It is with a happy heart that I post this great news!

On May 1, ACEsTooHigh.com became independent from PACEs Connection.

The reason? It gives the organizations the flexibility each needs to grow as it should.

When I founded ACEs Connection in 2012, it comprised ACEsTooHigh.com, a news site for the general public that I founded in 2009, and ACEsConnection.com, a social network for the growing community of people who were integrating practices and policies based on ACEs science in their work and lives.

Two years ago, we changed the name to PACEs Connection to reflect how the growing science of positive childhood experiences integrated with ACEs science.

Because I’m a long-time health, science and technology journalist, PACEs Connection was always a journalism organization; as publisher and CEO, I created it as such. Over the years, the articles on ACEsTooHigh.com have had millions of page views. PACEsConnection.com has grown to nearly 60,000 members.

When Ingrid Cockhren became CEO last year, we began talking about the future of the two parts of the organization.

Journalism organizations are led by journalists; Ingrid is not a journalist, and as a journalist I cannot report to a person who is not a journalist.

As a journalism organization, PACEs Connection could not apply for state and federal grants, which PACEs Connection needs to be able to do to continue to support its work. It also needs to scale and develop partnerships with organizations and companies in a way that journalism organizations cannot.

We’re looking forward to this change. I will be able to devote all my time to reporting and writing articles about PACEs science and how organizations are successfully integrating practices and policies based on the science, or not, as well as grow the organization to involve and encourage more journalists to report on the evolution of integrating this science into all parts of human society and culture.

Under Ingrid’s leadership, the staff of PACEs Connection will be able to scale and grow its influence as it educates and involves hundreds of thousands of more people and hundreds of organizations in this remarkable science.

Although the two organizations will operate independently, I will become a member of PACEs Connection’s advisory board and Ingrid will become a member of the ACEsTooHigh advisory board. She and I will meet at least once a month to discuss trends and developments in the area of PACEs science.

With this change, the only thing that you’ll notice is that ACEsTooHigh will be posting many more news articles and more commentary about how people and organizations are implementing policies and practices based on positive and adverse childhood experiences science, or not, as the case may be.

And PACEsConnection.com will be developing more conferences, including one to transform workplaces, more webinars, more services for communities, and more partnerships with nonprofits and corporations that are as passionate about educating people about PACEs science as we are. If you’re not a member, please consider joining PACEsConnection.com. Just go to the site and click on the Join button.

My new email address is jstevens@acestoohigh.com.

Please let me know if you have any questions.