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Community Development

Programs and communities are beginning to identify ways to promote resiliency and recovery from ACE outcomes (including substance abuse), while emphasizing personal responsibility, social affiliations and skill-building:

• Collective intervention approaches can be offered within communities and overlaid on a variety of programmatic structures.
   
• Investments in these types of ACE-informed collective responses have high returns (see Hall, Porter, Longhi, & Becker-Green, 2012).
   
• When people experience increasing healing and wholeness in life, along with stable work and community integration, they are able to provide support and reduce risks for the next generation (Larkin, Beckos, & Shields, 2012).

Community Examples

The HEARTS (Healthy Environments and Relationships That Support) Initiative is a growing cross-sector collaborative of local and state agencies working together to take on adversity and trauma through various community and program development efforts.

The Committee on the Shelterless (COTS) says that HEARTS trump ACEs. This powerpoint reviews the way COTS mobilizes the Healing Power of Social Networks. There is also an Executive Summary to provide a case example of COTS.

Troy Housing Authority has developed the PE/ACE Project to counteract ACEs among people living in poverty.

The Washington State Family Policy Council is a state level interagency council that has partnered with community public health and safety networks to support community-driven change in response to ACE knowledge.

Community Development Resources

• Essentials for Childhood Framework - Developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Essentials for Childhood Framework offers five evidence-based strategies for communities working to build positive environments and relationships for children and families. Five state health departments in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington have been funded by the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention to implement these steps.

• Recipe for Resilience - Learn how to make a difference in your community with this "recipe" from the Community Resilience Cookbook. The Recipe for Resilience is a comprehensive guide to community-level ACE response containing action steps gathered from 9 communities in the United States and Canada. Following the proceedings of the first National Collaborative on Adversity and Resilience (NCAR), the Cookbook was put together by the Health Federation of Philadelphia (HFP) to spread ACE awareness nationally and inspire communities to mobilize resilience and promote healing.

• Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience: A Framework for Addressing and Preventing Community Trauma - Trauma is not just an individual phenomenon; it can also occur at the community level. Manifestations of community trauma are pervasive and demand careful attention from policymakers and community workers to promote community resilience and recovery. Researchers at the Prevention Institute have developed this framework to address trauma and build resilience at the community level.

• Emerging Action Principles for Designing and Planning Community Change - This report by Community Science reveals 18 emerging principles for community change gathered from 13 successful community change initiatives (CCI). Each principle offers guidance on an essential facet of community change (e.g., building relationships) and includes examples of strategies used by one of the 13 CCIs.