The ACE Overcomers Program offers considerable promise to address the gap in intervention programs for reducing the detrimental psychological, social, and health consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

The ACE Overcomers program builds… with concrete steps aimed at remediating the effects of a stressful childhood. Participants learn the skills of self-awareness, self-efficacy, moral control, self-reflection, emotion regulation, and strategies for promoting emotional expression, mindfulness, resilience, and problem solving techniques.

…the program has considerable appeal for participants.

Participants attend the 12-week program during which they participate in weekly, 2-hour group sessions. They receive a workbook that provides summaries of the weekly lessons and information. For the secular version, the sessions and workbook chapters include quotations from well-known scientists, scholars, and philosophers to support the lessons and points. For the religious version, the sessions and workbook chapters use biblical verses to support the lessons and points. Otherwise, the two versions of the program are equivalent in the material provided and discussed.

…the findings provide empirical evidence for the efficacy of ACE Overcomers in improving emotion regulation skills, psychological resilience and well-being, quality of life, illness days, and somatic symptoms…

Evaluation of the ACE Overcomers Program

A Technical Report Prepared by:
Linda D. Cameron, Ph.D., Paul Carroll, B. A., and William Kyle Hamilton, B. A.
University of California, Merced
September 20, 2016