Tech for the ACEs in our lives

For many people, traumatic experiences in childhood and youth cast long shadows in their lives.

Such adverse childhood experiences, or “ACEs”, as they’re also called, have been found to have a huge impact on everything from life expectancy to the risk of developing mental health problems, affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Adverse childhood experiences are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today

Former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Robert Block

And they are prevalent. So much so that many organizations working within the field of healthcare are claiming that ACEs, and the way that we — as societies and communities — still don’t address them appropriately, gives room to much human suffering that could potentially be avoided.

The research and initiatives surrounding ACEs have interested me greatly in recent years, as my relationship with ACEs is also a personal one. ACEs have influenced my parents and many of my friends, and myself.

I strongly believe that a having a strong mental health is one of the cornerstones of being able to live a life filled with love, good health, and longevity (among others), and throughout more than half a decade I’ve felt called to put my competencies and interests as a software developer, designer, entrepreneur (and a recent student of social psychology) to use within this field.

I am convinced that there is so much benefit to be had from building scalable human-digital systems, products, and services that enable individuals, families, and communities to tackle the complexities of ACEs and alleviate their long-term effects.

Taking action

I would like to do my part in contributing towards a society in which most people get a fair chance of tackling the effects of their ACEs, thereby healing themselves and the relationships that they have.

I want to help build digital support for the life-long alleviation of ACEs, and I intend to do this through putting my resources into the development of systems, products, and services — and by hopefully building a strong community of like-minded people that can approach these challenges at scale.

Currently, I am focusing partly on building a community and partly working on two strands of human-digital systems, products, and services for the ACEs community:

1. Digital tools for people with living ACEs that enable them to self-educate on ACEs and their effects and that help them alleviate the effects as much as possible
2. Digital tools for professionals (therapists, doctors, teachers, social workers, etc.) that help screen, analyse, and report on the prevalence of ACEs in their communities

The tools will manifest themselves as smartphone apps, websites, and other types of digital products that are relevant to the contexts in which they will be used.

I hope to develop artifacts that will have long-term relevancy to their users, and I expect this value to be reflected in many of the design choices that will be made (and discussed here, which I’m looking forward to).

Thanks

Thanks for taking your time to read this post. It really means a lot to me, and I hope that you will subscribe to this publication to receive news.

I would love to hear from you in case you have any thoughts or comments, and until next post: May the good life be with you. 🤗