Ahead of our November 25 Speaker Series, we sat down with Bridget Glassco, MSc, Program Manager for the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) & Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) to talk about what we've learned since 2019, and where we go from here.
Bridget joined the Community Foundation team in November 2022. Her portfolio includes the ACEs & Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) part of the Resilience Across the Lifespan Initiative. She previously worked at KEYS Employment & Newcomer Services and has worked in the community sector in Ontario and Quebec for twenty years.
For people new to this topic, what are ACEs?
"Adverse childhood experiences are stressful or traumatic events that take place in a child's life before they're 18," Bridget explains. "The original ten emerged from a landmark CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE study in the 90s, including types of neglect, abuse, and household dysfunction. Over the years more community-level ACEs, like experiences of racism and discrimination and poverty have been included. We know that in the absence of support, ACEs can lead to lifelong negative health and social outcomes. But we also know that early adversity is not destiny. The effects of ACEs can be buffered by safe and nurturing environments, by the presence of just one consistent and caring adult in a child's life. These positive childhood experiences can help build resilience, or our capacity to stay well in the face of significant stress or hardship. While resilience can be strengthened at any time, the best time to build resilience is at a young age. That's what we call upstream work: instead of waiting to pull people out of the river downstream, we work to prevent them from falling in in the first place."
It's been seven years since our original speaker series on ACEs. Why revisit it now?
"We see the original speaker series event as a bit of a catalyst for the development of the ARC, and some of the really exciting collaborative work that's been happening locally," Bridget says. "A lot has been accomplished in the last seven years, but much remains to be done. We wanted an opportunity to bring the community together and take an honest look at where we've come since then. There's a real momentum and wonderful appetite for collaboration in the sector. We want to celebrate that, while looking at persistent gaps and where we need to be focusing moving forward."
What funds this work?
The Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul made a significant gift in 2021 to establish the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul Community Impact Fund at the Community Foundation. Bridget explains. “The Sisters arrived in Kingston in 1861, and for more than 150 years they cared for this community: the sick, the elderly, the orphaned, and the imprisoned. Their donation continues that legacy of care. It supports two streams: preventing and mitigating ACEs, and building resilience generally, and relieving isolation and loneliness among older adults by fostering connecting and belonging. It's a beautiful full-circle kind of thing."
What has the fund made possible?
“So far, on the ACEs & Resilience side, the fund has supported seven collaborative initiatives with a total of $2.85M in grants, mostly multi-year funding. If it wasn't for the Sisters Fund, the doors of A Great Start for Families Kahwà:tsire Ronwatiyenawá:se Centre would have closed two years ago. When we think of the lives that have been changed for families with young children accessing that centre, having read some of their feedback, I don't really even have words for that impact.
Something for Dads is another great example of how this funding has helped to facilitate innovation and deep collaboration. There was the will and creative energy locally to figure out a new way of working together to address the gap in supports for dads facing parenting challenges. Resolve Counselling developed a curriculum, and eight local agencies came together to co-facilitate the program with in-kind staffing on an ongoing basis. This sense of shared and local ownership, as well as a low overhead, will help to ensure long-term sustainability, and I think this approach is a model for how we can potentially address other gaps together. I could go on and on about each of the funded initiatives, Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), Collaborative Care Initiative, the Unnamed Youth Project, they each share the potential for widespread and lasting impact and that upstream emphasis that is just so important and really exciting."
Who should come on November 25?
"Anyone who's interested in helping foster resilience in KFL&A for children, youth and families - community members, people who work with children, youth, and families, parents, grandparents, neighbours, friends. It's really for everybody. It's going to be a very accessible conversation with some wonderful speakers."
Join us on Wednesday, November 25, 8:30 to 10:00 a.m., in the Grandview Room (sixth floor) of the Delta Hotel Kingston Waterfront. Tickets are $50 and include a buffet breakfast, with a $20 tax receipt per ticket. Panelists include Anne Marie McDonald, Msenwa Oliver Mweneake, Kris Millan, and Helen Mabberly.
Register Now for ACEs and Resilience: Where Are We Now!
