Session 432: The Impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Today, we’re diving into a topic that’s transforming how we understand public health education in this country: childhood trauma and its lifelong impact on the brain and body. For decades, adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, like abuse, neglect, or exposure to violence, were often seen as just social or emotional issues. But research has revealed the science of something much deeper: these experiences can rewire a child’s developing stress response system, leading to increased risks of chronic disease, mental health disorders, substance dependence, and even incarceration later in life.

Joining us for this conversation is someone who’s pioneered the charge in translating that science into statewide action. As California’s very first Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris helped put childhood trauma at the center of public health policy. She not only trained tens of thousands of providers to screen for ACEs, but pushed for major changes like linking juvenile justice reform to health equity. Dr. Burke Harris She brings a clinician’s insight and an advocate’s persistence to a conversation that challenges us to think bigger about prevention, healing, and what it really means to create environments that build holistically healthy and stable children.

About the Podcast

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

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Our Production Team

Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins

Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis

Producers: Tyree Rush & Ndeye Thioubou 

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