UCAAN Symposium Held at UCLA on February 6

Academic Briefing on the ACEs Aware Initiative

People talking at the UCAAN Symposium
By Paula Murphy, UCAAN Director of Communications
1 min read

On February 6, the UCLA-UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN) held a symposium at the Luskin Conference Center to update the UCLA community on the ACEs Aware Initiative. In 2021 the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) awarded UCLA, in partnership with UCSF, $175 million over three years to implement ACEs Aware and provide an academic anchor for the initiative, which is a first-in-the nation effort to screen patients for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to help address health inequities and improve lives. 
 

UCAAN is administratively housed in the UCLA Department of Pediatrics and is led by three Co-Principal Investigators:

  • Dr. Shannon Thyne, Vice-Chair in the UCLA Department of Pediatrics; Chief of Pediatrics at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, and Director of Pediatrics for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
  • Dr. Edward Machtinger, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center to Advance Trauma-informed Health Care and the Women’s HIV Program at UCSF.
  • Dr. Mikah Owen, UCAAN’s Senior Director of Clinical and Academic Programs and Health Equity.   

At the symposium, attendees heard from David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Dean Steven Dubinett, California Surgeon General Dr. Diana Ramos, and former California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. UCAAN’s three co-principal investigators spotlighted the progress UCAAN has made in advancing the ACEs Aware initiative over the past two and a half years, and UCLA faculty who lead ACEs Aware pilot projects shared their findings, followed by a poster session.
   
A key aspect of the ACEs Aware initiative has been to support academic pilot projects examining innovative approaches to preventing, identifying, and responding to ACEs and toxic stress in different settings and with different patient populations. Over the last two years, UCLA and UCSF faculty have led 10 pilots at UCLA and 11 at UCSF, collaborating across academic and clinical departments and with partners in the community. The pilot projects are designed to fill gaps in knowledge and resources necessary to inform ACEs Aware trainings, clinical protocols and guidelines, and recommendations for evidence-based strategies to mitigate toxic stress. 

More information about the UCLA pilot projects, including links to their posters, can be found in the event program. 

More information about UCAAN can be found on the UCAAN website.
   
Questions? Contact UCAAN@ucla.edu