Jane Ellen Stevens

Five-minute video primer about Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

Many people have been asking for a short video that explains the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, the groundbreaking epidemiological research that revealed the link between childhood trauma and the adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence.

KPJR Films, which came out with Paper Tigers last year and Resilience this year, put together this wonderful five-minute overview of the ACE Study. It was edited by Jen Bradwell.

KPJR Films’ executive producer is Karen Pritzker. Its director-producer is James Redford.

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If you’re interested in becoming more involved in the PACEs science community, join our companion social network, PACEs Connection. Just go to PACEsConnection.com and click “Join”. PACEsConnection.com is the leading advocate for information about the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) and the rapidly expanding, global PACEs science movement. 

38 comments

  1. Hi Jane Ellen –
    I work for ZERO TO THREE on a project called HealthySteps (https://www.healthysteps.org/). We are developing an e-learning lesson for staff at new pediatric sites who will be using the HealthySteps approach when working with parents of infants and toddlers. ACEs is a topic that we introduce in the lesson and we would very much like to have your permission to link to this video to provide them with a clear, interesting explanation of the original study.
    Please let me know if that would be possible. Thank you!
    Kathy Reschke
    Senior Content Specialist
    HealthySteps/ZERO TO THREE

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    • Gee, I hope that you received your answer to this more than two years ago! COVID really interrupted my ability to write articles as well as respond to comments and questions. My apologies! Anyone can link to the video.

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  2. Wonderful video! I volunteer at a local community organization that helps parents overcome obstacles and learn how to become better parents. Can I get this video on DVD to show them on our tv in the center? (We don’t have internet connection to the tv at this time)

    Thank you for your consideration~

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  3. […] Five Minute Video Primer about the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (Video) Published: April 2016 | 5 minutes Many people have been asking for a short video that explains the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, the groundbreaking epidemiological research that revealed the link between childhood trauma and the adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. […]

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  4. Hello. Is this video no longer available? I am new to the ACEs information and I am trying to learn as much as possible. Thank you

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  5. I handle court-appointed child welfare matters for parents and children and serve as a child’s best interests advocate (Guardian ad litem) in dependency and other child custody disputes. May I post links to all three videos on my law firm’s website to get the word out?

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  8. Can we no longer access this video? It says it’s private and you need a password to see it on Vimeo.

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  10. Outstanding explanation of ACEs. I will be sharing this in my community. Thank you to KPFR Films and all those who made this possible.

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  11. I have two comments about this. While I care about future generations, what about those of us who are adult survivors and riddled with Complex PTSD? The majority of therapists and psychiatrists have absolutely no idea about the physiology of trauma – how exactly it affects the brain and how to approach healing. I have suffered plenty of trauma in the process of trying to find healing because people don’t know what they are doing. I am on a better track now, but the journey is grueling and very few professionals know how to support it. One of the biggest issues is the “freeze response”. It is this response of our autonomic nervous system during times of trauma that does the physical and emotional damage. And there is the question of how does one relegate limbic memory to past experience and remove it from the present? It is not as simple as just “being in the NOW”. The older centers of our brain never forget what happened and ALL SENSORY DATA that was present during the trauma is registered as a threat – forever. That means, that sensation itself can be so corrupted that we are being pounded by triggers from many directions. There should be a diagnosis of COMPOUND Complex PTSD for those of us who have been fighting these dragons for decades and attracting the wrong people into our lives unwittingly so that we can compulsively try to solve an old situation in an absolutely futile way. This is why people jump. The task is gargantuan.

    ALSO – what about medical trauma?? Many people wake up during surgery and many infants get procedures performed with no anesthesia, especially from my generation. One can come from a wonderful family and have overwhelming physical and psychological affects from trauma.

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    • I guess we are the pioneers in understanding the brain-body connection of trauma and navigating the complex world of healing and recovery. Hopefully, professionals are beginning to get this information. My work as a trauma initiative director is to get the ground level trauma information out to educators, parents, and community organizations and occasionally professionals. Personally, I’ve found that I so often have to advocate for myself in situations where I wanted the professionals to already understand my trauma. Maybe we need to recommend books like The Body Keeps The Score or Childhood Disrupted to our therapists. I share your frustration. We have work to do.

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    • Teresa, I hear you loud and clear on all the points you make, and offer you all my sympathy with the dreadful life-journey which is yours. Have you looked at Trauma Releasing Exercises – TRE ? This is what I do and would recommend you enquire about it. And you are right about the Freeze Response : much harder and trickier to resolve than a hyped state of Fight&Flight arousal. For this reason it is strongly advised that one looks for a ‘suitable’ TRE practitioner for support. I’m in Dublin, Ireland and would be happy to chat over this with you. My Skype name is Raymond Lambert or raymondlambert (in Dublin, probably 6 to 8 hours ahead of your time). Best wishes

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    • I have been trauma focused for years now in the United States and across the pond. The most comprehensive video is from Australia. Trauma affects people in different ways and, for some, the effects are so great that they develop the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which interferes with their ability to cope in daily life. Look also at Polyvagal Theory.
      I hope this helps. Also the trauma conferences in Philadelphia are two weeks long and I have attended them for three years now.

      L’Chaim

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  14. I have seen the change in the past 6 years of teaching about ACEs. Mental health professionals are starting to get it. It forces us to adopt a biopsychoscial-spiritual model. Thank you for this lovely, simple video!

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  15. Jane Ellen – Thank you so much for bringing this video to light. I’ve seen the trailers for Resilience and Paper Tigers and hope to see them someday if they come to my community. This is a wonderful introduction to ACEs and I love how they quote Robert Anda as saying that “what is predictable is preventable.” And for their emphasis that it is possible to heal from trauma.

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  17. I might be only person who sees the video minus the volume? I’ve tried it on two devices and neither one of them has audio

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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