The true character of society is revealed in how it treats its children” – Nelson Mandela. Imagine knowing that the maltreatment of children and adolescents, or adverse childhood experiences (ACES) can lead to addiction and mental health disorders. The public health crisis can be diverted by learning you have the power to stop the transmission of ACES by seeing them in your life and then helping yourself and others to heal from ACES through compassion, education, and neuroplasticity. This is the groundbreaking work of Dr Robert Anda who is one of the pioneers of the adverse childhood experiences (ACES) study who joins us on episode #114 of the Thriving Minds podcast. Dr. Anda is a world reknown medical doctor for his research with Dr Vincent Felitti showing that ACES are underlying causes of medical, social, and public health problems. While working at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention they led the large-scale study to track the effects of childhood trauma on health throughout the lifespan. They called it the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study). This study fundamentally re-shaped our understanding of the underlying causes of addiction and mental health disorders.  Dr Anda discusses the ‘Aha’ moment when he saw the data collected from the ACES study demonstrating how common abuse and neglect of children and adolescents. This is something that can be stopped through knowledge and education because most parents love their children, but Society did not know any better. Now we tend to take people with ACES and make them worse. ACES are like tumbleweed that grow over the lifespan, piling adversity on adversity- from children to adults across the lifespan.  Compassion and education are powerful ways to change the point of transmission of ACES from blame and shame and fear to hope, healing and neuroplasticity. Learn how to understand the power you have to change biology of others? Please join us on this illuminating podcast that may shift your understanding of yourself and your loved ones and what we can do differently as a society.  “How do we get this information to everyone so that they can have a change moment. And, and have their own flashlight looking into the dark cave of what's around them or in their own life that they've been afraid of or didn't know enough to ask the questions. There are many things that I've learned when I saw the ACE study data, the main one is that ACES add up over time and so does the risk for all kinds of mental health disorders. We need to scale this information public health side that involves public education of professionals” Dr Robert Anda MD.Link to Dr Anda's work https://robertandamd.com/  Link to the ACES interface: Building Self Healing Communitieshttps://www.aceinterface.com/Robert_Anda.htmlSupport the showLearn more at www.profselenabartlett.com