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​Reduce, mitigate, and prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Developmental Adversity (DA)

The seminal work on ACEs (including the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACEs Study as well as the Philadelphia Expanded ACE Survey) established several key points that inform CTIPP’s work today: adversity is more common than not; ACEs and DA are connected to and increase the population-level risk for many of America’s most costly and seemingly intractable social, economic, and health issues; and ACEs can indelibly impact individual and collective experiences and outcomes across the life course as well as spanning multiple generations.

 

Emerging wisdom issues build on these critical foundations in ways that issue a clarion call to address ACEs, DA, and trauma through a comprehensive, multi-pronged, cross-system, and cross-sector public health approach.

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CTIPP strives to advance solutions that provide individuals, families, communities, institutions, and systems support and care to prevent, mitigate, and heal ACEs, DA, and trauma by:

  • realizing the widespread impact of trauma and adversity, as well as possible pathways for recovery

  • recognizing the signs and symptoms of trauma and adversity

  • responding by integrating NEAR (neuroscience, epigenetics, ACEs, and resilience) science and related knowledge into policies and practices

  • resisting re-traumatization by supporting and enacting engagement that intentionally seeks to neutralize and protect against dynamics that may replicate trauma and adversity

CTIPP SUPPORTS:

  • Protect against inappropriate ACEs screening practices, the misuse of ACE scores in clinical decision-making processes and individual-level care, and potential stigmatization/bias-related

  • Increase awareness and education related to attachment and the importance of the first three years of life in healthy development and producing positive outcomes/experiences across the lifespan

  • Incentivize the use of trauma-informed, trauma-responsive, and trauma-specific interventions and practices in communities with complex needs to disrupt intergenerational cycles of violence, trauma, and adversity while increasing well-being across the lifespan

  • Adopt upstream solutions such as early intervention to address and mitigate the impacts of adversity that has already occurred as well as practices that can prevent individual and collective trauma/adversity from occurring

  • Enhance trauma-informed wraparound service referral processes among primary healthcare and pediatrician providers with the understanding that such settings are often the first line of detection for trauma and the need for additional child, family, and/or community support

  • Require programs and services to integrate trauma-informed, trauma-responsive, and trauma-specific evidence-based, evidence-informed, and promising practices to receive public grant funding​

  • Increase and diversity funding to address ACEs, DA, and trauma as well as bolster individual and collective resilience and holistic well-being

  • Require policymakers to make policy decisions with consideration for a trauma/ACEs/DA/equity lens

  • Expand equitable access to and enhance the coordination and collaboration between services and supports to bolster whole-child, whole-family, and whole-community health, resilience, and well-being

  • Improve equitable access to quality infant and child mental and behavioral health services to promote healthy development and build resilience

  • Implement policies and practices that address safe and stable housing, food security, economic and financial well-being, and other supports to meet children’s needs

  • Increase community partners’ presence in schools and other relevant settings to connect trauma-impacted students and their families to trauma-informed wraparound support, as needed

  • Promote practices demonstrated to enhance executive functioning and promote self-regulation and social-emotional learning

  • Require trauma-informed training and education among all members of the workforce that interface with child- and family-servicing systems

  • Expand public healthcare program coverage to include evidence-based, evidence-informed, and promising practices demonstrated to prevent, mitigate the impacts of, and promote recovery from trauma and build resilience

  • Enhance data sharing to promote awareness, collaboration, alignment, and coordination of trauma-informed care across systems and sectors

  • Fund continued research to expand the ACEs, trauma, and DA evidence base and uncover more interventions, approaches, and supports that promote holistic recovery and prevention

  • Invest in and coordinate information to support public education and awareness campaigns regarding ACEs, DA, NEAR, positive parenting practices, the buffering impact of connectedness and co-regulation, trauma-informed solutions, and other relevant topics to build capacity and increase self-efficacy and empowerment to make health- and wellness-promoting choices among community members

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