Imagine the countless hours spent in high school classrooms: blackboards, textbooks, lesson plans. Now imagine if you could spend half of that typical day in real-world offices, solving real-world problems. That’s exactly what the students in the Iowa BIG program get to do every school year. Iowa BIG began as a collaborative effort between area business leaders and the Cedar Rapids Gazette Companies to begin to reimagine the typical approach to education. Its pilot kicked off in 2013, with...

A new report from the Central Iowa ACEs 360 Coalition shows a link between childhood trauma and poor adult health. The report -- titled " Beyond ACEs: Building Hope & Resiliency in Iowa " -- uses data from three years of surveys and says that adults who experienced some form of childhood trauma are more at-risk for adult health issues, both physically and mentally. Prevent Child Abuse Iowa Communications Director Sara Welch says the study asked respondents to report any number of adverse...

A new report from the Central Iowa ACEs 360 Coalition shows most Iowa adults have experienced childhood trauma, an indicator of higher rates of chronic diseases, mental illness, violence, risky behaviors, and reduced life expectancy among adults. The 2016 ACEs report, Beyond ACEs: Building Hope & Resiliency in Iowa, examines three years of data collected among adult Iowans measuring eight types of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), defined as physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and...

Trace Pickering, associate superintendent of the Cedar Rapids Community School District, founded Iowa BIG, a district program that gives students an alternative to the traditional school day. The district, located about two hours’ drive northeast of Des Moines, is the second largest in Iowa (after Des Moines), with more than 17,000 students. And parents had to be convinced that it was worth trying something new because schools there already had a good reputation. The district’s students...

Yolanda Harden grew up a ward of the state in Lawton, Okla. Chaos marked her childhood, the details of which she chooses to keep private, even at age 34. She drank alcohol and smoked marijuana before she was a teenager. She got pregnant when she was 14 and had a son at 15. For most of her life, Yolanda, who now lives in Rockford, Ia., felt like a clenched fist gripped her heart, she told me in a recent telephone conversation. She believed the root of her struggles was that she was simply...

In the wake of the gun violence last fall that claimed the life of 15-year-old Aaron Richardson, community leaders came together to discuss a comprehensive response that would focus on the systemic causes of gun violence and poverty, with hopes their work would make a lasting impact on the community. As a result, the Safe, Equitable, and Thriving Communities Task Force was born in January. The SET Task Force is a multi-jurisdictional committee charged with addressing the systemic causes of...

Dr. Resmiye Oral, clinical professor of pediatrics and director of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine’s Child Protection Program, wrote this guest blog for the Cedar Rapid Gazette: Psychological trauma resulting from childhood and adult adversities is strongly tied to negative health outcomes. Studies since the 1990s have identified that more than half of adults were exposed to at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), which may include events such as child abuse,...

This was produced by KPJR Films, and edited by Jen Bradwell.

Often shouted in anger or groaned in disdain, the question “What’s wrong with you?!” rarely leads to an honest answer about a person’s life or experiences. That’s because it’s the wrong question to ask and the answer is complicated. A new pilot program in Black Hawk County hopes to change that interaction between two people, and in turn, create a stronger community and healthier children. The community-based child abuse prevention response to ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, project...

The Iowa ACEs Policy Coalition held two successful advocacy days at the Iowa State Capitol, bringing together participants from across the state and various sectors to advocate for preventative and early intervention strategies. Key legislative items for the 2016 session include: expanding the 1st Five Healthy Mental Development Initiative statewide, creating a statewide system of care for children's mental health, and ensuring access to preventative and early identification services for...

The Appanoose County NEST program has been under the guidance of coordinator Meho Clark for about three years and has been growing steadily. The parent education and support group began about five years ago at SEIDA, but has since moved under the control of Clark at the ISU Extension Office where it currently serves about 60 families and 100 children. The program serves anyone who is pregnant or with a child under five. There are not other restrictions on who can participate. Families can...

The Central Iowa ACEs Coalition has just released a four-page executive summary sharing some initial findings from analyzing three years of ACEs data (2012-2014). The report is centered around hope and resiliency with a focus on opportunities to respond to the ACEs findings. The report also features a story of how little nudges along the way helped a mother find a new path for her future. View the executive summary here . View other resources on our Iowa ACEs 360 website . The four-page...