Overcoming the Odds, Changing Careers and Developing Resilience with Dr. Wendy Ellis

<p>On the Well Woman Show today I interview Dr. Wendy Ellis, Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. I met Dr. Ellis at a summit on early childhood, childcare and workplace policy - one of my all time favorite topics. And when I heard her speak about resilience and her take on the Adverse Childhood Experience model (known as ACES), I just knew I had to have her on the show. While the world, and the US in particular, might be in breakdown, there are leaders that are already rebuilding, and actually facilitating the emergence of a new version of the systems and structures that we not build for or by women and certainly not women of color. Dr. Wendy Ellis is one of those leaders.</p><p>She is an Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Dr. Ellis has spent the last fifteen years developing and working to grow a 'resilience movement' to address systemic inequities that contribute to social and health disparities that are often transmitted in families and communities from generation to generation.</p><p>The&nbsp;<a href="http://go.gwu.edu/CCR" target="_blank">Center for Community Resilience</a>&nbsp;seeks to improve the health of communities by enabling cross-sectoral partners to align policy, program and practice to address adverse childhood experiences in the context of adverse community environments--or as Dr. Ellis has coined it&nbsp;<a href="http://go.gwu.edu/bcrtreedescription" target="_blank">"The Pair of ACEs"</a>. This innovative framing of ACEs, with an explicit focus on equity and prevention, has had a substantial influence on local initiatives, programs, public health initiatives and local, state and federal policy. Using the Pair of ACEs framing,&nbsp;<a href="https://ccr.publichealth.gwu.edu/network-sites" target="_blank">Bui