Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

Introduction Of The Etsu Ballad Health Strong Brain Institute, Chelsea L. Robertson, Tess A. Simpson

River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) contribute to shorter, less healthy, and less productive lives. ACEs result from growing up in households with addiction, mental illness, abuse, or loss, all of which expose children to chronic toxic stress, and produce measurable structural changes in children’s developing brains that last a lifetime. These changes, which include an overdeveloped stress response system that impairs learning and planning and results in underdeveloped self-regulatory systems, impact performance in the workplace, especially in institutions of higher education. ACEs in East Tennessee and at ETSU are higher than the national average. About 1 in 4 East Tennesseeans have …