Salus Health Care Forum July 2, 2025

Mark

I remember in the 60s and early 70s that my dad was getting kind of burned out on teaching. And he shifted gears from the public school system to a school affiliated with the Holy Cross Brothers. It was called Rancho San Antonio, Boys Town of the West. It was in Chatsworth, California. They took kids that were under 18. Most of them had been arrested for something like grand theft auto, but there were some in for murder. They couldn’t be prosecuted then in the late 60s as adults. I don’t have a lot of data on where a lot of these kids ended up. However, I know two of them, thanks to the mentorship, did in fact turn their lives around. It’s a very small sample size. But just to reinforce what we were talking about, there are some positive mitigating factors in the ACE metric.

Bill B

I was thinking that the mitigating factor has to do with temporary systems. Maybe what we’re talking about sometimes are temporary neighborhoods that make a difference. Jeremy, for instance, right now is in the middle of a temporary system that can impact his life. He is participating in a silent retreat. And so we’re talking about the potential role of a mentor. There’s also the potential role of a temporary system where one can enter for some period of time and find it to be supportive, healing, a source of resilience. So sometimes it’s not permanent systems that make a difference. Sometimes it’s temporary systems that can make a real difference.

Craig

This changes the subject a little bit, but I have been down on ACEs as predictive. However, I’ve had personal experience, and I know my brother did, of helping people who are experiencing difficulties in their lives, helping them understand ACEs, and helping them to some degree release themselves from guilt for being fully responsible for those circumstances by understanding how early childhood may have impacted them and shaped part of their lives. So retrospectively, it can be quite useful for some people.

And then just one biological note. Research on orchids and dandelions suggests that there is differential genetic susceptibility to being responsive to one’s environment. The orchids are very responsive to their environments. So they are badly harmed by adversity and very much helped by good support and opportunities. By contrast, the dandelions tend to grow however they’re going to grow, regardless of conditions. So adversity doesn’t affect everybody equally, and genes do play a part.