Emily Wong from CUPS Calgary will be presenting on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) at Circles of Hope. ACEs are negative, stressful, traumatizing events that occur before an individual turns 18, that cause disruption in development and compromise health over a person’s life. Watch Nadine Burke Harris’s TED Talk on how childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime here.
According to the Calgary’s Recovery Services Task Force, each of 299 participants in their study scored above the high risk score of four or more. This shows us that ACEs play a large part in the homeless-serving sector as we see that those who are currently experiencing homelessness are being effected by trauma that occurred in childhood. Therefore, it is up to us as front-line serving agencies to intervene early to ensure we are breaking the toxic stress cycle in children and youth.
Read more about ACEs here.
Emily Wong is Manager, Research and Evaluation at CUPS:
Circles of Hope presenter Emily Wong grew up in Vancouver and moved to Calgary three years ago. She has her BA and Masters of Public Administration in Policy Studies from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Passionate about improving the lives of vulnerable and marginalized populations, she has spent time working in research and policy analysis for various non-profit organizations and think tanks in Kingston and Toronto. As the Research and Evaluation Manager at CUPS, she continues to work behind the scenes to apply and contribute to the research of early childhood brain development and evaluate CUPS’ programs for improved effectiveness and efficiency.
