What are ACEs?
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic experiences occurring during childhood that cause children to repeatedly suffer.
The experiences can directly harm a child (e.g. abuse) or can indirectly affect a child through the environments they live in (e.g. growing up in a house with domestic violence.) The resulting trauma can continue to affect people as adults, long after it has happened.
We have created a short guide to understanding Adverse
Childhood Experiences and a Trauma and ACE (TrACE) informed approach, you can read and download this document below.
Why ACE Aware?
ACEs are everyone’s business. For every 100 people in Wales, 50 have experienced one ACE, and 14 have experienced 4 or more.
ACEs affect us all, they aren’t just about children; they affect people of all ages and cross every social boundary. We all have a part to play in breaking the cycle.
We all need to understand and talk about ACEs, because the more we know, the more we can think about ACEs in everything we do.
ACE Awareness
We all have a role in tackling them, as professionals, people and communties.
You can help reduce ACEs by:
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being ACE aware
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preventing household adversity
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supporting parents and families
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building resilience in children and wider communities
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creating an ACE aware community
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encouraging wider awareness and understanding about ACEs and their impact on health and behaviour
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using encounters with adults in services such as homelessness services, addiction, prison or maternity services, to also consider the impacts on their children or future children.
ACE Aware Communities #KindnessMatters
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”