Giving Compass' Take:

• The  Resilience in School Environments effort facilitates partnerships between nonprofit organizations and schools to decrease the impact of adverse childhood experiences on students. 

• How is your local school system thinking about adverse childhood experiences? What more can be done to support students? 

• Read more about the impact of ACEs from the Center for Youth Wellness. 

Do your school staff members have gatherings or activities to help them build relationships with each other?

Is there a process for collaborating with community-based behavioral health providers for students who need support?

Does your district track schools’ use of social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices or other efforts to support students’ and staff members’ well-being?

Those are among the questions school and district leaders can ask themselves as part of a growing initiative to respond to the adverse childhood experiences — or ACEs — research has shown can impact school performance and long-term health outcomes.

Called Resilience in School Environments, the effort is part of the Thriving Schools program at Kaiser Permanente, which 20 years ago took part in the landmark study on the issue with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost two-thirds of participants in the study reported at least one experience of abuse, neglect or household dysfunction before age 18, and more than one in five reported three or more ACEs.

Through a partnership announced Thursday with nonprofit Alliance for a Healthier Education and Discovery Education, the RISE program will bring on-site and virtual resources to schools focused on the social and emotional health of both students and school staff members, with plans to reach 25,000 schools by 2023.

"The additional resources will help our staff manage through stressful situations and reinforce the power of a well-established support system for our colleagues and the students in our classrooms," says Rachel Sherwood, principal of Bemiss Elementary in the Spokane Public Schools, one of 633 schools and 36 school districts participating in the program.

Read the full article about reducing adverse childhood experiences by Linda Jacobson at Education Dive.