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The original 1995-1997 ACE, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, study surveyed over 17,000 individuals who had come to their health care provider for physical exams. The data represent their confidential responses about their childhood experiences and current health status and behaviors. Since then, many more ACE studies have been conducted. The results clearly demonstrate that abuse, neglect, hunger, family disruptions and dysfunctions in childhood are correlated with poorer health and wellbeing outcomes in adulthood.

So how do people with histories of trauma survive and thrive? In an upcoming Exchange magazine article, "We are Much More Than our ACEs Scores: The Extraordinary Creative Capacities of Traumatized Children," Holly Elissa Bruno writes, "Hope asks us to open to possibility. Perhaps that is it. We are more than our ACEs scores because we choose to outlive the life sentence of fear. We choose the promise of hope, that active trust in life that refuses to quit. To choose hope, we need to feel we belong. We belong with every person who stands up to fear."

On July 12, Holly Elissa Bruno, author of Happiness is Running Through the Streets to Find You, will join Crystal Sanford Brown, head of Emerging Young Leadership, Inc., as guests on the next Engaging Exchange: "Naming Secrets, Claiming Courage: A Brave Conversation on Trauma in Early Childhood." In this live online conversation, they’ll share how trauma has shaped their lives and how they in turn have courageously responded with hope, courage and a persistent will to make life better for those around them. As Sanford-Brown says, "The terms SILENT and LISTEN contain the same letters, yet have a vastly different impact."

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