The ACEs Aware initiative released the August 2023 quarterly data report detailing the number of ACE screenings conducted for Medi-Cal members (children and adults) and the number of individuals who completed the “Becoming ACEs Aware in California” online training.
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News, events, and important information from the ACEs Aware initiative

Mikah Owen, MD, has been named as a principal investigator of the UCLA-UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN), the organization that implements the ACEs Aware initiative on behalf of the California Department of Health Care Services and the Office of the California Surgeon General, effective immediately.
Dr. Owen has served as UCAAN’s Senior Director of Clinical and Academic Programs and Health Equity since August 2022. He joins Shannon Thyne, MD, from UCLA and Edward Machtinger, MD, from UCSF, as…
Heyman Oo, MD, MPH, a pediatrician, is the Associate Medical Director at Marin Community Clinics (MCC). Caren Schmidt, PsyD, is MCC’s Associate Director of Behavioral Health. For the past six years, they have championed trauma-informed care and ACE screening and intervention at their clinic. Their work is a featured case study in the ACEs Aware ACE Screening Implementation How-To Guide, in which they described their experiences obtaining buy-in for piloting and designing the implementation process for organization-wide ACE screening, training staff on trauma-informed care, and expanding internal and…
A Trauma-Informed Primary Care (TIPC) Implementation Advisory Committee meeting took place on June 15, 2023 from 10 am to 12 pm PDT. Members of the committee heard updates from the California Office of the Surgeon General, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), and the UCLA/UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN).
For Public Comment, watch the recorded session on YouTube.
Event Materials:
June 15, 2023 TIPC Meeting Agenda June 15, 2023 TIPC Meeting Summary June 15, 2023 TIPC Meeting SlidesThe ACEs Aware initiative has released a new quarterly data report detailing the number of ACE screenings conducted for Medi-Cal members (children and adults) and the number of individuals who have completed the “Becoming ACEs Aware in California” online training.
Dr. Deirdre Bernard-Pearl has been practicing Primary Care Pediatrics since 1997 and is the Pediatric Faculty member of the UCSF-Sutter Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency and Santa Rosa Community Health. She shared her experiences incorporating trauma-informed principles to promote worker wellness at her health center in a past ACEs Aware webinar.
Sara Johnson is an Obstetrician Gynecologist at La Clínica de la Raza in Contra Costa County. She advances trauma-informed care in reproductive health and focuses on supporting patients’ power to create health and well-being across the life course and across generations. Dr. Johnson was the team lead for La Clínica’s California ACEs Learning and Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC) project, which implemented prenatal ACE screening, and with an ACEs Aware grant developed a supplemental training entitled, ACE Screening and Trauma-Informed Care in Reproductive Health. She is the lead author of California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative’s recommendations for addressing adversity in prenatal care, to be published in the June edition of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The ACEs Aware initiative has released a new annual data report detailing the number of Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) screenings conducted for children and adults in California, and the number of individuals who have completed the “Becoming ACEs Aware in California” training.
Community Spotlight: Mikah Owen, MD, MPH, MBA
Director of Clinical and Academic Programs and Health Equity, UCAAN
Based in the Sacramento area, Dr. Owen is a social pediatrician who has dedicated his career to improving the health and well-being of children and adolescents from marginalized and vulnerable backgrounds, especially those with involvement in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Dr. Owen has been a long-time adviser to the ACEs Aware initiative and recently joined the UCLA-UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN) as Senior Director of Clinical…
The ACEs Aware Implementation with Intention webinar series is designed to help California clinics implement Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) screening and response. Through five live webinar sessions, experts will provide practical, step-by-step guidance, as well as resources and tools to help clinics move further along their ACE screening implementation journey.