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Adverse community environments are the result of policies and practices across multiple systems that were perfectly designed for the place-based inequities they produce. Many of the nation’s poor live in communities of concentrated poverty not by choice, but rather by design – the cumulative result of social and criminal policies enacted over the course of our nation’s history.

Over the last five years, CCR partners across the country have been working together to build community resilience by addressing and mitigating the Pair of ACEs, emphasizing the importance of centering equity at the heart of what it means to be resilient.

Learn more about our Fostering Equity work.

The Pair of ACEs tree illustrates the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, experienced at the individual level within a family, and adverse community environments. The Pair of ACEs tree communicates – in simple terms – the issues we aim to address. By doing so, we are able to engage diverse stakeholders in developing policy goals that support efforts to address adversity rooted in systems and communities. By asking the question “What’s in your soil?,” communities can begin to set goals and implement policy and practice change that builds community resilience.