Drawing on the existing work by the ACES Hub, Public Health Wales, and other local trauma-informed movements, the focus of this pilot project was to explore how to move adverse childhood experiences (ACE) awareness into practice and action at a hyper-local level alongside residents and key stakeholders of the neighbourhood. To come alongside residents to understand together how to support their communities to be relationally healthy, adversity and trauma-informed, infused and healing

The aim was to test a model for improving community mental health through sharing psychosocial knowledge and supporting sense-making, and community connection alongside communities rather than in clinical settings. 

The community-led project partnered with parents from the local area to explore how community ownership and connection could build wellbeing and resilience. The model aimed to support parents to develop skills to tell their own story, make meaning from their experiences, gain psychosocial knowledge to improve their mental health and wellbeing, as well as to build healthy connections and relationships with each other. 

“Embrace for me helps me see things in a different way it allows me to open up and share my trauma in a safe and completely understanding environment it shows me how mental health works and how I can then use it to accommodate to my life.”