
“I spent 15 years working in South Arkansas in the Mississippi Delta Region as a mental health professional,” said one person. “My primary clients were African American, impoverished children and families. There is a very distinct parenting strategy I witnessed of teaching kids not to trust the White people and all the White people are bad or racist or trying to make money off them. There is also an underlying treatment of Black people as ‘less than’ or ‘beneath them’ by White people. Sometimes it is very direct, especially by older White people but a subtle, indirect kind, pretty constant by many White people, not even conscious at times. I also witnessed that the economic differences were huge, as well as enrichment activities for children or community services. Many of the kids I worked with had never been out of the rural county they lived in.”
Other people were surprised to learn that the physical segregation present during the time of chattel slavery and the Jim Crow Era South is still present today.
“I wonder if there are still ‘sundown towns’ in places like Mississippi?” asked one person. The answers were chilling.
“There are!”
“Vidor, Texas, is a sundown city for sure—very scary.”
“We have towns in Oklahoma where Blacks know not to go after sundown.”
One participant described their surprise: “As a woman of color and from the Caribbean, I thought I knew history but there is so much more to learn and understand.”
“The question remains,” said one person as the conversation pivoted to what to do about this dire situation. “How do we talk to, teach children about these conflicting and erroneous narratives?”
“If CRT (Critical Race Theory) wasn’t such a hot topic,” said another participant, “it wouldn’t be banned. Yes, we KNOW America is a racist country and was founded as a racist country with social constructs that still exist today, but people are still in denial and are still making laws to prevent this discussion. We can not conquer what we won’t confront or even confess.”
Before the webinar ended participants were sharing educational resources on historical trauma with each other. Those resources are listed below.
“What’s so interesting about this webinar is the change in human understanding of slavery,” said Jane Stevens, PACEs Connection’s founder and publisher. “Just two centuries ago, most people in the world were in slavery or serfdom. Throughout history, slavery was prevalent in almost every culture. Romans and Greeks had slaves. Incas and Aztecs had slaves. Slavery existed before money or written laws, according to Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains. Although we’ve made considerable progress, the situation we’re in now, reflected in this amazing webinar, shows how difficult it is for humans to change. However, I believe that with the spread of PACEs science, we have a good chance to accelerate change.”
Cockhren and Sipp hope that the Historical Trauma in the American South and the upcoming events in this series will empower individuals and communities to mitigate the adverse impact of historical trauma and promote resiliency. For ideas of how you can become involved with PACEs Connection to advance the PACEs movement, you can:
Continue to expand your knowledge of historical trauma by using resources such as the “PACEs Connection Historical Trauma in the American South Resource List” compiled by participants during this webinar featured below.
PACEs Connection Historical Trauma in the American South Resource List (As shared by attendees using the Zoom chat box during the webinar.)
By Greta Anderson, Inside Higher Education, October 23, 2020
Black students continuously experience, fight against and bear emotional scars from racism, which can lead to increased anxiety and poor mental health outcomes. Some colleges are just starting to address these issues.
Colbie Lofton’s first week of classes at Appalachian State University is sealed in her mind.
Lofton, who is Black, asked her macroeconomics professor a question during class and heard someone sitting behind her say, “I guess n****rs don’t understand.”
Lofton, “completely shocked” to hear a racial slur used so casually, said nothing, and neither did her professor, who Lofton said paused and appeared to have heard the comment. When the class ended, Lofton left, reeling from hurt, and went to a nearby bathroom to cry. She then returned to her dorm and confided in her roommate, but she said she didn’t report the comment to the university because she was not aware of the process to do so.
That 2018 incident was a marker for other racial incidents that would follow at the predominantly white campus in North Carolina and leave Lofton without any illusions about the deep prejudices that some students on campus have against Black people. She has felt “out of place” ever since and hyperaware of her surroundings, which has taken a toll on her mental health.
“That is a story that continues to sit with me,” said Lofton, who is now a junior.
She is not alone. Black students at many predominantly white colleges have long complained of the racial hostility, subtle and blatant, that they regularly encounter on their campuses. Whether victims of constant microaggressions or outright verbal or physical assaults, many have stories of being called a racial slur directly or seeing it scrawled on a campus wall, viewing racist posts by classmates on social media, or sitting through a presentation by a classmate professing a white supremacist conspiracy. The incidents were the focal points of protest movements and demands for change for several years, but the calls for action seemed to reach a crescendo this year as Black students at colleges across the country repeatedly called for college administrators to condemn and address racism on their campuses.
By Gene Nichol, The Charlotte Observer, December 28, 2020
It doesn’t happen as often as one might wish. But, on occasion, you can still be surprised by what someone says. For example, earlier this month, the Donald Trump-appointed Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, explained to the Senate Banking Committee:
“Disparate economic outcomes on the basis of race, have been with us for a very long time, they are a long-standing aspect of our economy, and there is a great risk that the pandemic is making them worse. Because the people who are most affected by the job losses are people in relatively low-paying parts of the service industries that happen to skew more to minorities and women, there is a real concern that if we don’t act as quickly as possible to support these people then we’ll leave behind an even more unequal situation. We need to do as much as we can to avoid exacerbating inequality.”
Seriously, the guy Bloomberg News calls “Wall Street’s Head of State” lectured the country on the challenges of economic justice. Man.
The traditional patterns of racial economic subordination Powell referenced have long dominated every component of life in North Carolina. Today, for example, twice as many African-American Tar Heels live in poverty as whites. The numbers are even worse for Black kids – nearly three times as many are poor as whites.
Racial income disparity is huge. But racial wealth disparity astonishes. Black households, on average, claim less than a tenth of the economic assets of white Tar Heel families. Racial minorities are dramatically more likely, in North Carolina, to be unemployed, uninsured, food insecure, housing insecure, and trapped in low wage work. Such defining disparities have existed throughout the entirety of our state’s history. Radical, systemic, disproportional racial economic impact, as Chairman Powell put it, has “been with us for a very long time.”
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 ofthe meeting, so other new ACEs initiatives can learn from the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force’s work and experience.
“We are learning as we go,” Boyd said. “We just happen to have a couple of years’ head start on today’s beginning communities. We want to share what we’ve learned and are learning.”
In the spring of 2018, New Hanover County got a six-month planning grant from the Duke Endowment. Boyd was hired to be the six-month coordinator.
She joined a group of 10 or 15 people who were inspired by the screening of the documentary “Resilience” earlier that spring, and who wanted to get going on an initiative.
“The (New Hanover Regional) hospital, Community Care, Smart Start, Communities in Schools, the Department of Social Services, people in the court system and others saw the documentary and said, ‘Let’s stop talking and do something,’” Boyd said.
Their planning period paid off. The group started meeting regularly and opened the meetings up to anybody who wanted to come. “It was one of the best things we did,” Boyd said.
In the first phase of the plan, the group decided to engage and involve the community, agree on a timeline, and decide on which models to consider and invest in. They also looked at what data to collect on individual, organizational and systems levels. This remains an area of growth and learning.
Phase Two involves educating the community on the Pair of ACEs, the fact that there are adverse childhood experiences and adverse community experiences. ”We knew we needed to educate and be educated, to learn about what our community’s experiences were and are. We need to understand our unique adverse community environment,” Boyd said.
Phase Two also involves education about the impact of toxic stress and the Community Resiliency Model (CRM), a hands-on neurobiological training involving ACEs and brain science, to help people learn how to regulate their central nervous system and stay grounded during stressful situations.
Implementing Phase Three means helping organizations and providers become more trauma-informed and better able to deal with their own traumas and triggers.
“Most of the early (CRM) trainings centered on teachers, first responders, and health care workers. Until we are well, it is hard for us to take care of (other) people,” Boyd said.
Phase Four is training in trauma-informed and resilience-focused models for students, clients, parents, and the community.
Phase Five is implementing the trainings across all sectors of the community; this work will be ongoing.
Phase Six is community-level coaching and accountability, and work on funding strategies to continue to train and coach.
The phases look organized paper, but, Boyd said, “Nothing we do in human services is linear. If somebody new comes into the work, you have to educate them,” said Boyd, explaining that the group may have several phases of the work going on at the same time.
Quick to give credit to groups that helped develop the plan, Boyd was particularly complimentary of the New Hanover County Strategic Planning Department.
“We were able to use their expertise, and met many, many times, before coming up with the second page of the document. Some of us got frustrated. This took months. We would wonder, ‘Why are we talking about this again?’”
”Creating the plan was the work. Coming up with our common language was key to our progress. We needed to establish the community level goals, and to look at where we could make a difference.
“Racial equity runs through everything that we do,” she added. “In the last few months, we’ve realized what a challenge racial equity is, and we’ve realized that everything we do should be done through the filter of racial equity.”
Measuring success is also part of the work. Boyd said the group worked to develop Critical Success Factors, to “establish data points that can help tell us if what we are doing matters, if it is moving the needle.”
The group recently completed a steering committee retreat.
“Planning is never done and creating a strategic plan is something you are always working on,” she said. “Some of the work is immediate and some of it is long-term work that could be going on for 10 years or more.
“We are changing generational trauma. This is not work done in a short period of time. We knew we would be in it for the long haul. So we are now educating about trauma and racial disparity.”
She says a main factor in the success of this work is to keep it “trauma-informed and resiliency-focused.”
The group will know their hard work is paying off as they see more agencies looking through the trauma lens. An example? When more pediatrics practices are using ACEs screening, and more community members, having been through the trainings or hearing about them, are understanding their own biological responses to stress. Among other criteria for success are greater community understanding of ACEs science, more parents and providers being able to support children’s needs for social/emotional development and stress management, and delivery of equity training.
Boyd had these additional comments during the Q&A session:
On relationships: They are so important. If you were together and respectful and built your community, you are developing your relationships for further work. I spend a lot of my time inviting people to meetings, thanking them for coming. A lot of my time is spent on building relationships.
On the pace of the work: When you get together and convene, that is the work. Don’t be in a rush.
On who is needed to do the work: Work with the people who are there and committed. If you wait until everybody is at the table, you will never get it done.
On funding: You need money to pay a coordinator. We have received grants. The Department of Public Instruction provided money in 2018 that was used to train the trainers for the Community Resiliency Model, so about 30 people could attend the five-day training. We also have a part-time person doing all the movie screening and coordination of training. Task Force members are helping to get out the vote, and have been asked to contact legislators to ask for Medicaid expansion. We could use that (Medicaid expansion) money to help prevent ACEs, make lives better.
On the difference the work has made in the community: All 1,800 county employees have received at least a 90-minute CRM resilience training. They are not fully trained on CRM but have learned some CRM skills. County employees say staff members are now much more aware of their co-workers’ stress. They look in on each other, they know to ask, “How are you doing?” It helps to create a common language. It helps to normalize stress responses and push that message of having compassion and empathy for ourselves and our colleagues.
On subcommittees: Each subcommittee meets monthly. There are eight subcommittees for the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force:
Amid laughter and more than a few eyes glistening with tears, much gratitude and a chat-box filled with uplifting messages, members of ACEs Connection from around the world gathered via Zoom on March 4 to celebrate the milestone of the social networking site reaching 50,000 members.
The group acknowledged founder and publisher Jane Stevens’ foresight in starting this human and digital catalyst, growing and supporting the worldwide ACEs and resilience movement and telling its authentic stories.
Among the authentic stories told by the more than 130 participants was that of Stevens herself. She recounted the start of ACEs Connection in January 2012, and how overnight the fledgling site went to 200 members after Vincent Felitti, M.D., co-author of the seminal 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, sent a message to everyone on his email list with an invitation to join ACEsConnection.com. Stevens laughed when she said it then took about 18 months to reach 1,000 members.
As she launched into the call, surrounded by beaming faces of longtime and new members, Stevens shared a bit about the importance of the “why” of ACEs Connection.
“A team member suggested we look at a TEDTalk by Simon Sineck. It was amazing because it was a way — beyond mission, vision and value — to get at the heart of why we do what we do. There’s an outer circle of the ‘what,’ an inner circle of the ‘how,’ and at the center is the ‘why’.
‘The ‘why’ is what gets you up in the morning: We believe with this new and amazing knowledge (the science of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs) that humans can finally and truly heal ourselves, our organizations, and our systems. We can really and truly solve our most intractable problems. No doubt about it. We don’t have to have war or poverty or abuse or any of that with this new knowledge,” said Stevens.
“So how do we do this?” she asked. “We’ve built a structure and developed a strategy to get this new knowledge out to people in organizations to unite us in our why. So what do we do? We tell stories about what you are doing. And we connect everybody so that you all know where each other are, so you don’t feel alone. And we provide our network and our tools and guidelines so you can work together.”
Stevens talked about the powerful tools ACEs Connection has developed.
“But most importantly, we give all of you whatever you want or need so you can keep doing this for yourself and for your community and for others. It’s like a multiplier effect. It started with me, but now there’s more than 50,000 of you!
“We’re giving you information that you can say is making a difference in your life, so you can make a difference in other people’s lives, which you all have! Look at the power of this 50,000 people in this organization,” Stevens exclaimed.
“I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming along with me on this journey — from where I started and didn’t know what I was doing to helping create a place where we all share and help each other to do this ‘why’ that we are all so passionate about.”
Stevens thanked the ACEs Connection staff and donors, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The California Endowment, Genentech, the Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Fund, the George Sarlo Foundation, St. David’s Foundation, Cambia Health Foundation and Blue Shield of California Foundation.
Stevens described the day ACEs Connection surpassed the 50,000-member mark.
“We were watching all day to see who would be that 50,000th person,” she said. it turned out to be Anne Borowiec of New Jersey. Boroweic said she heard about ACEs Connection from friends.
“I used to work as a banker and worked in investment issues and philanthropy issues and got interested in education. I watched foundations searching for how to make an impact, and saw how they zeroed in on younger kids. We found a strategy that has power in the state concerning private philanthropists — but got the state involved.
“I coach a board called JerseyCAN, focused on public education and making sure all kids have access to great schools that open doors to their future. It was the inequities and the equity issues that we saw in education that caused JerseyCAN to form. And so I care about this space broadly and applaud what New Jersey has done and applaud that there is a national network (ACEs Connection) to be supported, so there is leverage in all of this.”
Here are comments from some of the others on the celebration call:
Dwana Young, community manager, New Jersey Resiliency Coalition, program director, New Jersey Office of Resilience
A statewide group well represented on the Zoom call was the New Jersey Resiliency Coalition. Dwana Young of the New Jersey Office of Resilience discussed what makes the initiative in New Jersey grow and work so well.
The New Jersey Office of Resilience is “The first (statewide) resilience office in the U.S. We have the full backing of Commissioner (Christine) Byer (of the Department of Children and Families) as well as the governor and the First Lady’s office. We are excited to be doing the work, and to be the first office of this kind. People from across the nation are calling us, asking about what we are doing with the release of the Statewide Action Plan. We are excited about our call next week with Nadine Burke Harris, the surgeon general of California — excited to be working with her.
“We are positioned to create resources that will be from the community for the community. We’re focused on making everything we do community-led and driven. We are engaging our indigenous community; they are often left out. This is like something not done before — state and public sectors, legislators.
“You ask how we have been growing? The secret is to share your link every chance you get! I drop it in Zoom chat every meeting I am on. I use it on every email.”
“This is where you come to get everything you need to know from across the globe. We are intentional about doing this in New Jersey. We are not hoarding information, we are one band, one sound!”
Any ACEs Connection community manager wanting to know how to grow should “do what Dwana’s community has done,” said Alison Cebulla, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region community facilitator. “Just join Dwana’s community and just do what she does.”
“There are about 400 communities,” Stevens added. “We are aiming for 5,000 out of 34,000 cities and counties in the U.S., and we are hoping that the community managers in countries outside the U.S. will determine how many cities and counties are in their countries and determine their own goals. With this approach we can reach a tipping point, and spread the word so that ACEs science becomes like electricity — we only notice it when it is not there. We are doing this because we want this knowledge to be so embedded. And we are well on our way.”
During the celebration, Stevens called on several longtime friends whose stories have influenced thousands of people to learn more about trauma and its impact. One of those friends is Jim Sporleder.
“In 2012, when I started ACEs Connection,” Stevens said, “it was less ACEs Connection, the social network, more ACEs Too High (the ACEs science news site also founded by Stevens). I was looking everywhere to find something that would lend itself to a story. And I saw this tiny little story in Walla Walla, Washington, about this principal of an alternative high school who had integrated ACEs science and thought, wow, how did that happen?
“I did an article about him and how he developed the plan with his staff, a small staff, a 200-person school. I posted it and I remember sitting there watching late into the night how many page views it was getting. And all of a sudden it zoomed up and was getting 10,000 an hour!
The story of Lincoln High School went viral and currently has had more than 900,000 page views. The story and a subsequent documentary, “Paper Tigers,” directed by the late James Redford and produced by KPJR Films, were vitally important in helping to start a movement toward trauma-informed schools. Here’s how Jom Sporleder, the principal featured in the documentary, explains it.
“I can remember being at Lincoln, and trying to change the culture at a very challenging school at that time. Our community champion, Teri Barila, asked me to a conference and it was the first time I’d heard about toxic stress. I thought that my discipline taught kids and didn’t punish them. I was able to hear Dr. John Medina as a keynote. The first time hearing about toxic stress and how it affects the brain blew my beliefs that behavior was a choice. He said, ‘It is not the students’ fault.’
“What that did to me was put me in front of a mirror and I had to say, ’Jim, you are punishing kids.’ And that meant I was hurting them. So I was searching everywhere. Teri Barila helped me see that what I had was a theory. She helped me put it into practice.
“The results were amazing. A committed staff got behind the program. And the community partners got behind it. What keeps the fire burning inside me is the kids. Our students. Instead of telling them what they were doing wrong, (telling them to) quit, and giving them the consequence and sending them out the door, and started asking them ‘What’s going on?’ and they started telling me, that drove connection. I was wondering, my god, how do they even make it to school?
“So my transformation was the kids, and their stories. As a staff we were so committed to creating a culture to help them transform. But what they gave back? I will never be able to match that.”
He also spoke of how Stevens had mentored him during a difficult time, when she said, “Jim, this is a new chapter,” as he was leaving public education as a principal. Stevens and Felitti told Jamie Redford to visit Lincoln High School, “and that is how “Paper Tigers” happened.”
“The one moment that continues to drive my conversation was when I truly understood the ‘power of one.’ The science directs us and shows us the power of one, whether it’s school or social services. If we can be that one caring adult, the power of one can change a lifepath from hoplesness to hope.”
Martha Davis, senior program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Martha Davis, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, met Stevens in 2013 when ACEs Connection had 800 members.
“Congratulations to you and your team — all of you all who I know work so hard and have really built this against some pretty strong odds. You’re up against strong odds now, and I have full confidence in your odds to keep this afloat.”
Dave Ellis, executive director of the New Jersey Office of Resilience
Dave learned about ACEs when he went to a conference in California and stumbled into a room where Felitti was doing a presentation about the ACE Study. Like many who learned about ACEs science, he had to find a way to tell people about it. In 2012, Dave facilitated establishing the first training that Laura Porter and Dr. Rob Anda (co-founder of the ACE Study) did in the U.S., in Minnesota. These many years later, he has been tapped to lead the first state resilience office in the U.S. “It has been for me a great opportunity both to do the work and to learn,” said Dave. “There were so many things that were happening here before I got here. It is the only office of its kind. The Office of Resilience resides in the Department of Family and Children but we are not a part of a state agency. We actually infiltrate every state agency in New Jersey, and are pushing them towards becoming trauma-informed and healing-centered. So that’s the work.”
As the former director of the Waupaca County (Illinois) Health and Human Services and vice president of the Wisconsin County Human Service Association, Chuck Price “made the public health department integrate ACEs science in a way I don’t think anybody had before,” said Stevens.
The county had a population of about 53,000 people. “We used ACEs science and trauma informed care to really transform the agency, to change the culture,” he said. We did it all for the people coming in the door. We wanted to be sure people were coming to us, the trusted entity. So we wanted to use the science to help folks feel trust.
“So we trained everybody in the agency on what is ACEs (science), what is trauma-informed care. And in doing that, in the helping profession, we find that 32% of our staff had four or more ACEs. So that put a whole different lens on staff support, to be able to do the work every day. We put a lot of work into changing our culture and supporting our staff through that, which in turn provided this incredible service back to the folks we are serving.
“It didn’t come easily at first, but it all made sense in terms of how do we want to run a health and human service agency. It really spoke to me and we had tons of support. At the time we had First Lady (Tonette) Walker, Casey Family Programs was really involved, and had the chance to meet Jim (Sporleder), who was a real mentor.
“We were lucky enough in time and place to be trailblazers.”
Florida Judge Lynn Tepper talked about the impact ofSafe Baby Courts, and the work she and her colleague, Mimi Graham, Ph.D., director of Florida State University’s Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy, have done with children in Florida.
“Dr. Mimi Graham of Florida State University, who started the Early Childhood Center at Tallahassee is the one who introduced me (to ACEs science), and we started teaching whoever would let us teach it to judges, lawyers, stakeholders in the justice system.
“I did a lot of teaching and also worked with the National Council of Juvenile Family Court judges, and my court became a model court, so I had meetings nine times a year with local stakeholders. The stakeholders — the ones who were touching people’s lives, be it within the schools, within the mental health, within the business community — they knew what toxic stress was, so that they understood the impact of trauma. This would remind them that we need to stop asking ‘What did you do wrong?’ and instead ask ‘What happened to you?’
“We would bring in trauma informed therapists, and show “Paper Tigers,” and we had panels and invited large groups of people to see “Paper Tigers.” This became part of my court and other courts in my circuit. Our juvenile detention center is so trauma-informed that kids don’t want to go home.
“In 2018 we got Dr. Vincent Felitti to come in and teach all the circuit judges in the state. We did an anonymous ACEs survey and found that in 2018, circuit court judges had higher ACEs scores than the original 17,000 people from the first ACEs survey. But they always had high scores of resiliency.
“I still do lots of teaching, trying to embed this. I am trying to get my old law school and local university to embed in their education teaching trauma informed care and adverse childhood experiences. If we don’t teach the people who will become the social workers, lawyers, judges, we will lose a lot of people. When they see through a trauma lens, it will never be the same!”
You are ACEs Connection
Stevens then thanked the ACEs Connection staff and members of the site, saying “ACEs Connection is you and is obviously all the 50,000 people who are part of it.”
“I am so lucky to have gone with my gut on this and to have this come out of it. All we are doing is making sure this keeps going and we keep doing what Jim Sporleder said, which is making a difference and changing people’s lives, and bringing more light into their lives. And we can do that for the whole world, no doubt!”
The scores of people, comments, and thank-yous in the chat are uplifting, inspiring, and telling. Here they are, along with some of the resources mentioned during the call:
CHAT
Name and location
15:01:07 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Johnson City TN
15:01:08 From Tina Hallock to Everyone : Ithaca NY
15:01:11 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : Los Angeles
15:01:11 From Christa Detzel to Everyone : Plainfield, IN
15:01:11 From denise connors to Everyone : New Brunswick, Canada
15:01:14 From Madison McHugh to Everyone : Newark, NJ
15:01:14 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : Summit New Jersey
15:01:14 From Tobi Newman to Everyone : Vancouver, BC, Canada
15:01:15 From Shawnette Goodman to Everyone : Lawrenceville NJ
15:01:15 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Philadelphia PA
15:01:15 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : Louisville, KY
15:01:16 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Peterborough, NH
15:01:16 From Chuck Price to Everyone : Wisconsin Rapids WI
15:01:17 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Windsor, Ontario, Canada
15:01:18 From Melissa Backes to Everyone : Trenton NJ
15:01:19 From Clarissa Wentworth to Everyone : Redding, California
15:01:19 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : Walla Walla, WA
15:01:20 From Tim Ryan to Everyone : Issaquah , WA.
15:01:21 From Charlea Wetzel to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:22 From Alicia Bowker to Everyone : New Jersey!
15:01:22 From Dwana Young to Everyone : New Jersey!!
15:01:22 From Deb Timmerman to Everyone : Wayland, MI
15:01:23 From Michelle Kennedy to Everyone : Toms River NJ
15:01:23 From Judith Green to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:24 From Rick Hager to Everyone : Rick Hager
Community Outreach Coordinator
Office of Communications, Legislative and Public Affairs
New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF)
PO Box 729
Trenton, NJ 08625
C: (609) 947-7505
Richard.hager@dcf.nj.gov
15:01:24 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : Ursuline MInistries, Youngstown, OH
15:01:25 From Melen Vue to Everyone : Sacramento, CA
15:01:25 From Susan Shaw to Everyone : St. Louis
15:01:25 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Auckland, NZ
15:01:25 From Catherine Campbell to Everyone : Catherine Campbell, California
15:01:26 From Elizabeth Smith to Everyone : Sonoma County, California
15:01:26 From Jenna Quinn(she/hers) – ACEs Connection Staff to Everyone : Cambridge, MA
15:01:27 From Madison McHugh to Everyone : New Jersey!
15:01:27 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Hilton Head Island, South Carolina!
15:01:30 From Jim Hickman to Everyone : Oakland, CA!
15:01:31 From Ann Boerth to Everyone : Minnesota
15:01:31 From Dawn Marlow to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:33 From Carol Kirkbride to Everyone : New Jersey!
15:01:34 From Melissa McPheeters to Everyone : Tacoma, WA
15:01:34 From Gloria Richardson to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:35 From Teresa Heyer to Everyone : Trenton NJ
15:01:36 From Teresa Barrett to Everyone : Montreal, Canada
15:01:36 From Lorna Minewiser to Everyone : Sacramento CA
15:01:37 From Aileen Journett to Everyone : Ridgefield Park, NJ
15:01:37 From Kelly Szewczyk to Everyone : NJ
15:01:38 From Katrina to Everyone : Edmonton Alberta Canada
15:01:38 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : Hi everyone. Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins from Durham North Carolina
15:01:39 From Natalie Audage to Everyone : Davis, California
15:01:41 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Los Angeles
15:01:41 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : Washington, DC
15:01:44 From steven mendez to Everyone : Belford, New Jersey
15:01:45 From Shawnette Goodman to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:47 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Raymond in Ireland
15:01:49 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : New Jersey
15:01:49 From Nancy Caruso to Everyone : NJ
15:01:51 From Adrian Alexander to Everyone : Caribbean
15:01:54 From Stephanie Ostrow to Everyone : NJ!
15:01:54 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Sorry I don’t have a camera!!
15:02:01 From Carol vivona to Everyone : Jeanne Vivona NJ
15:02:09 From Dan Press to Everyone : dan Press, Washington DC
What is your work or volunteer role?
15:02:26 From Deb Timmerman to Everyone : Consulting
15:02:27 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : Education policy
15:02:28 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Philanthropy/Public Health
15:02:28 From Clarissa Wentworth to Everyone : Public Health
15:02:29 From denise connors to Everyone : healthcare
15:02:29 From Susan Shaw to Everyone : Social Services
15:02:32 From Dawn Marlow to Everyone : Child Welfare
15:02:32 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Education
15:02:32 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : Child Protection
15:02:32 From Aileen Journett to Everyone : Child Protective Services (State)
15:02:32 From Kate Mackinnon to Everyone : Healthcare
15:02:33 From Madison McHugh to Everyone : Philanthropy
15:02:33 From Lara Kain to Everyone : ACEsConnection and Education
15:02:33 From Christa Detzel to Everyone : Wellness Counselor at a high School
15:02:34 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : Amanda in Berkeley, CA – hospital chaplain
15:02:34 From Michelle Kennedy to Everyone : Child welfare
15:02:34 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Education / advocacy
15:02:34 From steven mendez to Everyone : Child protection
15:02:35 From Rick Hager to Everyone : Rick Hager
Community Outreach Coordinator
15:02:35 From Madison McHugh to Everyone : philanthropy
15:02:35 From Carol vivona to Everyone : Social work
15:02:36 From Catherine Campbell to Everyone : Advocate – California Protective Parents Association
15:02:37 From Alicia Bowker to Everyone : Child Abuse Prevention – State Government
15:02:38 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : I’m in Social Services
15:02:38 From Shawnette Goodman to Everyone : Child Welfare
15:02:38 From Tim Ryan to Everyone : Family Support
15:02:38 From Alina Kitchell to Everyone : education/homeless/foster
15:02:40 From Lorna Minewiser to Everyone : Coaching and training
15:02:40 From Shawnette Goodman to Everyone : Department of Children and Families
15:02:41 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : Faith-Based and community outreach
15:02:42 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : social work
15:02:42 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : ACEs Connection….community organizing, media, etc.
15:02:44 From Tina Hallock to Everyone : family support in schools
15:02:45 From Nancy Caruso to Everyone : Child and Family Services State agency
15:02:46 From Chuck Price to Everyone : Child welfare/human services consulting
15:02:48 From Tobi Newman to Everyone : non-profit for at-risk youth
15:02:49 From Dwana Young to Everyone : DCF Office of Resilience
15:02:49 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : TIC trainer/coach for child care providers
15:02:50 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : residential treatment
15:02:50 From Ann Boerth to Everyone : Government – Policy
15:02:50 From Tasneem Ismailji to Everyone : Tasneem Ismailji -health
15:02:52 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Complimentary therapies
15:02:52 From Elizabeth Smith to Everyone : A mix of it all
15:02:52 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Founder, HERE this NOW
15:02:52 From Linda Manaugh to Everyone : Community Manager with Raising Resilient Oklahomans
15:02:54 From Teresa Barrett to Everyone : health coaching & fitness
15:02:55 From Gina Pearson to Everyone : Children Mental Health – Department of Children and Families
15:02:55 From James Encinas to Everyone : Education
15:02:56 From Charlea Wetzel to Everyone : Child Welfare
15:02:58 From Gloria Richardson to Everyone : Department of Children and Families
15:03:01 From Melissa Backes to Everyone : DCF Contracting
15:03:02 From Sofia Noncent-Johnson to Everyone : State Government- Substance Use (Prevention)
15:03:03 From Kaysie Getty to Everyone : Child Welfare
15:03:04 From Kathy Straley to Everyone : Social Service Children & Families
15:03:08 From Melissa McPheeters to Everyone : Head Start
15:03:08 From Stephanie Ostrow to Everyone : Child Care Resource and Referral Agency
15:03:14 From Lashea Brickle to Everyone : DCPP Essex Area Office, FC Project Court Liaison
15:03:25 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : The Healing Place Podcast host/producer, speaker, trauma-warrior, writer, therapy-dog handler
15:03:26 From Catherine Ali to Everyone : Conflict transformation
15:03:35 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : DCPP Newark NJ
15:03:42 From Tia Sanders to Everyone : Children’s System of Care NJ
15:03:48 From Carol Kirkbride to Everyone : Children’s system of care!
15:04:46 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Elizabeth Perry Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia
15:05:03 From Joy Thomas to Everyone : Joy Thomas, ACE Resource Network, Philanthropy, Outreach, Awareness, Education, Empowerment
How did you feel when you learned about ACEs science?
15:05:07 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : ENERGIZED
15:05:10 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : When I learned about ACEs Science I was scared to death.
15:05:10 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Relief
15:05:15 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : IT CHANGED MY LIFE!!!
15:05:16 From Deb Timmerman to Everyone : Finally understood my self
15:05:17 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : empowered,
15:05:20 From Teresa Barrett to Everyone : Aha!
15:05:20 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : such common sense codified with research
15:05:20 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : Not surprised
15:05:20 From Cissy White to Everyone : Life-changing validation!
15:05:21 From Carol Kirkbride to Everyone : understanding
15:05:21 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Extremely excited
15:05:22 From Mary Giuliani to Everyone : Stunned,
15:05:23 From Kate Mackinnon to Everyone : validated
15:05:23 From Tim Ryan to Everyone : Solutions
15:05:24 From Tina Hallock to Everyone : compassionate, relieved, understanding
15:05:25 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : relieved
15:05:25 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : Relieved, heard, seen, a path forward, game changers
15:05:26 From James Encinas to Everyone : Life Changing
15:05:26 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Like I’d heard the cure for cancer. It had to be urgently shared!
15:05:26 From Dwana Young to Everyone : motivated
15:05:27 From Charlea Wetzel to Everyone : Enlightening
15:05:27 From Christa Detzel to Everyone : Validated in terms of needing a more holistic approach to treatment
15:05:27 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : Transforming
15:05:29 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : Finally understood
15:05:31 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : I felt understood
15:05:31 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Mobilized and Ready
15:05:32 From Ann Boerth to Everyone : An AHA Moment
15:05:32 From Sharon Kelly to Everyone : eye-opening, hopeful, educational
15:05:33 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Aha
15:05:33 From Sofia Noncent-Johnson to Everyone : Confirmation
15:05:34 From denise connors to Everyone : All the pieces fell into place! Finally, the science means I can advocate for change in the healthcare system
15:05:35 From Gina Pearson to Everyone : vulnerable ; resilient; connected; strong; relieved; validated
15:05:36 From Mary Giuliani to Everyone : Deshaming
15:05:36 From Chuck Price to Everyone : Helped me transform an entire Human Service Dept!
15:05:39 From Shawnette Goodman to Everyone : enlightened
15:05:44 From Lorna Minewiser to Everyone : It helped me understand myself and clients.
15:05:45 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : General & natural progression from being with Alice Miller
15:05:48 From Nancy Caruso to Everyone : Excited, very interested in learning more
15:05:49 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Missing piece of the puzzle.
15:05:50 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : I was intrigued and excited. Changed the way I practice Social Work!
15:05:50 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : Generational healing
15:05:51 From Tina Hallock to Everyone : not alone
15:05:51 From Catherine Campbell to Everyone : Named what we have all seen – lives will be saved!
15:05:52 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : Clarity and why is it not part of education and any human service pedagogy
15:05:58 From Susan Shaw to Everyone : Alarmed about the consequences, but made so much sense
15:06:02 From Dawn Marlow to Everyone : healing
15:06:08 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Set me on my legacy project path.
15:06:11 From Elizabeth Smith to Everyone : Relief, validation, I wasn’t alone, hope, inspired, purpose
15:06:29 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Validated. Excited for connections/resources. Inspirational guests for the podcast!
15:06:33 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : finally ACEs being validated and working on moving forward
15:06:34 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : stunned, amazed, enlightened, made common sense, understood myself and family,
15:06:53 From Peter Chiavetta to Everyone : aces would save this nation.
15:06:55 From Drew Factor to Everyone : the lens through which I see the world shifted
15:06:56 From Dianne Couts to Everyone : I was relieved for myself and became more helpful to others.
15:07:04 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Connected
15:07:12 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Love what you said, Peter!
15:07:18 From Natalie Audage to Everyone : Like everyone needed to know about it!
15:07:20 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : hello my west-coast friend!
How did you feel when you learned about ACEs science?
15:07:44 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Found my tribe!
15:07:46 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : grateful
15:07:47 From Tina Hallock to Everyone : CONNECTED!!
15:07:47 From Christa Detzel to Everyone : Excited for the resource
15:07:48 From Tia Sanders to Everyone : clarity
15:07:49 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Thrilled and connected
15:07:49 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Like I met long lost family members
15:07:50 From Lara Kain to Everyone : My people!
15:07:51 From Deb Timmerman to Everyone : Empowered and connected
15:07:56 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : Collaborative movements are so powerful
15:07:57 From Rafael Maravilla to Everyone : Finally!!
15:07:57 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : Stumbled on it when doing research
15:07:59 From denise connors to Everyone : stumbled upon a treasure trove of resources!
15:07:59 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : I didn’t know it was a movement! Very excited!
15:08:00 From Teresa Barrett to Everyone : Community
15:08:02 From Mary Giuliani to Everyone : I finally have a safe community who understands me!!!
15:08:04 From Melissa Backes to Everyone : Hopeful
15:08:06 From ACEs Connection to Everyone : “What an amazing community of caring and passionate people!”
15:08:06 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Thrilled that there was someplace that I could find others like ME! Nerd out and be supported!
15:08:09 From Catherine Campbell to Everyone : Bravo to Jane to bring us all together and move to change and healing.
15:08:09 From Dwana Young to Everyone : The LinkedIn of ACEs Resources
15:08:09 From Lorna Minewiser to Everyone : Relieved, excited, curious, and welcomed
15:08:11 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : Community and Connection!!
15:08:12 From Drew Factor to Everyone : I found my people!
15:08:12 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Wonderful family and forum to join with. End of isolation !
15:08:13 From Cissy White to Everyone : Thrilled to have communications among ALL no matter education, past, etc.
15:08:14 From Rumyana Kudeva to Everyone : belonging to a bigger than me movement
15:08:15 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : I found a reason why I was as I am
15:08:16 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : There would be no Paper Tigers without Jane
15:08:16 From Chuck Price to Everyone : Great to have a network of rockstars to tap into!
15:08:20 From Sofia Noncent-Johnson to Everyone : We are more alike than different!
15:08:23 From Gina Pearson to Everyone : Found grace and accountability
15:08:24 From Clarissa Wentworth to Everyone : Excited to connect with so many passionate people around the world
15:08:28 From Mary Lou Lamont to Everyone : learning and extending my understanding of ACES and affect on lives
15:08:30 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : I was thrilled to learn what other communities are doing to educate people and find new resources for my practice
15:08:30 From Dawn Marlow to Everyone : like having another family
15:08:32 From tian dayton to Everyone : Glad you were doing this
15:08:39 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : that one person, Jane Stevens, could see what was needed and made it happened…
15:08:41 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : I felt I found my community. I wasn’t doing it alone.
15:08:42 From James Encinas to Everyone : It has become a great resource and connection with great individuals.
15:08:48 From Donna Nakazawa to Everyone : So grateful to meet Jane and see her taking this science into the world in a way that changed the world
15:08:50 From Peter Chiavetta to Everyone : the connection gave me the support to push envelope.
15:08:56 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : The only way to truly heal is in relationship, and ACEsConnwcction could help with that.
15:08:57 From Sue Shaw to Everyone : Connections!!!
15:09:09 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Beautiful community of survivors, thrivers, advocates and inspirational souls!
15:09:34 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Finally feel understood
15:09:37 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Hi Jane !
15:09:54 From Cissy White to Everyone : Love These!!!
15:10:00 From Kate Mackinnon to Everyone : Cheers Jane! You’re a rockstar
15:11:01 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Jane’s hard work, perseverance and love have built a movement. Thank you Jane!
15:11:03 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Thank you, Jane!!! You gave my voice a place to be heard
15:12:01 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Ohhh, the things you have done and started, Jane. Thank you for giving me HOPE
15:12:53 From Dianne Couts to Everyone : What, How, Why – I love the Golden Circle!
15:13:09 From Linda Manaugh to Everyone : Thanks to Jane and the entire AC team for all you have made possible through this amazing community!
15:14:51 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : You give us a place to gather.
15:15:19 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Hi Cissy !
15:15:38 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Stopping Generational Trauma!
15:16:00 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Love seeing you Cis!! You were on my mind this morning!
15:16:18 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : I love figuring it out together!!!
15:16:21 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Thank you so much to our donors, supporters, members!
15:16:31 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Your being here is a gift!
15:16:32 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : Such AWESOME staff! ❤
15:16:49 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : I feel the same . . . it takes a village. Thank you for creating this one. So many inspirational trauma-warriors and healing advocates.
15:20:03 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : Often when I teach, I quote from the powerful and memorable shared stories on ACEs Connection. It makes such an impact
15:20:13 From Madison McHugh, Turrell Fund to Everyone : Go Ann! Thank you for representing the NJ ACEs work and being part of the community.
15:25:29 From Cissy White to Everyone : Beautiful site and work – Dwana!
15:25:32 From Dianne Couts to Everyone : Dwana – Thank you – Impressive site as well.
15:26:27 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : YES Dwana! Great work!
15:26:37 From Dwana Young to Everyone : Please note that all emails send on the site will directly go to my email
15:26:58 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : Dwana, So exciting what you are doing here in NJ. Ann
15:27:04 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : Great New Jersey site…so much news and inspiration
15:27:04 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Love the pearls Carey!
15:27:16 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Jim Sporleder ! I want to stop and salute you all especially here tonight. Alone I think I am with the view, that Paper Tigers *IS* the most important film/documentary on the market, if we want to deal with schools, institutions, prisons, and even, the general population. THANK YOU ! Raymond from Ireland
15:28:05 From Jim Hickman to Everyone : Jane Stevens = “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
15:29:21 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : This is God sent for me!! My prayers answered!
15:29:32 From Margaret Gismonde to Everyone : DCP & P-Camden South-Resource Development Specialist
15:30:17 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Thank you Dwana!
15:30:20 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : So happy to get validation for my point of view, that Paper Tigers IS so important. Thank you for this Jane
15:30:43 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : Sure!
15:30:49 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : Please share the link to that story. Thanks.
15:30:58 From Dwana Young to Everyone : Paper Tigers 🐅
15:31:45 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : I call you the trauma-informed guru! Just love you, Jim, and am so grateful to know you and now call you my friend. Such a gift you offer with your light and work. Thank you!
15:32:36 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : And the documentary Paper Tigers is available on Amazon Prime!
15:32:59 From Kathryn Stinely to Everyone : Paper Tigers and your work has been shared throughout our district’s health services. Has really shifted the way we approach so many student issues. Thank you for all you have done.
15:34:15 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Paper Tigers is free for members of Amazon Prime.
15:34:31 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Right!!! Not why he or she is acting that way, but instead what happened to he or she!!!
15:34:33 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : Maria Margaritis – LOVE your background screen OXOXO
15:35:20 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Thank you Karen Clemmer! Canna.com
15:35:27 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : This is so moving, what an inspiration. Thank you Jim and Jane.
15:35:39 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : God bless James Redford and KPJR!
15:35:46 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Canva.com typo
15:35:46 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Jane makes things happen.
15:35:50 From Cissy White to Everyone : I love hearing this!!!!
15:36:34 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : Jane is the Master Connector! ❤
15:36:47 From Lara Kain to Everyone : #betheone
15:36:50 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : #onecaringadult
15:36:53 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : or a court setting.
15:36:54 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : I talk about it often
15:37:02 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : so so important
15:37:28 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : I heard about Paper Tigers and TI Practices through the Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children and Adolescents & Star Commonwealth
15:37:55 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : I do the same Jim!
15:37:59 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : absolutely! I did the same thing… no matter who I come in connection with. giving HOPE and connections
15:38:09 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : YES Judge Tepper!
15:38:26 From Dianne Couts to Everyone : So many people are beaten down all day, every day. A smile, a kind word, an affirmation can mean the world to people we meet.
15:38:37 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Relationships, relationships, relationships. How are we interacting with each other?
15:38:56 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : JUST ONE!
15:39:00 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : I love it. When I visited Denver to see my son, my uber driver builds schools in Africa in his off time. He has a Netflix show about him. So awesome!
15:39:02 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : the other key in these individual connections I find is, it helps to lift the shame that society and others have put on them
15:39:18 From Mary Lou Lamont to Everyone : love that. wrapped in love
15:39:21 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Again, AMEN Judge Tepper. Lifting shame is life-saving.
15:39:32 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Support systems are crucial
15:39:39 From Emily Daniels to Everyone : Jim, you have been an incredible friend, mentor, and leader in this movement. Very grateful for you! Will always be1
15:39:50 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : #ACEs #ACEsScience
15:39:56 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Amen Emily!
15:40:10 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : I connected to one person and she told me that my words stopped her from ending her life. Completely amazed and all I did was talk and smile.
15:40:13 From Rafael Maravilla to Everyone : #PCEs
15:40:21 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : God Bless you Jim!!
15:40:22 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Agree, Emily!
15:40:31 From Chuck Price to Everyone : Thank you for your friendship and mentorship Jim! Forever grateful!
15:40:35 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : You’re the best Jim.
15:40:36 From Jonathan Wilson to Everyone : Good morning from Tokyo
15:40:40 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : CHEERS to Jim!!
15:40:51 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Jim has inspired us all!!
15:40:53 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Can’t wait to see you in person again Jim!
15:41:01 From Virginia Hayman to Everyone : thank you so much Jim, powerful words
15:42:01 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : Your experience, Jim Sporleder, helped to open the eyes of so many key stakeholders in our Communities in Florida when we showed the Paper Tigers a few years ago.Thank you!
15:42:11 From Tim Ryan to Everyone : Amazing leaders, thanks so much!
15:42:50 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : My new Movement!!!!
15:43:16 From Jonathan Wilson to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : Hi Carey – joining in late
15:44:40 From denise connors to Everyone : THe wise women club!!
15:44:47 From Jonathan Wilson to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : Japan
15:45:05 From Jonathan Wilson to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : OpSAFE International
15:45:51 From Dan Press to Everyone : Jane — Thank you for all you have done. You were available to answer all my uninformed questions way back 6 or 7 years ago when I was just trying to learn about ACEs and have been an inspiration ever since. You and your wonderful team are a joy to work with.
15:46:31 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : On WISCONSIN! The first Trauma Informed STATE!
15:47:27 From Mary Lou Lamont to Everyone : That is very interesting to learn.
15:48:05 From tian dayton to Everyone : I am so touched by hearing about the work you are doing with kids and in communities
15:48:14 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : My organization is in the process of becoming Sanctuary Certified which is a trauma informed organization framework.
15:48:30 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : Chuck is the real deal, contact him as an amazing resource. A true warrior for those we serve.
15:49:59 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Go Chuck! We have been so inspired by your work!
15:50:46 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Infiltrate!
15:50:48 From Mary Lou Lamont to Everyone : Impressive
15:50:48 From gail kennedy to Everyone : So much to learn from NJ!
15:51:02 From Dwana Young to Everyone : That’s my BOSS!!
15:51:12 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Gail, I was just thinking the same thing! I want to move there!
15:51:15 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : i love it: infiltrate the state agencies!
15:51:59 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Many thanks to all the ACES Connection staff as well…just had a zoom with Jenna. Also get support for community managers from Alison Cebulla, Karen Clemmer, Donielle Prince, Lara Kain, Gail Kennedy, Ingrid Cockran…..apologies for misspelling of names I do it with love There are so many more who have helped me set up as a community manager here in NZ
15:52:05 From gail kennedy to Everyone : I really love how they are not embedded in any state agency. that is SO IMPORTANT!
15:52:15 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Aces Connection is GLOBAL!!!!
15:52:50 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : Adriana van Altvorst OXOXOX Thank YOU!!
15:53:00 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : Thanks Adriana!
15:53:15 From Carey Sipp to jane stevens(Direct Message) : Also Jonathan Wilson from OPsafe in JAPAN – helping us take ACEs to Japan. 6 a.m there.
15:53:16 From James Encinas to Everyone : Great to see you Dave, Happy to hear that you are bringing the work to New Jersey.
15:53:41 From Donielle (she/hers) to Everyone : Sharing about Judge Tepper’s work, via the ACEs Connection story, made such a big splash at a presentation I did for federal public defenders in CA. Such amazing, compelling work!
15:53:51 From Sarah Peyton to Everyone : It’s been such an amazing, radical pleasure to be here today and to hear all the folks sharing their work and passion – it’s balm for my soul. Just a note about the free Resonance Summit March 18-21 with keynoters Stephen Porges, Deb Dana, Bonnie Badenoch and Ruth Lanius, all speaking about the power of relational connection to heal trauma and make brains good places to live. https://sarahpeyton.com/the-resonance-summit/
15:54:09 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : I share the information with relevant people in NZ….consistently persistent….that is how we learn getting repeated exposure to good practice and better ways
15:54:09 From Carey Sipp to Sarah Peyton(Direct Message) : SO glad you are here!
15:54:33 From Sarah Peyton to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : It brings me to tears to be here – thank you for inviting me-
15:54:33 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Baby Courts so valuable ….trying to get that into NZ too
15:54:42 From Donielle (she/hers) to Everyone : Thanks for being such a consistent ambassador – champion! – Adriana!
15:55:01 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : We need Rotary International to become a “channel partner”
15:55:12 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : Love and humility
15:55:34 From Hyacinth Charles to Everyone : Could a nation wide focus on teaching Police Officers toxic stress make a difference in the way they work?
If you could say anything to Jane Stevens, what would you say?
15:56:03 From Sarah Peyton to Everyone : Bone deep gratitude – cellular gratitude!
15:56:05 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : THANK YOU JANE!!
15:56:08 From denise connors to Everyone : Thank you for your vision, mentorship and perseverance!
15:56:09 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : I would say thank you for the large scope and vision!
15:56:10 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : I just did a webinar for social workers in Canada and we had 800 register. This is how the work can move when we finally get enough people interested. It just explodes.
15:56:14 From Rafael Maravilla to Everyone : Thank you! (hug)
15:56:14 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : Yes! @Lynn!
15:56:22 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : I am a consistent ambassador….I learned from great role models and fully supported
15:56:23 From Deb Timmerman to Everyone : Thanks for being a trailblazer!
15:56:24 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Heartfelt thanks Jane for your leadership and friendship! 5,000 strong WILL happen
15:56:24 From tian dayton to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : Love your focus on getting the trauma informed care and understanding in the agencies and institutions of the communities, it’s worth everything
15:56:34 From James Encinas to Everyone : THANK YOU JANE!!!
15:56:40 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Thank you Jane. And delighted to see you looking so well
15:56:48 From Donielle (she/hers) to Everyone : Thank you for your vision and perseverance Jane!
15:56:48 From tian dayton to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : And same to you Carey and Allison for your dedication!
15:56:51 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Ripple effect…..
15:57:03 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : Jane, thank you for being such a wonderful friend, mentor, resource and such an amazing national leader.
15:57:27 From Lorna Minewiser to Everyone : Thank you for all you’ve done and all you do.
15:57:27 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Such an honor to work here!
15:57:34 From Tobi Newman to Everyone : Thank you so much, Jane.
15:57:34 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Thank you Jane for your courage and vision.
15:57:37 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Jane you are a friend, mentor, visionary leader, brave warrior. Thank you!
15:57:37 From Ann Borowiec to Everyone : great leadership
15:57:43 From Jarett White to Everyone : great job!! thank you!!
15:57:43 From Sue Shaw to Everyone : Thank you for being a lifeline for so many!
15:57:43 From Sylvia Paull to Everyone : Jane, you did it and are changing the world.
15:57:51 From Marisela Chavez to Everyone : Thank you to all who bring TIC to the world!
15:57:52 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : Jane Stevens idea has transformed the lives of innumerable individuals as well as for generations to come
15:57:52 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Wonderful staff!! Love them all
15:57:53 From Virginia Hayman to Everyone : Thank you for all of your hard work throughout the years. I appreciate it.
15:57:56 From Rumyana Kudeva to Everyone : Thank you for making a path for all of us.
15:57:56 From Mary Giuliani to Everyone : Thanks you so much Jane for being such a huge catalyst in transforming my life and the lives of millions of other with childhood trauma!
15:57:57 From Sharon Kelly to Everyone : Thank you for you patience and commitment to sharing this with all to better our world.
15:57:57 From Jim Sporleder to Everyone : Wow! What an amazing team of compassionate, and gifted staff.
15:57:58 From Hyacinth Charles to Everyone : Awesome vision and determination. I imagine it wasn’t easy initially. Congratulations!!!!!!
15:58:00 From Tim Ryan to Everyone : Fabulous Work Jane and Team
15:58:07 From Mary Lou Lamont to Everyone : Thank You Jane. Just started learning about ACEs and appreciate connecting here
15:58:13 From Tia Sanders to Everyone : Thank you for the courage to think outside the box and for risk everything to you did to challenge the paradigm necessary to change the world. thank you for applying knowledge in a practical life changing way.
15:58:15 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Thank you, Jane, for this inspirational community of hope, healing, and resilience-building tools. Just . . . thank you!
15:58:16 From Jim Hickman to Everyone : Thank you, Jane, and the Aces Connections team, for bringing us together with you on this journey!
15:58:19 From Dr. Cynthia Samuel PhD, RN to Everyone : So glad I joined. Heartfelt congratulations for a job truly well done!!
15:58:20 From Mildred Class-Ramirez to Everyone : Thank you Jane for your vision and dedication. This will help many.
15:58:20 From Amanda Coggin to Everyone : Thank you, Jane, for helping to shift our society from suffering to healing
15:58:21 From Karen Hayden to Everyone : Jane your purpose launched a platform that will leave a legacy of compassion for overcoming childhood adversity!
15:58:28 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : Grateful to be a part of this important work!
15:58:29 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Thank you for being genuine and passionate about this work. A role model leader.
15:58:29 From denise connors to Everyone : Cissy! Don’t forget Cissy
15:58:32 From Natalie Audage to Everyone : I’m so grateful to know you and your wonderful work. It’s an honor to work with ACEs Connection!
15:58:36 From Jeoffry Gordon to Everyone : Jane, Thanks for all your work and inspiration.Building a great compassionate community
15:58:36 From Catherine Campbell to Everyone : Jane, thank you for following your heart and being the catalyst for moving ACEs forward. We all benefit from your love and care. I am forever grateful for you!
15:58:38 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : I am in love with the Movement!!!
15:58:38 From Clarissa Wentworth to Everyone : Thank you for creating such a huge community! You have provided me with so much information that I’ve been incorporating into my work and life
15:58:45 From Dave Ellis to Everyone : Exceptionally GREAT work!!!
15:58:45 From Daniel Sumrok to Everyone : The work is changing medical care ,addictions care,education, justice and corrections where I live.
15:58:47 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : Thank you Jane for your vision and the audacity to believe in it! ACES Connection and this network have been a wonderful resource!
15:58:51 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : Jane has been my friend and mentor since 8th grade…how lucky can a person be?
15:58:58 From Daniel Sumrok to Everyone : Love Jane!
15:58:59 From Donna Nakazawa to Everyone : Jane you’re a brilliant genius of creating and connection, coupled with the biggest and kindest heart — and you never stop using both to change the planet one heart one community at a time. Congratulations Jane! I love you! Such a joy to know you and witness how you are changing the world. Much love.
15:59:04 From tian dayton to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : and Carey Sipp….
15:59:05 From Kathryn Stinely to Everyone : Thank you so much for being a conduit of information and role model for how to be a change agent. The ripple effects of your work will continue to touch untold numbers of lives.
15:59:14 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Hello Dave!!! Love the work you do!! Thank you!!
15:59:27 From Becky Haas to Everyone : We love you!!
15:59:28 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : I couldn’t fit all staff in the spotlight!
15:59:34 From Teresa Barrett to Everyone : Thank you, Jane! You and your team inspiring hope and inspiration… with love from Canada (Quebec)
15:59:36 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Jane , you are a great leader…you work and walk with us, you support us and connect us. You strengthen us so that we can stand strong as one. For we do not stand as one we stand as many.
15:59:39 From Laurie Udesky to Everyone : Love you too Jane!
15:59:42 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Thank you Jane!! We appreciate you!!!
15:59:50 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Hugs!
16:00:17 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Thank you Jonathon Wilson for being here from Japan!
16:00:31 From Elizabeth Smith to Everyone : I can’t wait to meet you one day! Thank you for making this all happen. Opening doors for communication and connecting people. You are a true inspiration to me. P.S. your staff rocks, especially my amazing mentor Karen
16:00:54 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : OXOXO Elizabeth
16:01:02 From Myra Halpern to Everyone : Thank you so much! Aloha!
16:01:14 From Martha Davis to Everyone : A wonderful celebration. Goodbye everyone!
16:01:19 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Congrats on 50K . . . yay! I’ll promote the news on my social media!
16:01:21 From Leida Arce to Everyone : Thank you for your perseverance, bringing this knowledge to the masses. Those with ACEs no longer feel alone. Awesome!
16:01:26 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Thank you Alison!!
16:01:27 From RAYMOND LAMBERT to Everyone : Thank you EVERYONE who organized this !
16:01:32 From CHRISTINE BRUGLER to Everyone : ACEsConnection is the WIND BENEATH MY WINGS!
16:01:36 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Alison Cebulla, thank you for convincing me to be a CM! I have learned so much from everyone!
16:01:39 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Grateful to Jane and so many here that have become friends and mentors. xo
16:01:46 From James Encinas to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : Way to go Carey!
16:01:54 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Thanks for hosting this opportunity to celebrate all we do collectively.
16:01:56 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : To all of us for joining in and doing our bit…..together we have made this possible under the leadership of Jane and her staff
16:02:08 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Later All!
16:02:34 From Becky Haas to Everyone : We love Dan Press!!
16:02:55 From Charlea Wetzel to Everyone : Thank you and Congratulations….
16:03:13 From Dwana Young to Everyone : Trying to safe the chat. Please advise
16:03:28 From Ann Boerth to Everyone : Thank you Jane & ACEsConnection for all your support!
16:03:30 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : we have been working on some legislation in FL this session that would incorporate ACEs and Trauma assessments and E-B TIC. fingers crossed
16:03:31 From Jenna Quinn(she/hers) – ACEs Connection Staff to Everyone : Dwana, I can email you the chat if you’d like!
16:03:39 From Sabrina Bristo-Wiggins to Everyone : Trying to save the chat but unable to do so
16:03:48 From Gina Pearson to Everyone : Dwana, click the three dots next to “file”
16:04:02 From Gina Pearson to Everyone : then click “”save chat”
16:04:07 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Save the chat
16:04:11 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : I can send a link to all who registered to the recording and that will include the chat
16:04:13 From Marcia Stanton to Everyone : Jane, my upmost respect for all you’ve done and continue to do. You’re such an inspiration to all. I’m so fortunate to know you. Much love to you!.
16:04:14 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Love you Carey!
16:04:15 From Sabrina Wright-Belser to Everyone : Hello Onieka!!!
16:04:18 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : Dr Daniel Sumrock…. rocks! he changes the conversation in a critical way.
16:04:22 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : It won’t be lost!
16:04:23 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : Thank you Carey.
16:04:28 From Teri Wellbrock to Everyone : Thanks for the shout out, Carey! Love and hugs your way!
16:04:45 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : We all love you Rafael!
16:04:46 From Adriana van Altvorst to Everyone : Thanks Rafael…..
16:04:50 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Rafael I read all your blogs! Amazing work!
16:04:54 From Lynn Tepper to Everyone : Thank you Jane and Carey!
Following the call, Stevens and staff members talked about the celebration and how much it meant to them for so many people to have joined during the workday. Stevens was quick to say, “For members who missed this celebration, just wait until next year, We’ll celebrate 10 years of ACEs Connection!”
TraumaInformedJobs.com is a new job board for the trauma and resilience communities. PACEs Connection members can save 10% on posting with code PACES10
Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection, on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi’s Youth Courts.
“Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of three trainings on the Power of Hope shared with members of the Youth Courts in Mississippi this week.
Hellman is a leading researcher in the power of hope to improve the lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect. And the court-focused training programs where he presented are themselves a hope realized by Justice Dawn Beam, co-chair of the state’s Commission on Children’s Justice.
The 1,200 employees taking the one-day training work with abused and neglected children in the Youth Courts. Sessions were scheduled for Pearl, Oxford, and Gulfport.
“There is this real thirst for how we can make systemic change in our state,” Justice Beam said as she introduced Hellman at the first session.
Participants included judges and court staff, Department of Child Protection Services leaders and social workers; Department of Education school attendance officers; and representatives from the Department of Human Services, the Department of Mental Health, and various child advocacy centers and service providers. Youth Court teams from each jurisdiction will participate as groups in the interactive training.
Resident Jurist John N. Hudson of Natchez, who is among the staff helping to lead the training, said that hope needs to be infused from the top down in all Youth Court settings. “We want everything that touches this court to be hope-centered – on the juvenile delinquency side, on the child protection side – so that when we bring those social workers into the courtroom, when we bring those juvenile counselors in the courtroom, their message is: We are about hope here.”
Hellman, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a professor of social work at the University of Oklahoma and director of The Hope Research Center. His research is focused on hope as a psychological strength, helping children and adults overcome trauma and adversity. He is the co-author of the book “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”
His approach includes teaching people to do three things:
set desirable goals
identify viable pathways to goals, finding solutions to the problems that stand in the way
maintain the willpower to pursue those goals.
“Hope is the belief that the future will be better, and you have the power to make it so,” Hellman said. Here are other highlights of his remarks:
Imagination is the instrument of hope.
Hope begets hope.
Increased hope is an indicator of well-being.
The opposite of hope is apathy.
We can teach and nurture hope.
The collective hope of a group is a predictor of a group’s ability to achieve goals.
The biggest thing we can do for children is to let them know they matter.
The program agenda and training material are available here.
The Commission on Children’s Justice established Programs of HOPE to continue to address child neglect prevention. The idea is to create pathways of hope for children and families.
“We are committed to help them improve their lives,” Justice Beam said. “We believe this is possible one person, one family, one community at a time.”
The presentations are part of the Court Improvement Program. The programs are sponsored by the Commission on Children’s Justice and Casey Family Programs in cooperation with the Mississippi Judicial College.
Mental health among healthcare workers and other vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic and coronavirus outbreaks: a rapid systematic review [journals.plos.org]
By Eleonora P. Uphoff, Chiara Lombardo, Gordon Johnston et al., PLOS ONE, August 4, 2021
Abstract
Introduction
Although most countries and healthcare systems worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, some groups of the population may be more vulnerable to detrimental effects of the pandemic on mental health than others. The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise evidence currently available from systematic reviews on the impact of COVID-19 and other coronavirus outbreaks on mental health for groups of the population thought to be at increased risk of detrimental mental health impacts.
Materials and methods
We conducted a systematic review of reviews on adults and children residing in a country affected by a coronavirus outbreak and belonging to a group considered to be at risk of experiencing mental health inequalities. Data were collected on symptoms or diagnoses of any mental health condition, quality of life, suicide or attempted suicide. The protocol for this systematic review was registered in the online PROSPERO database prior to commencing the review (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/pro….php?RecordID=194264).
Results
We included 25 systematic reviews. Most reviews included primary studies of hospital workers from multiple countries. Reviews reported variable estimates for the burden of symptoms of mental health problems among acute healthcare workers, COVID-19 patients with physical comorbidities, and children and adolescents. No evaluations of interventions were identified. Risk- and protective factors, mostly for healthcare workers, showed the importance of personal factors, the work environment, and social networks for mental health.
Conclusions
This review of reviews based on primary studies conducted in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic shows a lack of evidence on mental health interventions and mental health impacts on vulnerable groups in the population.
While news of mass shootings, such as the July 4th shooting at an Independence Day Parade in Highland Park, Illinois, dominates media feeds, community gun violence takes more lives and impacts more people in the United States.
This week the PACEs Connection podcast History. Culture. Trauma, again focuses on gun violence in America, with a conversation departing from the focus on mass shootings, to instead look at community violence and solutions to community violence with policy analyst and activist Timothy Hughes.
“Whereas, active shooter situations and school shootings tend to dominate our mainstream news outlets, community gun violence is often not given as much attention,” said Ingrid Cockhren, PACEs Connection CEO and co-host of the podcast.
“Community violence overwhelmingly impacts low-income communities and communities of color. Mainstream news coverage of this type of violence seldom focuses on mental health, trauma or even real solutions. Instead, violence in these communities is often viewed through the lens of culture.” said Cockhren.
Hughes, who is currently a research fellow at The Mosaic Changemakers, is also commentator, columnist, community organizer, educator, human rights advocate, and public intellectual, working at the intersection of public policy and social justice. He’s been involved with Gideon’s Army in Nashville, Tennessee, and their group of community members called Violence Interrupters.
He recently appeared in a PACEs Connection webinar about gun violence with Cockhren, who has hosted several 2022 events to explore gun violence, including the first episode of the History, Culture, Trauma podcast in which she and PACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens discussed “How the News Media Suck at Violence Reporting” and how “integrating knowledge of the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences could help reduce and prevent violence, [and] help reduce systemic racism and its effects.”
“In this year alone, there have been more mass shootings in America than in any other year on record. Since 2020, America has been ravaged by a pandemic and endured political divide, nationwide protests and civil unrest. It is apparent that the collective traumas of the past two years have accelerated America’s already dire gun violence crisis,” said Cockhren.
According to statistics from Giffords, the gun violence information and prevention website founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, herself a victim of gun violence, in 2020 gun deaths reached their highest level in at least 40 years. Citing the Centers for Disease Control, the site reported 45,222 deaths in 2020.
Further, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death in children ages 1 – 19, according to the 2020 statistics from The New England Journal of Medicine.
Tune in Thursday at 1 p.m. PT; 4 p.m. ET, to hear more of the discussion on the community gun violence as a social justice issue, and ways to reduce community gun violence.
To hear prior episodes via your favorite podcast service, use the links below.
Note – We’re reposting this PACEs Science Champion feature by Laurie Udesky, from November 16, 2021, to share more about the life and work of Dan Press, who died yesterday. He was our remarkable friend and partner in preventing and healing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and promoting healthier, more compassionate, more resilient communities. Please see this post by Jesse Kohler for more information about Press, his life and legacy.
In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation.
Dan Press
“I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens borough of New York City. “So, I signed up and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Montana,” he says.
It was a move that changed the course of his life.
Press, an attorney and now 78 years old, has spent his entire working life fighting on behalf of Indian tribes. He helped found the Tribal Employment Rights Office in 1977, which now has 300 offices around the country. His first legal battles involved pushing for enforcement of laws passed a half a century earlier to give Native Americans preference in hiring for employment on Indian lands brought by outside agencies and firms, but until Press challenged practices and won, those laws were largely ignored.
During his long legal career from working for The Navajo-Hopi Legal Services Program for the Navajo Nation in Arizona to his work at Van Ness Feldman, a law firm in Washington, D.C., he’s also counseled Indian tribes in advancing legislation that’s resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in land settlements and the procurement of new health facilities. He helped found the first intertribal bank in the nation. Press has also been a champion of promoting trauma-informed initiatives, which in 2018 earned him a Public Advocacy award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for “Outstanding and Fundamental Contributions to Advancing the Social Understanding of Trauma.” In addition, he is the author of “A How-To Handbook on Creating Comprehensive, Integrated Trauma-Informed Initiatives in Native American Communities.”
Press is the general and legislative counsel for the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), which helps local, county and state initiatives advocate for legislation to expand trauma-informed practices across the country. He also served as general counsel for The Roundtable on Native American Trauma-informed Initiatives. Both organizations are pro bono clients of his law firm. He has taught classes on tribal government at Columbia University, including “The Holocaust and Genocide in America”, in which students looked at common themes that arose in the genocides of Native Americans and of Jews.
On his first foray into Indian land in Montana, Press tutored children and coached basketball on the Crow Indian Reservation in the southern part of the state. While there, he was approached by Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living war chief of the Crow tribe, an oral historian and writer, who chronicled the living stories of the Crow. Medicine Crow asked Press to translate Crow treaties with the federal government into everyday language. (Medicine Crow, who won a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his war time service during WW II and for his work chronicling Crow history, died in 2016). The project was a turning point for Press. “It made me interested in Indian law,” he recalls.
Fortuitously, a couple he met in Montana who had just graduated from Yale Law School, which had coursework focused on law and society, helped him transfer from Columbia Law School to Yale, where he finished law school two years later in 1968. He then headed to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona to take a job with The Navajo-Hopi Legal Services Program. He shed his urban roots enough to buy a horse, help friends herd cattle in his spare time, and he also attended native ceremonies.
strolling with horses
That experience with the legal services program gave Press a window into the lives of the people he was representing. “We knew there was a lot of beauty out there; there were a lot of beautiful traditions and wonderful people who weren’t reaching their full potential,” he says. Press got involved in employment law, “because I thought if people had jobs, that would help them overcome some of the problems like alcoholism and suicide and other major problems that people suffered on the reservation.”
That employment work, pushing for Indians to have preference in employment over non-Indians for jobs brought into the reservation, led to the establishment of the first Tribal Employment Rights Office in Window Rock. Although there were laws to give that preference, explains Press, “nobody every enforced them.”
When Press moved to Washington, eventually taking a job at the law firm Van Ness Feldman where he spent more than three decades, he continued to fight for Indian preference in employment.
“We had battles with federal agencies who said, ‘You can’t tell our federal contractors or grantees what to do.’ Now we had to show that tribal sovereign authority was stronger than any of those federal regulations. And that tribes could tell federal contractors they have to comply with Indian preference requirements of the tribe. So, a lot of it was fighting to assert tribal sovereignty, which at that point, was still a very new concept.”
As a result of Press’s efforts to push and maintain enforcement of Indian preference law, some 300 Tribal Employment Rights Offices have sprung up around the country.
Despite these victories, Press was beginning to understand that improving employment rights among native people did not mean—as he had hoped—that the societal problems on Indian reservations would go away.
“By around 2010, I started getting very disillusioned. I noticed that 40 years after I’d left the Navajo reservation, the problems that I thought would gradually dissipate were still as bad as ever—the alcoholism and the suicide and all of the other health and social problems that the tribes lead the country in,” he recalls.
He took the problem to his Columbia University students in the first course he taught on Indian tribal government.
“The issue I put before the students is how do we explain all of this dysfunctionality that we see on reservations? Why haven’t those problems decreased? We’ve seen an increase in college graduates, we’ve seen an increase in economic status, but we still have huge unemployment problems, huge substance use problems, huge suicide problems, high school dropout problems,” he says.
It was his students, says Press, who first introduced him to the concept of intergenerational and historical trauma in 2011. They had worked with professors in the university’s psychology department who were investigating how trauma from stress caused changes in genes in mice that were passed down from one generation to the next. (For an example of research around generational trauma and epigenetics, see this study. For research on Holocaust survivors and epigenetics, see this study.)
“It was after that class that I became persuaded that historical trauma was by far the most viable explanation for all for a lot of the problems that you see on reservations,” Press says.
Around the same time as the class, Press’ wife emailed him a study that she thought he should read. It was the landmark Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experience Study (ACE Study) that tied 10 types of childhood trauma, such as living with a family member who’s addicted to alcohol or is depressed, with chronic disease in adulthood. The ACE Study and subsequent research also showed links between childhood trauma and alcohol and drug abuse in adulthood.
“So, I read it and thought, ‘It really connects the dots between historical trauma and these other forms of trauma’,” says Press. “I began studying more about it and I became a convert, and thought it was one of the most important studies out there.”
In 2014, a phone call with a former client would send Press on his current path. The call was with Native American psychologist, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, whom he describes as his “guru on trauma,” who called Press up one day and said, “I never mentioned it, but I used to babysit for Senator Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, and she just called me and said: ‘Let’s have coffee. I want to just pick your brain on what issues I should be dealing with.’”
Press suggested that DeCoteau ask Heitkamp to hold a roundtable discussion on historical trauma in Indian country. Heitkamp, who said it was consistent with her interest in issues affecting children, agreed.
Press and DeCoteau brought together about 25 people in 2014 to speak, including PACEs Connection’s Elizabeth Prewitt, who described the ACE Study. DeCoteau spoke about the experience of trauma on Indian reservations, and representatives from the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin talked about their cross-sector work in implementing trauma-informed practices. (See this PACEs Connection storyfor more on this meeting.)
Heitkamp stayed put for a full hour of the three-hour roundtable, recalls Press. “Getting a senator to sit the whole hour was amazing… But as she walked out, she said, ‘I’ve walked out of this hearing room for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs depressed so many times because of all the problems people have described. This is the first time I’m walking out optimistic that maybe we have a solution!’”
That meeting gave rise to The Roundtable on Native American Trauma-informed Initiatives in 2016. While the group, led by leaders volunteering their time, including Press, is no longer active, it held meetings to inform government officials about the merits of trauma-informed programs. It also organized conferences for Native Americans, including one entitled: Calling Upon the Warrior Spirit to Heal Historical Trauma Conference and Ceremony in 2018.
In 2017, Heitkamp, along with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, introduced the Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act of 2017. Provisions of the legislation were later included in legislation signed into law in 2018 to address the nation’s burgeoning opioid epidemic. Until she lost her reelection bid to the Senate in 2019, Press says that Heitkamp remained a staunch supporter of legislation to advance trauma-informed policy.
Around the same time, Press was introduced to Dr. Sandra Bloom, a psychiatrist who was among a group of clinicians who developed a trauma-informed practices protocol known as the Sanctuary model, which has been widely disseminated around the country in schools and organizations, and Dr. Andrea Blanch, the president and director of the Center for Religious Tolerance, who trains service agencies and communities in trauma-informed practices. The two told Press of their interest in forming a national organization with leaders from across sectors to spread the word about trauma-informed practices. They just needed a place large enough to hold the meeting. Press offered up a room at his law firm.
That conversation sparked the formation of the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice, and Press, who was winding down his legal practice, jumped in. CTIPP focuses on advocating for legislation that incorporates the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs science) into federal programs and serves as a forum for trauma-informed coalitions to share ideas and resources. In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, CTIPP launched the National Trauma Campaign, which is focused on recruiting advocates for trauma-informed legislation in every Congressional district. (See the attached slide deck to learn more about the work of CTIPP.)
That effort has already produced results. “When we first started, there was really just Senator Durbin and Senator Heitkamp. Now there are probably a half dozen senators who have introduced trauma-informed legislation,” says Press. In June, Senators Durbin and Shelley Capito of West Virginia, and others introduced the Rise from Trauma Act, which would infuse trauma-informed policies into federal programs. The bill would also provide funding for community-level work on trauma-informed practices. That bill hasn’t moved yet, says Press. But he has hopes about the reconciliation bill (a.k.a. Build Back Better, click here for PACEs Connection story), which is before the House of Representatives for a vote, and includes $2.5 billion in funding, which could go towards trauma-informed community coalitions.
If that happens, he says, “we’ll achieve one of our most important goals, which is to get funding to these local coalitions because they’re springing up all over the country and you see them on PACEs Connection. But the thing they all struggle with is funding. We have a lot of great volunteers, but we don’t have funding to hire full-time staff. So as the reconciliation bill passes with the Senate for the first time, there’ll be a funding source for local trauma-informed coalitions, and that would be a huge, huge, huge win.”
Press points to the appropriations bill report that just came out of the U.S. House of Representatives as another sign of progress. It included 30 different items in which funding was provided for trauma-informed related programs.
Reflecting next steps, Press says, it’s really all about education. “We know how to help people who have suffered trauma. We know how to prevent trauma. It’s really the education piece that is the biggest barrier. If we get in front of every state legislator, every congressperson, every governor for a half an hour, and go through the [positive and adverse childhood experiences] science, I think all of the barriers would just fall like crazy.”
By The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Jan. 14, 2023 – The Poor People’s Campaign – This Martin Luther King Day, we must continue a campaign for social, political and economic rights, not simply to commemorate a man. This nation needs a different kind of Martin Luther King Day. More than a day, we are and have been, building a moral fusion movement. We need a movement led by poor and low-wage workers pushing for a Third Reconstruction and declaring that we don’t want some of our justice, we want all of our justice.Fifty years after Dr. King and other leaders like Caesar Chavez, Hank Adams, Bertha Burres, Myles Horton, welfare rights moms, the Jewish Federation and others called for a Poor People’s Campaign, poor and marginalized people across America have united not to commemorate their vision, but to consecrate a new movement that has the ability to transform the heart and soul of this nation, and the moral structures of society. The legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rev. Douglass Kirkpatrick, Jimmy Collier, Betty Mae Fikes, Mary Wright Edelman – who brought the idea of forming a Poor People’s Campaign along with The National Welfare Rights Organization – and countless unnamed leaders from the ranks of the poor is, us. We carry on their legacy by building this national campaign organized around the needs and demands of the 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this nation. With over 35 state coordinating committees across the country, we are declaring we won’t be silent anymore!
This moral fusion movement is on the move! This weekend, state campaigns from coast to coast are taking action and shaking the very chains of the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, militarism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. The actions below serve as just a few examples of our work. It is important to reiterate this because we have built, and will continue, to build a movement, not just a moment.On January 16th, the California Poor People’s Campaign is hosting readings of our Third Reconstruction Agenda as part of the launch of their new Third Reconstruction Agenda campaign: Close the Wealth Gap, CA! They started this initiative last month to celebrate the success of the GOTV efforts across the state and outlined their plans for 2023.The Maine Poor People’s Campaign held a watch party of “Moral Policy Is Good Economics” featuring our Policy Director, Shailly Gupta Barnes.Earlier this week, the Maryland Poor People’s Campaign and other social change partners gathered in Annapolis for the opening of the 2023 Maryland General Assembly and handed out fact sheets with our 2023 legislative priorities.Yesterday, the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign gathered at The Cathedral Church of St Paul, Boston prior to the unveiling of The Embrace Sculpture to discuss the work and legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.The Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign continues to sound the alarm on the decades of neglect by crying out for clean water and the right to keep it public. These are just a few examples from our statewide coordinating committees.This weekend, the New York Poor People’s Campaign will be hosting three hybrid mass meetings to lift up a new ground-breaking State of the State Report (available in both English and Spanish) which documents the prevalence of poverty and mass inequality in the state. Did you know that more than half of all children in NY State are poor or low income and that homelessness in New York City is reaching the highest levels since the Great Depression?Last month the Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign brought the lack of housing back to their State House, pointing out the “short term nature” of their Governor’s “response” to an exploding epidemic of homelessness.Indeed from Appalachia to Alabama, the Carolinas to California, the Borderlands to the Bronx, from the hood to the holler, people are uniting under the banner, “We Won’t Be Silent Anymore!!”
Last June, we held a historic, generationally transformative gathering of poor and low-wealth people at The Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls which brought over 100,000 people to DC. In addition those in the streets, digital organizers with the PPC:NCMR have tracked several million people who watched on social media. Justice is coming.
Porter Jennings-McGarity 8/3/216:21 PM
Carey Sipp 