Tag Archives: writing

50,000th-member celebration filled with long-time friends of ACEs Connection, laughter, shining examples of how the ACEs movement is growing, accelerating!

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 3/9/214:54 PM

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.

Anne Borowiec, ACEs Connection’s 50,000th member, co-chair, JerseyCAN

“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.”

The New Jersey Resiliency Coalition site is on ACEs Connection, which Young calls “the LinkedIn of ACEs science.”

“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.

Jim Sporleder, Jim Sporleder Consulting

“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.”

Chuck Price, founder, Blue Collar Consulting

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.”

Judge Lynn Tepper, retired

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.

15:20:43 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : https://www.pacesconnection.com…Resiliency-Coalition

15:20:59 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : Check out the NJ Resiliency Coalition! Join! They are doing so much!

15:21:57 From gail kennedy to Everyone : YAY!!!  GO NJ!!!!

15:22:16 From Becky Haas to Everyone : Fabulous work NJ!

15:22:42 From Martha Davis to Everyone : Proud to work in NJ!! Congrats NJ team!

15:22:46 From Madison McHugh, Turrell Fund to Everyone : Dwana, the Office of Resilience is exemplary and so are you!

15:22:55 From Elizabeth Perry to Everyone : Once it gets accepted by governments and funded, momentum moves exponentially. We need this in Canada.

15:23:46 From Chuck Price to Everyone : NJ doing some amazing work, amazing leadership!

15:24:02 From Dianne Couts to Everyone : Thank you, Diana.

15:24:14 From Virginia Hayman to Everyone : Good evening everyone

15:24:20 From Jenna Quinn(she/hers) – ACEs Connection Staff to Everyone : Amazing work & words Dwana! Excited for the NJ event next week

15:24:23 From Ericka Dickerson to Everyone : Awesome Job Dwana!! You represent NJ well!! One Band One Sound!!!

15:24:30 From Elizabeth Prewitt to Everyone : Might find this story of interest about New Jersey: https://www.pacesconnection.com…-other-key-officials

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!

15:29:24 From Dwana Young to Everyone : https://www.pacesconnection.com…Resiliency-Coalition

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 🐅

15:31:17 From jane stevens to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : https://acestoohigh.com/2012/0…-expulsions-drop-85/

15:31:26 From jane stevens to Everyone : https://acestoohigh.com/2012/0…-expulsions-drop-85/

15:31:35 From Maria Margaritis to Everyone : Brain Rules! So great.

15:31:36 From Karen Clemmer to Everyone : See Paper Tigers for free on Amazon Prime https://www.amazon.com/Paper-T…rleder/dp/B01KKYE5II

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!

15:32:08 From Lara Kain to Everyone : Same Teri

15:32:13 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : https://acestoohigh.com/2012/0…-expulsions-drop-85/

15:32:29 From gail kennedy to Everyone : and this story about a webinar that Jim did with us: https://www.pacesconnection.com…n-with-jim-sporleder

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.

15:33:31 From Carey Sipp to Everyone : Link to Paper Tigers on Amazon Prime Video https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KKYEZ1A/?ref=dvm_us_dl_sl_go_smd|m_DuSBHKksc_c256091339273&gclid=CjwKCAiAp4KCBhB6EiwAxRxbpGH_WbK4LPmDhvfMgeejq1fx4fp27tbBeRmHMPwZ4o7VEnge09W7dxoCW3QQAvD_BwE

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.

15:39:29 From gail kennedy to Everyone : https://btocalifornia.org/

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.

15:49:56 From Alison Cebulla (she/her) – ACEs Connection to Everyone : Learn more about Dave Ellis and his role here: https://www.nj.gov/dcf/news/pr…ved/200609_aces.html

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….

16:02:59 From tian dayton to Carey Sipp(Direct Message) : Giving this WORKBOOK away…….https://www.tiandayton.com/boo…ety-during-covid-19/

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!”

Attachments

Hide

Images (8)

AC 2
AC 3
AC 5
AC3
AC4
AC6
js (1)
Celebration art BEST

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 4

Views: 741

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Comments (2) 

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Becky HaasBecky HaasMember

So much fun!  Inspiring!

 

Laurie UdeskyLaurie UdeskyMember

Great write up Carey!

 

Back To Top

Post

Add Comment

Manage Blog Post

Welcome to PACEs Connection

Learn about PACEs Connection & who we are.

How to be a part of our social network.

Join local or interest based communities.

Invite others to join PACEs Connection!

The text 'donate' on a background with many inter-connected spheres

Comments

Carey Sipp commented:
Thanks, Jeoff. A lot of great relationships and ongoing work came from this incredible gathering. It laid the groundwork for deepening…

Carey Sipp

David Dooley commented:
Thank you for commenting, Mr. Holmes. I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Can you give me an example?

David Dooley

Tommy Holmes commented:
I loved how you highlighted the connection between ACEs and community resilience! It’s so important to empower people with this…

Tommy Holmes

Patrick Anderson commented:
This one landed, Dr. Long. What I’d underline is that you’ve framed being pushed out as a pattern rather than a run of bad luck — and…

Patrick Anderson

Robert Hawk commented:
That story is heartbreaking and really shows how history and present-day realities can intersect. Reading about Black history in China…

Robert Hawk

David Dooley commented:
Thank you for writing, Mr. Anderson. You wrote… “Your instinct that the utopia requires entirely new forms of parenting education that…

David Dooley

Cecilia Pace commented:
[heart] Pace, Cecilia reacted to your message:

CP

Patrick Anderson commented:
David — this is one of the most useful framings of the parenting question I have seen on this platform. Two things you get exactly right…

Patrick Anderson
PACEs Connection Discount for Trauma Informed Jobs

TraumaInformedJobs.com is a new job board for the trauma and resilience communities. PACEs Connection members can save 10% on posting with code PACES10

Blog Archive

August 2026(6)

July 2026(35)

June 2026(35)

May 2026(28)

April 2026(37)

March 2026(29)

February 2026(26)

January 2026(18)

December 2025(31)

November 2025(33)

October 2025(32)

September 2025(28)

August 2025(32)

July 2025(26)

June 2025(23)

May 2025(37)

April 2025(35)

March 2025(32)

February 2025(67)

January 2025(62)

December 2024(55)

November 2024(38)

October 2024(38)

September 2024(0)

Blog Directory

Foster Care

PACEs

PACEs Science 101

Resources

Creating Resilient Communities

Donor Profiles

Special Announcements

STAR Network

Research

Feature

Jane Ellen Stevens

History. Culture. Trauma. Podcast

History. Culture. Trauma. Blog

CRC Fellowship

PC Reacts

Blog Directory

    

Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.

Mississippi judiciary trains on the power of hope, inspiring Youth Courts judges and staff

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 4/15/218:11 AM

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:Screen Shot 2021-04-15 at 10.08.39 AM

  • 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.

Attachments

Hide

Images (1)

Screen Shot 2021-04-15 at 10.08.39 AM

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 1

Tags: Administrative Office of Courts, Judiciary, Christopher Freeze, Mississippi ACEs Connection, Abused Children, Hope Rising, Mississippi PACEs Connection

Views: 549

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Violence against Indigenous women is ‘a crisis.’ Deb Haaland’s new Missing & Murdered Unit could help, advocates say. [thelily.com]

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 4/26/211:00 PM

By Cecilia Nowell, The Lily, April 20, 2021

Growing up in Canada, Agnes Woodward, who’s Plains Cree and originally from Kawacatoose First Nation, always knew that her family cared deeply about missing and murdered Indigenous women. In the 1990s, she watched as her aunt Mona and a few others began trying to draw attention to the lacking police response when Indigenous women went missing: They would hold up images of missing friends on street corners. In 1992, they organized the first march in Vancouver in memory of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW).

Then, in 2015, the Canadian government approached Woodward’s family to ask if they wanted to add her aunt, Eleanor (Laney) Ewenin, to the list it was compiling as part of its National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The entire family gathered to talk over the decision and concluded that “if we step up and we tell our story” and it helps any other families, “then it’s our responsibility to do so,” Woodward recalled. Her mother, uncle and aunts had been taken from their parents in Canada’s so-called Sixties Scoop, a period that lasted into the 1980s during which the Canadian government removed Indigenous children from their parents’ care and placed them with foster families. Laney had been separated from the other children, and in 1982, when she was just 23, she was killed.

Woodward, now 38, became a seamstress and began designing ribbon skirts in honor of her aunt and other missing women, eventually creating the company ReeCreations in 2018. Her ribbon skirts quickly became a continentwide symbol of the MMIW movement.

[Please click here to read more.]

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

The most important thing you can do with your kids? Play with them! says Dr. Bruce Perry

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 5/11/213:56 PM

“The most important thing you can do with your children is play with them!” said Dr. Bruce Perry, noted child psychiatrist and author. He was answering the question, “How do we prepare our children to go back to school next fall?”

Perry, a brain expert specializing in how children are impacted by trauma, gave a presentation on his neuro-sequential model of brain development to more than 800 people at an Austin Ed Fund event Monday evening. The co-author, with Oprah Winfrey, of the new book What Happened to You, also discussed the importance of educators focusing on “regulation and relationships.”

“If educators keep the focus on regulation and relationships, you’ll have many many more children with an open (able to learn) cortex. Keep the focus on regulation and relationship building you cannot go wrong,” Perry said.

Other topics Perry addressed during the more than two-hour event included workplace stress, how school boards can best support teachers, why going slowly is important post-pandemic, the importance of the arts and sports to brain development, and what corporations could learn about the importance of valuing their employees’ brains. The event was sponsored by the Buena Vista Foundation, Tapestry Foundation, The Klein Foundation, and St. David’s Foundation.

In the wide-ranging conversation, Perry also addressed these topics:

On preparing children to be ready for school this fall

“Play with them and let them play, and let them play with each other. Let them sort of reconnect with their friends, you know, do things that are fun. What that means is, if your kids over the summer have a regulating and rewarding set of experiences, they’re going to come to school ready to go to work.”

On the importance of fun

“I think fun is the best way to learn things. I think kids keep telling us that when they find something that they enjoy. It’s amazing what they can learn. So I am always happy to let them play, let them take the lead when it comes to acquisition of cognitive content.”

On school boards supporting teachers

We spend a lot of our work trying to help the teacher, through improving awareness about self care. But we’re really working to try to help schools to create policies and practices that are respectful, that are regulating, that are relational, so that there can be parallel process from, you know, the board all the way down to the administrators down into their classroom, down to the teachers and then out into the community.

When children learn self-regulation and take it home
When a child taught them (parents) a little bit about the brain, that’s really what we want to see. We think that that’s the greatest way to have this creating impact…as the children kind of become the teacher, when it comes to (teaching) that great framework of regulate, relate and reason.

On the pressures of being a young parent in today’s world

We put way too much pressure on our young parents. Human beings are intended to parent with more adults around us, with the extended family model, where there’s an auntie and an older cousin and the grandmother can jump in every once in a while to help. We’re not biologically designed to meet the fundamental needs of multiple kids by ourselves. So, first it (for) parents listening,  just be forgiving of yourself. Give yourself a little bit of a break. And remember what I said about the parallel process (of self-regulation) with teachers. You need to get regulated too. I mean it’s good for you to go to your exercise or take your walks or have your coffee with friends. That’s not being selfish. That’s actually allowing you to be your best for your child when they’re in the home.

What we can do to help each other during the pandemic.

I think one of the things that we really need to keep doing with each other is just be very nice to each other. We need to be kinder to each other. We need to go, “Wow, you’re in a tough situation. So how can I help? How can we figure out how to get us some help?”  And I think when we do that, the community will be better.

The question NOT to you can ask your children

Everybody knows that when kids come home from school, like the worst thing you could ever ask them is, do they have any homework. Don’t ask them. Feed them, give them a chance to get regulated, and then engage them. But again these are the things that we (all) need.

About bringing the concept of regulation into the corporate world

I have to say though there’s a lot of promise about bringing these concepts (regulate, relate, reason) into corporate environments and into the workplace. Because for the corporation, the most valuable resource of any organization is the people. And the most valuable part of those people is their cortex. That’s the part of them that can be creative, productive, and most social. All the things that you want in the workplace are going to be cortically mediated. And so, it’s in the best interest of the corporation to have a lot of open cortexes. And so once you teach people about this, then corporate environments change, and they create a more regulating, respectful environment. When we go to workplaces or organizational environments that begin to appreciate this, they make changes that lead to monetary bottom line improvements, and that, you know in a corporate environment, that helps something stick.

About protecting yourself in a toxic workplace

If you’re in an organization that doesn’t get this, you’ve got to figure out ways to protect yourself. And one of the most important ways to do it is with your tiny little group.You create a little group of people you feel safe with. You take care of each other. That’s how we optimally survive in relationship. So if you can find a group that you can connect with and belong with to help you sort of  buffer all of the things that go on at work, then that’s a really valuable thing, to have that small group. To just being kind to yourself and being kind to others. It’s such a simple and great message.

What should teachers know on as they go back to school

I would recommend that they (teachers) focus on regulation and relationship. And if those elements are incorporated into the process of coming back into the learning environment, you’re going to have many many more open cortexes. So whatever way you decide to do, whether it’s through team building or games, focus on regulation. And then, relationship building.

What administrators should focus on

Yeah, I think this is where you really need to have your administrators step up and protect you (teachers). There really has to be communication all the way up to the board of education in the state, so that we know that these kids are ultimately going to be able to master any of the content that we want them to by the time they graduate from high school or middle school or wherever. But if we’re smart about it, we’re going to keep more kids in school, which is a big issue for a lot of places in high school…if we don’t try to shove cognitive content down their throats, when everything’s all dysregulated.

And so, when I say go slow, I’m not saying don’t learn anything. I’m just saying, don’t let the pressure of not mastering some kinds of concepts unravel you, you’ll get through it. You may just want to change the pacing of how you learn certain things. You may want to think about different strategies of how you sort of co-mingle curricular content. I can guarantee you that if you had your teachers sit down and look at what you’re supposed to learn in history and what you’re supposed to learn in some other topic, they could come up with a creative way to collapse the minutes of instructional minutes and feather in a whole lot of regulatory stuff. You know one of the things that I think they should consider doing for example, is if you take a typical middle-school history teacher who’s got four classes, that person will give the same didactic presentation in 20 minutes four times in the day. He should record it, and then those kids can have control over when they watch it. And that’s part of their assignment, (to) watch the lecture, before you come to class. But then when you’re going in class, do stuff (that) is for regulating, and more conversational, more relational. They’ll get more engaged, they’ll learn more. So, if you let the teachers be creative about this stuff, they’re gonna do fine. But if you say, “Hey here’s the worksheet that you have to do on the third day of this week,” that’s just gonna make everybody feel crazy. And you’re setting yourself up for failure, and setting us up for failure.

On helping kids feel safe and become lifelong learners

If you really want people to be lifelong learners, and you want people to be creative and productive and contribute to society and ultimately pay taxes, and write books and do sculptures and create musicals, you’ve got to make them feel safe. You’ve got to make them love their learning environment. And you do that by respecting them and listening to them and being patient with them.

On resilience and the importance of community

One of the things that we’re able to look at is the timing and the nature of bad things. It could be a loss of a parent, it could be abuse, it could be neglect and so forth. But we also looked at the timing and the nature of good things — relational health, connection to family, community and culture. And here’s basically what we find: that if you have adversity, but you also have connections to family and community and culture, which are resilience building factors, you’re not at any increased risk for bad outcomes. However, if you have adversity and the amount of adversities sort of outweighs the presence of relational connection, you have significant increase in risk.

And so this is where relational poverty is a really important thing. You know families that have no extended family nearby. They’re not connected to their community of faith; they don’t know their neighbors. That kind of social isolation puts you at tremendous risk for even minor adversity. If you have big adversity and then you have that relational poverty, that’s when you’re really at risk.

And, the ideal is, and this is why we really have been focusing a lot on building community, culture and connection to each other, is that we have a lot of relational health. Even with adversity, you end up being pretty healthy. And so in the end, the most powerful factors that determine how you function in the present is connections to others, positive connections. That is really is the major (factor). You know people that study resilience. It really is basically all about how you’re connected.That’s what we found; that’s what a lot of other people that do this research have found. You don’t have to have thousands of people that you’re connected to.

Oprah talks about this a lot. She literally points to one teacher who saw her and understood how special she was, and who really was her lifeline. She provided resilience building experiences that set her on her life trajectory. And I think that’s true for a lot of people. And the good news therefore, from my perspective is that every one of us out there can be that kind of person for somebody. You know, it may be your child or your nieces and nephews and maybe a neighbor kid, or it may be the kid you’re coaching in little league. If you’re a teacher, you’re doing this all the time and you probably don’t even realize you’re literally creating life-saving, and life-transforming experiences for children, even in the little moments, the moments when you really are present with them.

Sensory overload
One of the unfortunate things about our modern world is that we’re so sensory overloaded with our phones and our appointments that even when we are around people, we don’t slow down enough to give them that moment. People feel it when you see a colleague or a friend answer a text in the middle of a conversation. It’s a completely different experience than when they’re truly present and listening. I think that this is something that we can all do for the people around us, and if we can be better at doing that, the social fabric in our family and in our community will grow and become stronger. If you can put everything aside, and truly be with that person, and hear them, take a stance of curiosity, as opposed to a stance of judgment, you’re, you’re gonna make a huge difference in that person’s life,

The role of arts in learning
One of the most important resilience-building activities that you can do is music, the arts and sports. And the irony is, in educational environments, all too often we view those as add-ons, sort of as electives. But the truth is, if you really understand how the brain works, you’ll recognize that the best way to make somebody available for high-quality academic achievement is to give them episodic regulatory opportunities for resilience-building through sport, through music, through creative arts, through performance arts. Those things should be absolutely core to high-quality academic curriculum. If you look at the origin of Western education, sports, music, theater, they were all part of the traditional Greek and Roman education. People over centuries tend to do things because they work. And I think that we should listen to our ancestors in that regard, and reincorporate some of that back into schools.

For more information on the Dr. Bruce Perry webinar, the Austin Ed Fund and the Austin School District’s Social and Emotional Learning work visit https://austinedfund.org/dr-bruce-perry-event/

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 2

Tags: Bruce Perry, Sally Hernandez, St. David’s Foundation

Views: 7,899

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Comments (1) 

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Christine BruglerChristine BruglerMember

Carey, thank you for sharing exchanges of this great conversation, as well as the link for additional resources! You rock! 

“What Happened to You?” by Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey: a book that resonates with us in the PACEs world

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 6/8/211:25 PM

What do PACEs Connection and “What Happened to You?”, the new book by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry, have in common?

Almost everything. That’s my conclusion after I finished listening to the book on Audible and re-reading parts of it on Kindle.

In the book, Winfrey, a world-class connector, journalist, entertainer, author, thought leader, actor, and philanthropist, teams up with her longtime friend Perry, a child psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and principal of the neurosequential model of brain-based therapy. They engage in a series of conversations about trauma, resilience, the power of relationships and community, healing, what they call post-traumatic wisdom, and  what we need now.

Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 12.22.24 PM

With warmth and their easy familiarity with each other, they take us through an education about trauma that I believe the world is hungry for, explaining the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and why and how traumas have affected us. Perry does a masterful job of explaining that how we are loved as infants and children is likely to determine how we are able to love—or not love — as adults, with Winfrey giving pointed and moving examples. They truly ring almost all of the bells we at PACEs Connection hope to ring in our vision to create a world where all people thrive, and in our mission to prevent and heal trauma, and help individuals, families and communities create and build on the positive experiences that lead to strength and resilience.

Winfrey stuns us over and over with personal accounts of intensely painful personal traumas, and leaves us, throughout the book and especially at the powerful ending, with the hope that our traumas can help us become wise and powerful.

I honestly believed we would see a book or a series of O Network specials from Perry and Winfrey three years ago, not long after the “60 Minutes” interview when she and Perry talked about adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed approaches. In previewing the interview, Winfrey told long-time friend and fellow journalist Gayle King of CBS that learning about ACEs Science and trauma-informed care “changes everything,” and that she’d “dance on tabletops” if that’s what it took to get people to pay attention to it.

Whatever moved them to share this life-changing work, this is my truth about it: “What Happened to You?” is a book that humanity desperately needs to help us remember, and understand, deep in our bones and DNA, that we are wired for connection and empathy, despite the economic and technological forces that can sometimes make them seem so far out of reach. It is a book I love and want to share widely, especially with parents, policymakers, educators, faith leaders, coaches, law enforcement, the medical community—actually, anyone and everyone—even young students, as I believe our knowing this information early on in life could help prevent many traumas to self and others.

Perhaps I am projecting as I listen to Perry talk about the unrealistic expectations with which society has burdened single mothers. Or I am connecting dots that aren’t there when I think that perhaps Perry and Winfrey could normalize the belief—even among the most hardened anti-welfare politicians—that reducing the overwhelm and stress of poverty, oppression, and multi-generational addiction and abuse is the right thing to do, because withholding support damages the brains of our nation’s children.

What do we, as a nation, love? What collectively inspires consensus?

I believe it is love for our children, and this book will help us remember that. It explains the importance of giving our children the best start possible—especially in the first two months of life—and could help spark healing relationships.

99E9EED4-E2EB-47B1-A97A-2AC2EF832875

In “What Happened to You?” the two long-time friends advocate for nurturing brain development, and for the mental health, trauma education, and well being of their fellow Americans, the world. I believe that what they advocate for—community, acceptance, and a common understanding of the need to prevent trauma, promote regulation, relationships and reasoning—is vital to restoring and saving our collective humanity. They want us to ask, “What happened to you?” instead of “What’s wrong with you?” because asking the second question can traumatize already traumatized people with the implication that there is something bad or wrong with them, as opposed to there being something bad or wrong that happened to them.

That Perry and Winfrey are a powerful team is indisputable. When she focuses her attention on something, change happens. I believe her decades of work as a trusted Black journalist, daily coming into the homes of all kinds of people with intimate, often hard-to-hear stories of childhood abuse and uplifting stories of people who’ve overcome obstacles, helped set the stage for Barack Obama’s presidency, the Me Too Movement, and some Americans being more willing to have some difficult conversations.

But even as brilliant and straightforward as Perry and Winfrey are, it likely took a lot of work to make the book as approachable as it is. Its conversational style belies the volumes of information many readers are likely to absorb.

Help for even the most broken children

It is fascinating to hear Perry share, with the utmost respect, stories of people who’ve endured unimaginable trauma. He discusses his calm, easy way of relating with children by getting on the floor to color with them, by having very brief but frequent connections, by building trust, by observing and asking just the right slightly probing question at just the right moment. It’s clear that he knows exactly what amount and weight a relationship can take and when. With the help of Perry and his team, children who would seem too broken to mend are brought back to functioning by patiently following his brilliant neurosequential model of therapy.

12940CB2-E09E-45AF-98B2-F0428529D39B

Equally compelling, Winfrey reveals vulnerabilities that are searingly sad. Because I listened to the book, her velvety, deep voice was so warm and rich it cannot leave my mind. It  haunts me as I recall revelations that were so painful, I needed to pull my car off the road or stop walking and sit down to catch my breath.

Among her most personal revelations were her grandmother’s intense beatings and her mother’s ongoing abandonment. She recalled standing with her mother at the age of six and feeling crushed by her mother’s agreement with her landlady to let “that dark-skinned-nappy-headed child” sleep outside on the porch on Winfrey’s first night in Milwaukee. That Winfrey knows the truth then—that she is absolutely alone—evokes feelings of empathy, anger, grief, fear.

Winfrey later reveals how she learned she’d never truly been “tucked into bed”. It was during the making of a movie when the director asked her to tuck a child into bed, and she realized she didn’t know that tucking in also means sharing affection instead of just arranging blankets, because no one ever tucked her in at night. I again had to stop the car to handle the shock and grief I felt for her.

In the final chapter of the book, Winfrey’s honesty, humility, and compassion are breathtaking and gave me chills, repeatedly, as she shared how she and her mother finally connected prior to her mother’s death. Have some tissues ready and know you are likely to be a stronger, better human for the privilege of hearing this account.

Hearing their easy conversation as Perry and Winfrey talk back and forth about the importance of community, relationships, regulation and education buffers the pain of the stories they share. They definitely found a rhythm in sharing concepts, examples, solutions.

944045D8-B6CF-44C2-95FA-634B44FE03E2Hearing Perry explain, through vivid and moving examples, how the body reacts to trauma, will hopefully open people up to be more compassionate about children who are dysregulated, people who are dysregulated, themselves  when they are dysregulated.

Perry’s stories illustrate beautifully how we are wired for love—or not—and that how we are wired is projected onto the world. That he has figured out ways to help people heal, and that this takes years of healing work, is hopeful, daunting, and instructive. Don’t write off children who’ve suffered abuse.

A constant source of reassurance for me is that Oprah survives the abuse she shares, and that we know she’s oftentimes enjoying life after having done such a heroic and remarkable job of overcoming, thriving, and helping others.

First two months of life are critical

Which leads me to a couple of many profound moments in the book. First, about developmental trauma and the importance of the first two months of life, of mothers and babies developing a secure attachment.

Perry writes, “The basic finding is that the experiences of the first two months of life have a disproportionately important impact on your long-term health and development. This has to do with the remarkably rapid growth of the brain early in life, and the organization of those all-important core regulatory networks.

“If, in the first two months of life, a child experienced high adversity with minimal relational buffering but was then put into a healthier environment for the next twelve years, their outcomes were worse than the outcomes of children who had low adversity and healthy relational connection in the first two months but then spent the next twelve years with high adversity.

“Think of that: The child who has only two months of really bad experiences does worse than the child with almost twelve years of bad experiences, all because of the timing of the experiences.

“This sounds discouraging. But we believe that poor outcomes are not inevitable; in fact, we believe that this is a perfect example of why we need developmentally informed, trauma-aware systems.”

Perry invites readers to think back to conversations about how important attentive, responsive caregiving is in providing the organizing experiences for the infant’s stress-response systems.

“Remember that if the life experiences of the first two months include inconsistent or unpredictable stress, this pattern of activation creates a sensitized stress response. That leads to a cascade of problems—trauma related problems. And even when these children are no longer in high-risk settings, their problems have to be addressed by caregivers, pediatricians, mental health providers, and educators. But if these people misunderstand what’s going on, if these systems focus on “What is wrong with you?”—as unfortunately, they typically do—the children won’t get better. They will continue to struggle. Their emotional reactivity and behavior problems will be viewed without a developmental or trauma lens, which could lead to ineffective interventions.”

Racism and trauma

A520C45A-14DD-43C7-92A3-EE91C1679AC1

Another big aha is Perry’s take on racism and trauma. He says: “I believe that if you don’t recognize the built-in biases in yourself and the structural biases in your systems—biases regarding race, gender, sexual orientation—you can’t truly be trauma-informed. Marginalized peoples—excluded, minimized, shamed—are traumatized peoples, because as we’ve discussed, humans are fundamentally relational creatures. To be excluded or dehumanized in an organization, community, or society you are part of results in prolonged uncontrollable stress that is sensitizing. Marginalization is a fundamental trauma.

“This is why I believe that a truly trauma-informed system is an anti-racist system. The destructive effects of racial marginalizing are pervasive and severe. In North America, Australia, and New Zealand, for instance, Black, brown, and Indigenous children are more likely to be over diagnosed and overmedicated in mental health systems, removed from their homes to enter the child welfare system, suspended or expelled from school, and charged at school with truancy and ‘assault,’ with the result that they enter the juvenile-justice system in disproportionate ways.”

If people could learn this and take to heart that each “micro-aggression” is actually damaging the brains of their co-workers, children in classrooms, grocery stores, buses, street corners, shops, schools—anywhere and everywhere that children, people of color are treated as less-than in even the slightest way—perhaps we would stop this invisible, persistent torture that is costing all of society by preventing children from reaching their full potential.

All this is why I think Winfrey and Perry would so connect with the work done at PACEs Connection to build community, to educate about trauma, to track the work being done, to engage people in sharing the science of positive and childhood experiences, and to celebrate that work. I believe they would help share the new science of positive childhood experiences—how important it is for children to experience and enjoy community traditions, feel supported at home and at school, have supportive friends and have at least two non-parent adults who genuinely care about them. Winfrey is living proof of the impact teachers can have in lifting a child up and helping them believe in themselves when no one else does. She readily credits a specific grammar school teacher for seeing something special in her, for nurturing her love of learning, and inspiring confidence when no one else did.

I urge you to borrow or buy and read this book, and if you are a member of one of the 400+ geographic or interest-based communities on PACEs Connection, entreat your community members to have a book group about “What Happened to You?”, post about it, and email the link to me at csipp@pacesconnection.com.

And  for more, listen to Oprah’s recent interview with Bruce Perry.

Attachments

Hide

Images (6)

Screen Shot 2021-06-08 at 12.22.24 PM
99E9EED4-E2EB-47B1-A97A-2AC2EF832875: Figure 2
12940CB2-E09E-45AF-98B2-F0428529D39B: Figure 3
944045D8-B6CF-44C2-95FA-634B44FE03E2: Figure 8
A520C45A-14DD-43C7-92A3-EE91C1679AC1: Figure 5
Screen Shot 2021-06-07 at 1.39.39 PM: Oprah Winfrey photo by Chris Craymer; Bruce Perry photo by Jimmy Greene

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 2👍 2

Tags: play, reason, Poverty, abuse, trauma-informed, healing centered, community, rhythm, healing, relate, regulation, Single mothers, relationship, Racism

Views: 27,775

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

The best way to start any meeting. Ever.

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 8/17/2111:25 AM

Following a brief mindfulness check-in, PACEs Connection staff meetings begin with the review of our Vision, Mission, and Values statements, as well as our Equity and Inclusion Statement. At a recent meeting, top row, L-R, Ingrid Cockhren, Carey Sipp, Donielle Prince, Jane Stevens. Middle row, L-R, John Flores, Porter Jennings-McGarity, Jenna Quinn, Gail Kennedy. Bottom row, L-R, Rafael Maravilla, Natalie Audage, Alison Cebulla, Samantha Sangenito.



A couple of times last week I felt my body downshift to a more comfortable lower gear, the way it has several thousand times over the course of 26 years. This happens when I’ve “claimed” my seat at meetings for people recovering from having lived in the chaos and trauma of addiction, or in meetings for people who want help with their own addictions.

Many recovery meetings open with the oft-quoted Serenity Prayer, which asks petitioners to be granted “the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we need can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” We read the beautiful Promises of Alcoholics Anonymous, or a version of it appropriate to whatever group is meeting, along with the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

This “meeting norm” of reading through the mission of why we are there, the vision of what we’ll gain if we “keep coming back” and the 24 behavioral milestones of theTwelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions has served, for my central nervous system, as a signal to let down. Relax. Open my mind. Open my heart. Trust it is safe to be where I am and who I am and to speak my peace. Here I am welcomed, accepted, loved, appreciated before I am even known. Though I may be only tolerated by some, love and kindness is the code. With spiritual help I won’t “act out” or ask for special treatment as here I am “a worker among workers.” Though were I to act out, my loving accountability partners would likely not do so much judging as they would gently nudge to help me remember to look for “my part” in whatever is setting me off. It is a model for living that I love and treasure. And it helps the group focus, center, get in sync, and oftentimes come to a collective gratitude.

Gratitude was the feeling I had last week when at two PACEs Connection meetings. The first was a meeting with a couple of statewide organizers, one of whom had been through a harrowing week of family illness. The other was our weekly PACEs Connection staff update during which several of us expressed disappointment and exasperation about the increase in COVID-19 cases. Both meetings began by reading, out loud, the PACEs Connection Vision and Mission statements as well as our Values and our Equity and Inclusion Statement.

Our Vision

A resilient world where all people thrive.

Our Mission

The human and digital catalyst that grows and supports the worldwide PACEs and resilience movement, and tells its authentic stories.

Equity & Inclusion Statement

PACEs Connection is an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice.

In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we will intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. PACEs Connection will celebrate the voices and tell the stories of people who have been barred from decision making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the result of genocide, slavery, family separation, forced relocation, mass incarceration, red lining and all other practices, policies and institutions that have traumatized marginalized groups. These groups include people of color, people living with mental health and substance use challenges, people living with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQI community.

Our Values

As individuals and as an organization, it is our intention and daily practice to encourage and model these core values:

Integrity. Transparency.

Equity. Inclusion.  

Empathy. Compassion.  

Joy. Celebration.

Courage.

Integrity. Transparency. We manage through trust not control. To create trust and an accountable environment where everyone feels they can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said, we maintain an environment free from hidden agendas or conditions, accompanied by full information and no fear of retaliation. We speak directly, do what we say we will do and have pure motives. We contribute authentically and participate fully. We are leaders and we model leadership at every level.

Equity. Inclusion.  We regularly examine our roles in perpetuating inequitable systems and work to change inequitable practices, structures and policies that contribute to ACEs, and maintain an environment where everyone is welcomed, respected, supported and valued.

Empathy. Compassion.  We value empathy, which validates the experiences of others and is born from compassion.

Joy. Celebration.  We cultivate resilience and equanimity by sharing the truth of our stories and celebrating our lessons learned and our successes.

Courage. Knowing that we, ourselves, are the foundation for our success and the key to achieving our vision, we encourage and provide opportunities for personal growth and professional advancement and satisfaction. Our courage is grounded in the body and is a measure of our heartfelt participation in life, with one another, and with our work.

Something about reading these grounding, encouraging, compelling words centered us.

In several meetings of PACEs Connection communities in the Southeast, where I am our organization’s regional coordinator, readers begin with their own community’s vision and mission statements. They take a few minutes to check in and establish their meeting norms, including one person speaking at a time, staying on topic, etc.

The communities that open meetings with their vision, mission and some form of meeting norms tend to advance their PACEs science movements with focus and energy. There is purpose, cooperation, energy, effectiveness.

Does your community begin its meetings with a vision and mission, or words that unify and inspire your members? If you do, please post them in the comments. With more than 400 communities on PACEs Connection, I’d love to learn about the different ways we all begin.

How we end—in a world where all people thrive—depends on how we begin.

To me, this is a given: The 10 minutes we take to start our meetings are vitally important to help us start on the same page, to share a mental model of what we’re working for, to work together for our common goal.  

Thank you for all you do in your home, community, and the world to help prevent and heal trauma, and to lead us toward a more healing-centered and just society.

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 2

Views: 593

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Path to a Just Society: Our new infographic shares common language and an aspirational path.

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 9/14/212:43 PM

Our version of a “Path to a Just Society” is our first attempt at creating a common language and identifying points along the path to a just society.

The Race and Equity workgroup of PACEs Connection started the project in early 2021, following a staff meeting where we realized that we, our organization and the movement needed this. We think it can help all of us gauge where we are, where we want to be, and what’s needed to get to the next level of integrating practices and policies based on the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs).

Over the last few months, we discussed and refined, opened the discussion to our entire staff, and then went outside the organization for more feedback.

There are a lot of terms used in describing the world we are in and the world we want to live in: trauma-informed, healing-centered, self-healing. We took the long view of where we want to see society and what it would take to get there. We developed this tool as a starting point for many conversations and actions to accelerate the PACEs science movement to prevent and heal trauma, help individuals, families, organizations, systems and communities—our world—flourish.

We hope this is useful, not only for the leaders of our 450+ communities and for the 53,000+ members of PACEs Connection, but also for everyone in the PACEs movement. Our goal is to see every organization in every community, as well as every system, integrate PACEs science into their individual and organizational lives. If you want to see how PACEs Connection has integrated these concepts into our organization, go to PACEsConnectionInfo.com.

While the tool is being introduced Thursday during the second webinar in our Historical Trauma in America series, we don’t see this as the final iteration. It’s a starting point.

We know there are many terms used to describe this work and the stages of it. Many people have provided ideas, and we welcome more. We’d love to hear from you. Please post your ideas in the comments section below this story.

Over the next few months, we will continue to work on this, and then share next iterations during upcoming presentations in our Historical Trauma in America series. For now, we invite PACEs Connection community leaders to download the infographic and distribute the piece to your members for their own use in sharing the work they are doing. Thank you for partnering with us in the essential work of creating a just society,

The Path to a Just Society infographic is available in both English and Spanish.

(Signed)

MEMBERS OF THE RACE AND EQUITY WORKGROUP

Natalie Audage

Marianne Avari

Dana Brown

Alison Cebulla

Karen Clemmer

Ingrid Cockhren

John Flores

Porter Jennings McGarity

Lara Kain

Gail Kennedy

Rafael Maravilla

Elizabeth Prewitt

Donielle Prince

Jenna Quinn

Carey Sipp

Jane Stevens

Laurie Udesky

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 8

Tags: Race & Equity Workgroup, SAMSHA, Trauma-Informed, Race & Equity, Healing-centered, Just Society

Views: 4,607

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Comments (2) 

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Christine BruglerChristine BruglerMember

WOW! So love this infographic – Very clear cut and action-oriented! I especially value the wording… We need to intentionally “act on” being TI, vs “saying” we are when our words/actions may not reflect it.

Kudos to a dynamic work group!

 

CGCasey G. GwinnMember

Thanks for your hard work on this, friends.  I would have loved to have seen reference to the science of hope and the importance of hope in well-being so much published research but this is really a great graphic.

 

✅ 1

Back To Top

Post

Add Comment

Manage Blog Post

Welcome to PACEs Connection

How to be a part of our social network.

Join local or interest based communities.

Invite others to join PACEs Connection!

The text 'donate' on a background with many inter-connected spheres

Comments

Carey Sipp commented:
Thanks, Jeoff. A lot of great relationships and ongoing work came from this incredible gathering. It laid the groundwork for deepening…

Carey Sipp

David Dooley commented:
Thank you for commenting, Mr. Holmes. I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Can you give me an example?

David Dooley

Tommy Holmes commented:
I loved how you highlighted the connection between ACEs and community resilience! It’s so important to empower people with this…

Tommy Holmes

Patrick Anderson commented:
This one landed, Dr. Long. What I’d underline is that you’ve framed being pushed out as a pattern rather than a run of bad luck — and…

Patrick Anderson

Robert Hawk commented:
That story is heartbreaking and really shows how history and present-day realities can intersect. Reading about Black history in China…

Robert Hawk

David Dooley commented:
Thank you for writing, Mr. Anderson. You wrote… “Your instinct that the utopia requires entirely new forms of parenting education that…

David Dooley

Cecilia Pace commented:
[heart] Pace, Cecilia reacted to your message:

CP

Patrick Anderson commented:
David — this is one of the most useful framings of the parenting question I have seen on this platform. Two things you get exactly right…

Patrick Anderson
PACEs Connection Discount for Trauma Informed Jobs

TraumaInformedJobs.com is a new job board for the trauma and resilience communities. PACEs Connection members can save 10% on posting with code PACES10

Blog Archive

August 2026(6)

July 2026(35)

June 2026(35)

May 2026(28)

April 2026(37)

March 2026(29)

February 2026(26)

January 2026(18)

December 2025(31)

November 2025(33)

October 2025(32)

September 2025(28)

August 2025(32)

July 2025(26)

June 2025(23)

May 2025(37)

April 2025(35)

March 2025(32)

February 2025(67)

January 2025(62)

December 2024(55)

November 2024(38)

October 2024(38)

September 2024(0)

Blog Directory

Foster Care

PACEs

PACEs Science 101

Resources

Creating Resilient Communities

Donor Profiles

Special Announcements

STAR Network

Research

Feature

Jane Ellen Stevens

History. Culture. Trauma. Podcast

History. Culture. Trauma. Blog

CRC Fellowship

PC Reacts

Blog Directory

    

A world filled with people who have four or more ACEs is a world filled with people who need to meet a compassionate person. – Cendie Stanford

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 1/25/221:57 PM

This stunning illustration shows how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affected the family of Cendie Stanford, a former school principal, artist, and executive director of her own nonprofit, ACEs Matter. For a larger image, scroll to bottom of post.

Cendie Stanford says that ever since she first learned about ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) science and read Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’s, The Deepest Well, in 2020, she’d been thinking about her own upbringing—which included at least 10 ACEs. She feels strongly that everyone needs to know what she knew about what adversity does to people, because it “explains why people behave the way they behave.”

So Stanford, who lives in Winter Park, Florida, established a nonprofit organization, ACEs Matter, to help get the word out. She was especially interested in reaching neighborhoods where she believed many volunteer ACEs educators wouldn’t want to go, because of crime, danger, and poverty.

She learned everything she could about the science. She logged into PACEs Connection to make connections to identify support and other places she could get help. She also set about putting together a board of directors who could help guide and support her in her goal of educating the most vulnerable people in underserved populations in the seven states in which she’s starting out: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas.

Then earlier this month, she held her first board meeting.

4A13AD2A-CFF2-46D2-B0F8-6E3A93E46E43Technical glitches didn’t matter

“I was really nervous about the meeting because I was bringing six people together for the very first time to figure out how they could help with ACES Matter,” she said. “And if anything could go wrong, it did.

“I had six very professional, very educated individuals waiting on me on a Sunday, on a holiday, and there were problems with Zoom. And it was in that moment, with so many technical problems and all these people waiting on me, that I didn’t feel judged.”

It was a moment that called her to stop and share this realization with her board.

“We were talking about the importance of vulnerable communities hearing about ACEs,” she says. “And in that moment, they didn’t care about the sound not working. They didn’t care about the PowerPoint. They were compassionate. And I just felt so loved. And that’s how the (ACEs genealogy) drawing was inspired because when one in six people have four or more ACEs—which I knew on that call included me and at least one other person—I was met with compassionate people.

“In that moment, I said that people need to understand that sometimes there are not enough compassionate people. So in a world with so many of us with these high adversity scores, we live in a world filled with people who need to meet a compassionate person,” she says.

Her board, comprising professionals from the medical industry, educators, technology administrators, and leaders in the spiritual sectors, agreed with her assessment, bringing their professional expertise as well as their own lived childhood experiences to the table.

The next day—Martin Luther King Day—she was inspired to create her “My ACEs Genealogy Tree.” She hopes this resource will help her bring the science of adverse childhood experiences to life for others.

“I’d been thinking about this family tree for almost two years now. And I knew it was going to be a visual because when people can see stuff like that and see themselves in it, it’s so much more powerful than just the words or the data. It’s what had been on my heart, and I think I turned it out in a couple of hours. And it was the most rewarding experience for me to create that illustration,” she says.

“Doing this was just eye-opening,” she continues. “It confirmed all of these feelings that had been bubbling up inside of me that ACEs science is just deeper than our family tree, that it (trauma) was really ingrained in the roots. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done and there is a solution.”

And that solution begins with spreading the word.

“This is life-saving information; we need to share it with everybody we know. Now.”

Stanford talks about a childhood friend who shares about PACEs science whenever possible.

“My friend was home on a family visit in the neighborhood where we grew up, and a 4-year-old child was gunned down,” she recalls. “My friend stayed to attend the funeral of the child and ran into the mayor. In questioning him, she found he had never heard about ACEs, and wanted more information. She also ended up running into a news reporter and faith leaders who wanted to know more.

“We know we should have somebody inside of every community talking about ACEs, and creating safe spaces for people to have this conversation,” she says. “Yes, the conversation can be activating, but it can also be catastrophic if we don’t bring it up.”

This is part one of a three-part series. Next: My ACEs family tree: Life after ACEs.

8AFFFA7F-E48E-4F54-96B6-FDF2F89C7AB3

Click here to see the tree on the ACEs Matter website.

Attachments

Hide

Images (2)

4A13AD2A-CFF2-46D2-B0F8-6E3A93E46E43
8AFFFA7F-E48E-4F54-96B6-FDF2F89C7AB3

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

❤️ 4💯 1

Views: 2,859

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey Sipp

My ACEs family tree: Life after ACEs

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 2/1/221:12 PM

This is the second of two stunning illustrations showing how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affected the family of Cendie Stanford, founder of the nonprofit ACEs Matter. Each leaf represents a family member affected by ACEs, and the health consequences they suffered.

When Cendie Stanford, founder and president of ACEs Matter, finished drawing “My ACEs Tree—Genealogy”—she saw clearly the remarkable number of ACEs her grandparents, parents, children and extended family had experienced. The second tree—Life after ACEs—shows how horrifically ACEs played out in their lives.

34BE3920-6A5C-4CC2-AD41-CD33D8BC99CC

Yet when she studied the devastating stories of pain and suffering told in the tree leaves, “I felt at peace,” she says. “There was no racing in my heart. There was not a physical reaction to it, when I looked at what ACEs had done to my family, because when I think about the people who have passed, I now have a better understanding of why it happened, why they had cancer, depression, problems with weight management and risky behaviors.”

‘Everybody I know needs this.’

For Stanford, just learning about ACEs science two years ago, and the fact that her score of “10 plus” did not bode well for her future health, was enough to have her turn over a new leaf in self care. “Since I’ve started learning about ACEs,” she says, “I am encouraged to eat better. Meditate. Exercise. I know it’s hard for people to take on self care sometimes, because we didn’t grow up seeing people do those things. I’d never seen anybody that I know meditating.”2BD3D83F-564E-4B2D-AC6C-9E13918D46AC

She knows this is not the case for many people, that “information is not transformation.” It’s not guaranteed to bring the behavior changes to give up cigarettes, fried foods, sweets, and many other comforts that, consumed habitually, may be very useful to cope with the consequences of ACEs, but are, in the long run, harmful.

She wants people in underserved communities to create a tree like this for themselves, “so they can decide whether or not they want to do something about it,” she says. “Everyone deserves to know about ACEs, so they can make choices, so they can be inspired to help improve their health; practice self care, help rewire their nervous system. So they can maybe help kids and adults learn how to be calm and become regulated without becoming violent, or looking for a cigarette, or food, or a drug or drink” she says. “Brains can change at any age, and our bodies want to heal.”

Transformation requires more than just information.

“Helping people in underserved communities work on their own genealogy by drawing their own ACEs trees may help people open up. People in vulnerable populations don’t feel like it’s safe to talk about feelings. But even if these conversations can be activating, I believe being able to have people create and share their own family tree will show that we all have a lot in common, and need to take some action to improve our health. I hope we all see that not having the conversation is catastrophic,” says Stanford.

“Awareness will lead us to change. I know it is going to take some time. But what we can’t do is just wait for the people in these underserved communities to come to us. Right now we have to find representatives who’ll take this information into the communities, and help people figure out how to calm these kids’ nervous systems, so kids stop killing kids. Something needs to be done so these kids learn how to self regulate, so people get healthier and live better, and longer,” she explains.

Stanford says she plans to prioritize her work in neighborhoods in the zip codes she and her ACEs Matter board of directors are in the process of identifying. “People are advertising their depression every day on social media. You can look at people’s status updates and see that they are hurting,” she adds.

Her next step is to involve representatives from all types of organizations, or sectors, by taking her “ACEs trees” to business and industries as well as into the schools, faith communities, health clinics, first responders and more, in each neighborhood prioritized.

“If businesses—for example, grocery store companies—understand this (the effects of ACEs) and address it,” Stanford explains, “their employees’ productivity could be improved. They’re hiring a lot of these people who are coming to work with adversities, especially if they are in communities where there’s high violence. This is affecting their workers and their shoppers. So if they focused on preventing trauma and promoting resilience, the benefits to their communities could be life-changing, and life-saving.

“Every report I read says communities need to be involved,” she continues. “And that’s what ACEs Matter feels like it can do, just by giving people the tools to take ACEs awareness into the communities and start the conversation. Let’s see where that goes.”

The solutions are right here.

“We need to do what PACEs Connection is talking about, to get communities invested in their people, and build PACEs initiatives in communities, because healthy people are the product of an ACEs aware, resilient community. Let’s invest in these communities because the active community members can pass the knowledge down generation after generation, and stop ACEs and the bad health outcomes from being compounded generation upon generation,” says Stanford.

“I mean, the solutions are right there for us,” she continues. “We just need to make sure that everybody gets invited to the conversation, and then they get to decide what they do with the information, right?”

283A8F24-1FEF-495F-A9B9-D4F8B06CCDB2

This is part two of a three-part series. Part one: My ACEs tree: Geneology. Part three: How positive childhood experiences, including those in the family and the community, helped her.

Next week’s illustration and story? Putting it together: At 16, Cendie endured a trauma that could have killed her. In her third illustration, she’ll share how positive childhood experiences (PCEs)—including positive community experiences—helped her go on with life, recover, and become an advocate for the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences.

Attachments

Hide

Images (3)

2BD3D83F-564E-4B2D-AC6C-9E13918D46AC: Cendie Standford
34BE3920-6A5C-4CC2-AD41-CD33D8BC99CC: #1
283A8F24-1FEF-495F-A9B9-D4F8B06CCDB2: #2

Carey Smith Sipp

carey.pacescommunites@gmail.com

💯 1❤️ 1

Views: 2,305

Add Comment

Carey SippCarey SippFormats 

javascript:””

Comments (3) 

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Alyshia BoagniAlyshia BoagniMember

Cendie, Thank you for sharing your journey. This is a beautiful and powerfully moving tool.  Do you have plans to make this shareable or reproducible as a resource?

 

❤️ 1

Carey SippCarey SippFormer Volunteer Co-Director, PACEs Connection Revitalization

Thanks, Cendie.

We have terrific editors.

We also appreciate so much your creativity, passion, and love of the science.

Your sharing your own adverse childhood experiences story, and your family’s story, in these clear pictures  of the WHY ACEs Matter, is a gift.

Thanks for putting yourself and your story and passion out into the world. I cannot wait to see what happens to these, and to your third illustration,  which we’ll share next week! I believe they will help us all as we use them to help establish connection and create community.  

Carey

 

❤️ 1

Cendie StanfordCendie StanfordMember

Beautifully articulated! Thank You for sharing parts of my story.

 

❤️ 2

Join ex-NFL athlete Caleb Campbell this Thursday on our podcast History. Culture. Trauma.


Join ex-NFL athlete Caleb Campbell this Thursday on our podcast History. Culture. Trauma

Carey Sipp Carey Sipp 5/24/223:04 PM

Caleb Campbell, ex-NFL player, is a mental health advocate and consultant on trauma-informed leadership.

Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with mental health struggles. The collective trauma of COVID-19 has exasperated our country’s mental health crisis. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In honor of this designation, History. Culture. Trauma. podcast co-hosts Ingrid Cockhren, CEO of PACEs Connection, and Mathew Portell, director of communities, have spoken with guests about our nation’s science, support, education, advocacy, and policies focused on mental health.

Screen Shot 2022-05-24 at 5.01.02 PMThis Thursday, May 26, Cockhren and Portell will examine the history of mental health responses in this country with mental health advocate Caleb Campbell, who went from West Point Military Academy to the National Football League and eventually became a mental health advocate and consultant on trauma-informed leadership.

Campbell says his journey brought him to understand mental health, trauma, stress, and ”how it plays out in life.”

In 2008, Campbell graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army with 972 other cadets. The difference between Campbell and his classmates was that while the majority of them were sent to war, Campbell went to the NFL.

Campbell says he didn’t know at the time that he was about to fight his own battle—his own inner war—and it would almost cost him his life. As a survivor of mental health challenges, Campbell says it is his passion and mission to deliver an authentic and actionable message.

Drawing from his deep well of personal stories around being a West Point graduate, former U.S. Army officer, and an ex-NFL athlete, Campbell says he hopes to help leaders increase their inner capacity so that they can expand their leadership capabilities and deepen their impact.

Co-hosts Cockhren and Portell say Campbell’s message around leadership expansion is timely and important as more and more leaders face unprecedented amounts of stress and pressure.

To listen Thursday, May 26 at 4 p.m. ET; 1 p.m. PT, tune in here.

To find prior podcasts, visit here.

Find History. Culture. Trauma. on your favorite podcast provider by clicking the link below.

Attachments

Hide

Images (1)

Screen Shot 2022-05-24 at 5.01.02 PM