Our Work

We partner with state leaders, clinicians, advocates, and communities to transform systems so that care reflects the strongest science.

THE CASE FOR CHANGE

Help is coming too late.
We are changing that.

When it comes to early adversity our current health care system serves as a late-stage repair system, structured to intervene only after harm has already taken root.

Across our nation, most children and adults experiencing ACEs do not have access to evidence-based interventions until symptoms have already developed – often when health conditions are more difficult and expensive to treat. Meanwhile, the medical, non-mental health impacts of toxic stress frequently go unrecognized. Help is coming too late.

The encouraging news is that toxic stress is preventable and treatable. Thanks to advances in science, we now understand a key factor in how ACEs lead to long-term health and social risks. The prolonged activation of the biological stress response, especially during the critical and sensitive developmental periods of childhood, can lead to long-term changes in our neurologic, endocrine, immune, and genetic regulatory systems, a process now known as the toxic stress response. There’s a consensus of medical and scientific evidence demonstrating that early detection and early intervention can improve medical and behavioral health outcomes across the lifespan.

We can transform our health care system to one that embeds prevention, early detection, and connections to evidence-based supports that ensure our children and families get and stay healthy.

THE MODEL

Through this model, we can transform our systems to respond based on risk rather than harm.

ACEs are NOT destiny. We can restructure systems so that prevention, early detection, and evidence-based treatment for the toxic stress response becomes the standard of care in the United States.

So that early detection and trauma‑informed care are routine, financed parts of healthcare – not dependent on grants or individual champions.

For early detection and treatment to become routine, they must be financed. Reimbursement ensures that early detection and trauma-responsive care becomes standard practice and sustainable across states, rather than dependent on individual provider effort. Financial durability is essential for systems to consistently and reliably prevent, identify, and respond to toxic stress – and for families to receive care before crises escalate.

So that every child and family is met by a workforce prepared to recognize adversity early and respond with consistent, compassionate care.

Trauma-informed training is the foundation for true systems change. It builds a shared language and standard of care to prepare providers on how to deliver evidence-based, trauma-informed care. Training also ensures that early detection and evidence-based intervention are not dependent on individual champions, but become routine, durable practice across healthcare and community settings.

So that elevated risk is identified early and becomes actionable – preventing challenges from negatively impacting an individual’s health or well-being.

Screening for ACEs is a tool for providers to deliver precision medicine and ultimately a gateway for individuals to access support. It helps identify elevated risk for developing the toxic stress response – the key biological mechanism by which ACEs lead to increased risk for numerous health conditions – which opens the door to timely, evidence-based supports before harm compounds. Screening also includes assessing protective factors, like positive childhood experiences, so care teams can help families lean into what’s already working for them or identify where additional support may be needed.

So that care teams can connect families to enhanced, wrap-
around support based on early risk – not wait for a diagnosis of harm, when challenges become harder to address.

Wraparound care programs provide whole-person support for individuals with complex needs. Early identification tools, like ACE screening, can help care teams recognize who may benefit from these services sooner by reliably capturing information about toxic stress risk that may not appear in traditional diagnosis-based approaches. An elevated ACE score can help determine eligibility for enhanced care coordination and, when combined with trauma-informed training, networks of care, and sustainable financing, eligibility for wraparound care becomes a powerful mechanism for connecting families to stabilizing supports earlier.

So that families are supported by a coordinated, culturally grounded ecosystem of care with reliable pathways that make early support possible.

Children and families need coordinated, accessible, culturally competent supports. Networks of care bring together healthcare, community-based organizations, and social services to create closed-loop referral pathways, warm handoffs, and access to buffering supports like parenting programs, sleep or nutrition supports, care management, and more. These networks often rely on trusted providers like community health workers, home visitors, family navigators, promotoras, or others who reflect the communities they serve. By strengthening protective factors and ensuring families receive the right support at the right time, networks of care form the backbone of early intervention and help shift systems from crisis response to prevention and healing.

OUR OBJECTIVES

To achieve our overall goal of making the prevention, early detection and evidence-based treatment of toxic stress a standard part of healthcare practice in the United States, ACE Resource Network has created a strategy anchored in the following objectives:

Set the Standard of Care

Establish a clear standard of quality for training of healthcare providers, reimbursement for ACE screening, and evidence-based clinical care.

Advance Systems Rooted in Science

Prioritize state-level engagement to further embed the strongest science into healthcare delivery systems across diverse geographies and contexts.

Strengthen National Efforts

Establish a national hub that uplifts best practices into a coordinated movement and serves as a force multiplier for existing local and state-level efforts.

HOW WE DRIVE IMPACT

Through four interconnected areas of work, we help
states build sustainable, trauma-informed systems of care.

Medicaid Learning Collaborative

Help states advance policies and practices that prevent, identify, and respond to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. The Collaborative brings together State Medicaid leaders to strengthen how health systems promote resilience and improve lifelong health.

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Partnerships

Creating the policy, budgetary, clinical, and public engagement conditions necessary for a durable, trauma-informed system of care requires strong, cross-sector partners

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Thought Leadership

Drive a unified national narrative that builds momentum for early detection and intervention for ACEs and toxic stress through education, outreach, and strategic collaboration with trusted messengers.

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Training and Evidence

Enhance the availability of evidence and training on trauma-informed care, ACE screening and toxic stress risk assessment by ensuring clinicians have access to relevant and cost-effective clinical guidelines to provide evidence-based, culturally competent care in a variety of settings.

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