trauma informed Resilient Self Healing Commuities

Universal Precautions

People who have experienced adverse childhood events (ACE) are ubiquitous and we cannot tell from initial conversations with someone what trauma they have experienced in their life time.

Community Health Workers and this organization in particular are making an intentional commitment to trauma informed best practices.

Safety
Compassion
Trustworthiness
Transparency
Connection
Relationship
Collaboration
Mutuality
Choice
Multiple World Views

building self healing communities

ACE Interface

Dr. Robert Anda CO-FOUNDER

Co-Principal Investigator ACE Study and has authored and coauthored numerous publications on the health and social implications of adverse childhood experiences.

Laura Porter CO-FOUNDER

Laura Porter is an award winning public servant best known for her stunning success helping communities to build capacity to blend science with the wisdom of elders, youth and parents to generate transformative improvements to health and well-being.

RECORDING From Sept. 30 2020 Wednesday from 10-11:30 am

Using the Principles of Self-Healing Communities to Be Resilient Now

RECORDING From Oct. 7, 2020 Wednesday 11:30 am-1 pm

Using Data to Build Self-Healing Sonoma Communities

RECORDING From Oct. 15 , 2020 Thursday 10-11:30 am

ACEs and Self-Healing Communities for Policy and Decision Makers

About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study

The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect and household challenges and later-life health and well-being.

The original ACE Study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997 with two waves of data collection. Over 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization members from Southern California receiving physical exams completed confidential surveys regarding their childhood experiences and current health status and behaviors.

More detailed information about the study can be found in the links below or in the article, “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults”.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

ACES and resilience

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Impact on brain, body and behavior

Understanding how toxic stress affects brain development and behavior. While we have minimal control of genetics we can change environmental factors leading to loving caring environments for children to grow up will healthy resilient behavior.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)

October 9, 2014

At McKenna Events Center in New Braunfels, Texas, Laura Porter, co-founder of ACE Interface, talked about the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Accorss the Life Span

Dr Nadine Burkes 2015

Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.

2020 Thrive Healing Summit

Laura Porter, founder of Self-Healing Communities and ACE Interface, will share her insights on how communities are creatively working together to protect the emergency response systems and creating opportunities to normalize the conversation with parents/care givers and youth about stress and mental health – while reducing shame and blame.

Through interactive discussions, participants reflect on the current situation, share experiences and resources, and generate possible solutions that can be replicated

original aces study by cdc and kaiser

Original Longitudinal ACES Study

Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults

Abstract

Background: The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described.Methods: A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded.

Seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were studied:

psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned. The number of categories of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measures of adult risk behavior, health status, and disease. Logistic regression was used to adjust for effects of demographic factors on the association between the cumulative number of categories of childhood exposures (range: 0–7) and risk factors for the leading causes of death in adult life.

Results: More than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported ≥2 categories of childhood exposures. We found a graded relationship between the number of categories of childhood exposure and each of the adult health risk behaviors and diseases that were studied ( P < .001). Persons who had experienced four or more categories of childhood exposure, compared to those who had experienced none, had 4- to 12-fold increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, and suicide attempt; a 2- to 4-fold increase in smoking, poor self-rated health, ≥50 sexual intercourse partners, and sexually transmitted disease; and a 1.4- to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. The number of categories of adverse childhood exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease. The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life.

Conclusions: We found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.

View fulltext

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

ORIGINAL ARTICLES| VOLUME 14, ISSUE 4, P245-258, MAY 01, 1998

Authors:

Vincent J Felitti MD, FACP ( Kaiser)

Robert F Anda MD, MS (CDC)

Dale Nordenberg MD

David F Williamson MS, PhD

Alison M Spitz MS, MPH

Valerie Edwards BA

Mary P Koss PhD

James S Marks MD, MPH