Trauma & Resilience

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are experiences with the potential to harm children’s physical, social, and emotional development. These experiences can be interpersonal, such as experiences of abuse and neglect or parental substance abuse; or systemic, such as exposure to poverty or discrimination. Exposure to adversity is not evenly distributed: Native American, Black, and Hispanic children—and youth who identify as LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning)—are more likely to be exposed to adversity than their White, Asian, and cisgender, heterosexual peers.