The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative is helping health departments across Illinois become more trauma-informed—in other words, become more grounded in an understanding of the physical, psychological, and social effects of trauma and how that impacts both clients and staff.

To support health departments in this journey, we are offering a webinar series, virtual learning collaborative tools and resources, and tailored support to a small number of health departments.

Resources

• Implementing Trauma-Informed Care: Resources and Case Studies for Health Departments: Responsive to health departments expressed needs to better understand the process of becoming trauma-informed, this brief offers an overview of trauma-informed care and case studies from two Illinois leaders in this work, the Chicago Department of Public Health and Winnebago County Health Department.
• Trauma-Informed Approaches for Supporting Families with Opioid Misuse: This paper provides an overview of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), as well as how opioid misuse is both associated with past trauma in the home and community and correlated with increased risk of future poor health and social outcomes. It also provides practical strategies to implement a trauma-informed response that fosters resilience and supports families impacted by opioid misuse.
• See more publications in our resource library. [new link to come–when resource section is programmed].

Interested in solutions-oriented trainings or other capacity-building supports to transform your organization, institution, or community into an environment where everyone can thrive?

Learn about our training opportunities here! Our services are available to any organization within and beyond the social service and health sector.

The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative has extensive experience providing technical assistance to hospitals, health departments, social service organizations, and county-level initiatives to help them advance their trauma-informed organizational transformation. Becoming trauma-informed is a multi-year process that begins with awareness and grows to the knowledge of trauma becoming embedded and operationalized throughout an organization. Our assistance is responsive to the groups we work with and ranges from one-off strategy discussion to organization-wide trainings to ongoing intensive support. We also help agencies conduct baseline assessments, establish trauma-informed care working groups, incorporate trauma-informed principles into strategic plans, and more. Contact us today to build your organization’s capacity towards becoming trauma-informed.

Some highlights of our capacity building efforts include the following:

• Our trainings on childhood adversity and resilience, historical trauma, burnout, and trauma-informed care have reached 1,200 people from community-based organizations, hospitals, FQHCs, schools, foundations, and more.
• We are the region’s hub for the ACE Interface Train-the-Trainer curriculum, a nationally recognized program developed by Dr. Rob Anda and Laura Porter. We have trained four cohorts of presenters and now have four master trainers and 85 presenters.
• We lead the Trauma-Informed Working Group for local hospitals—the first of its kind in the country—to provide capacity building for 17 of Chicagoland’s leading hospitals working to become more trauma-informed.
• We launched an ambitious initiative to support Illinois health departments advance their journey to become trauma-informed, serving 53 health departments nationally, including 30 Illinois departments, in 2018.
• We engaged system, agency, and government leaders including providing expertise to Sen. Durbin’s Chicago HEAL Initiative, a collaboration between hospitals to reduce gun violence.

Drawing members from diverse sectors, the Collaborative has emerged as an organizing entity for trauma and ACEs work in Illinois. We are uniquely positioned to educate and advocate on key policy issues affecting intergenerational and systemic trauma, community wellbeing, and resilience.

Some of our policy successes include:

• Introducing Senate Bill 646: Task Force to Create a Healing-Centered Illinois
• Releasing the Action Plan to Address Childhood Adversity in Illinois in May 2021
• Informing legislation establishing Illinois’s first Trauma-Informed Awareness Day
• Trauma-Informed Policymaking Tool
• Petitioning the Illinois Department of Public Health to include an ACE module in the 2013 and 2017 BRFSS
• Providing ongoing guidance and feedback to city, state, and national policymakers

Policymaking Tool

Our Trauma-Informed Policymaking Tool outlines a policy approach to preventing and healing from trauma. The two-page Tool defines trauma-informed principles and describes their application to both the process of policymaking and its outcome. See it here!

Policy Briefs: Health, Justice, and Education

In 2017, the Collaborative released three policy briefs on the impact of ACEs in the health, justice, and education systems including promising practices and recommended actions for change. These briefs were developed by members of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative—system leaders in Illinois who are working from an ACEs-informed lens to improve systems to prevent and mitigate trauma across generations.

Rooted in social justice, these briefs are a call to action to move upstream, build resiliency, and recognize how addressing inequity and trauma can improve systems while also building resiliency. Follow the links below to access the documents:

Summary Briefs

• ACEs for Health Systems and Providers
• ACEs and the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems
• ACEs for Educators and Stakeholders

Full Briefs

• ACEs for Health Systems and Providers
• ACES and the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems
• ACEs for Educators and Stakeholders

The Collaborative is a trusted resource hub and convener for all those in Illinois working to become trauma-informed, from legislators and agency leaders to community-based organizations. Our work in raising awareness and addressing childhood adversity includes collecting and analyzing emerging data on the impact of trauma to inform policy and practice development.

For more information, visit our resource library.

The resources shared in this toolkit are informed by our work with the Hospital Collaborative and are designed to help providers both increase their understanding of what it means to be truly trauma-informed and begin the complex and multi-step process of implementing those practices. This work is ongoing. Visit again soon for updates and contact us to share ideas of your own.

To view the PDF, click here. [PDF link to come–when document is created and posted]

The Collaborative’s webinar series connects our members with innovative and evidence-informed policies and practices related to childhood adversity from across the country. To be notified about upcoming webinars, join our mailing list.

Click here to access our webinar archive. [new link to come–when resource section is programmed]

The Collaborative Advisory Committee helps the Collaborative innovate and catalyze change in our state by providing strategic input into our work. This group of dedicated, experienced, and insightful leaders will ensure that we continue to amplify the impact of the many dedicated stakeholders working in the field of childhood adversity in Illinois. We are honored to have their support and input in our work.

• Blanca Campos, MPA, Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois (CBHA)
• Sarah Hess, JD, Legal Council for Health Justice
• Rebecca Levin, MPH, Cook County Sheriff’s Office
• Jen McGowan-Tomke, MPH, NAMI Chicago
• Andrea Ortez, Partnership for Resilience
• Elena Quintana, PhD, Institute on Public Safety & Social Justice, Adler University
• Jackie Samuel, PhD, National Louis University
• Margie Schaps, MPH, Health & Medicine Policy Research Group
• Mashana Smith, PhD, Center for Childhood Resilience
• Audrey Stillerman, MD, Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships, UI Health
• Marlita White, LCSW, Chicago Department of Public Health
• Asif Wilson, PhD, Harold Washington College