‘Resilience’ documentary to screen at Garden Theatre

A documentary that sheds light on the effects of childhood trauma is heading to the Garden Theatre for a free screening.

“Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope” will be screened from 4 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at the Garden Theatre, 160 W. Plant St., Winter Garden. The screening is sponsored by Orlando Health, the West Orange Healthcare District and Healthy West Orange.

Created in 2016, the documentary explores the science of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, and follows the movement to treat and prevent toxic stress attributed to such experiences, Marie Martinez said. She’s the operations manager for the Orlando Health Howard Phillips Center for Children & Families — part of the Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. 

“It really highlights the work that’s being done around the country in terms of applying what was learned in the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study … and applying that (knowledge) in various communities (and) school settings around the country,” Martinez said. 

Martinez added that the ACE Study was conducted from 1995 to 1997 by Kaiser Permanente — the nation’s largest nonprofit health insurance company — and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study involved 17,000 individuals with an average age of 53 who each answered an in-depth questionnaire that addressed various forms of childhood trauma that people may experience. Those experiences include physical, emotional and sexual abuse; witnessing substance abuse at home; having an absent parent; dealing with a parent, sibling or other family member being incarcerated; or witnessing domestic violence. That data was used to calculate an “ACE score.”

“When they plotted the data on a graph and compared it to a host of different conditions — some were mental health, behavior-related and some were physical conditions — the results were truly stunning,” Martinez said. “They took the data and they compared it to instances of things like smoking or drinking alcohol or use of illicit drugs, depression or suicidal ideations … (and it) showed striking correlations — as ACE scores increase — with almost every single known life-threatening health condition that’s chronic that we know of. 

“What the ACE Study did was really draw a mind-body connection,” she said. “No one is saying it’s a causal relationship, but it’s sure a very strong correlation in terms of impacts on health.”

Dr. Rita Vento is the manager of the Teen Xpress program offered through the Howard Phillips Center, and she specializes in lifespan developmental psychology. She said traumatic childhood experiences could have an impact on brain development.

“What happens when a kid is experiencing trauma is that … (their) brain starts developing in a very different way than if you didn’t have this stressor (from the trauma) on you, so it becomes a toxic stress,” Vento said. “The good news is that there is a way to prevent this. Not everybody who has a high ACE score is going to be doomed to always (have) a problem. There’s ways around that, (like) if you have a strong adult influence — somebody who is a support system to you.”

The goal of the screening and the film is to bring attention to ACEs and the resources available for treatment, Martinez said.

“The goal is to reduce toxic stress in the home,” Martinez said. “You see all these programs where it’s very holistic and provides counseling for parents and really wraps them into the equation because if you’re just helping a child with counseling, you’re really just wading in the tip of the iceberg.” 

The Howard Phillips Center offers healing, support and advocacy services for children and families who face overwhelming challenges like abuse, sexual trauma, developmental disabilities and a lack of access to medical care.