Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network

About the Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education Network

The Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network (formerly known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Educator Program) is a program designed to expand understanding of childhood adversity and how community-level resilience building can prevent and mitigate its lifelong effects within our communities across the state. Certified Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education Network volunteer educators lead presentations that highlight the importance of building felt safety, resilience, and systems-level policies rooted in trauma-informed practices.

These volunteer educators represent a network of community advocates, service providers, and leaders from healthcare, education, juvenile justice, and family support sectors. Through trauma-informed and healing-centered approaches, they help empower communities across Louisiana to create safe spaces where children learn, grow, and thrive. Throughout the year, cohorts of volunteer educators receive specialized training in evidence-based strategies that support healing and resilience building.

Understanding Childhood Adversity

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book (2025), Louisiana ranks 49th in overall child well-being and has the third-highest rate in the U.S. of children per capita who have had two or more adverse experiences. Childhood adversity, also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), is a broad term that refers to potentially traumatic events that, when left unaddressed, can affect a person’s lifelong physical, emotional, and social health. These experiences often connect to larger public health issues like economic instability, barriers to quality education and healthcare, discrimination, and violence.

Childhood adversity can be prevented, and healing is possible. Community members, state and local government, and community organizations all have a role to play in preventing adversity, addressing trauma, promoting healing, and building resilience.

Supporting Organizations and Communities across Louisiana

Organizations, agencies, and community groups across Louisiana can request tailored presentations from the Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network to develop a shared understanding of adversity-related concepts, build trauma-informed practices, and create more healing-centered spaces. The presentations are facilitated at no cost by volunteer educators and designed to meet the specific needs of staff, leadership, and community members. There are strategies to prevent most adversity from happening in the first place, and to help people and communities recover and heal after adversity occurs.

The presentations foster a deeper understanding of childhood adversity and resilience, support a shared language for addressing trauma, and introduce practical, solution-based strategies that can be integrated into day-to-day work and life. These sessions help build capacity for sustainable improvements in services, culture, and policy.

These presentations can be carried out individually or in combination with the others to customize presentation length and content.

View a description of the presentations we offer

Get Involved

Interested in becoming part of the Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network as a volunteer educator? Contact us at CARE@la.gov to learn more about our upcoming regional training schedule.

Resources:

• LA ranked 49th, comes from The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2025). KIDS COUNT®  DATA BOOK 2025 State Trends in  Child Well-Being. Baltimore, MD: Retrieved from https://www.aecf.org/resources/2025-kids-count-data-book