Entry Category
Program Entry – Best Health and Wellness
Name of Intervention/ Program
Stress Busters Campaign
Background and Situation Analysis
In September of 2023, the ACEs Aware initiative launched a website for Stress Busters, seven research-backed strategies to help people manage day-to-day stress and counter toxic stress from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Having emphasized the importance of Stress Busters across channels in the year since the website’s launch, these strategies have been implemented in medical clinics and community organizations across California and helped thousands of people heal to become the best versions of themselves. In the US, there’s an epidemic of mental health issues and chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and suicide. A growing body of research demonstrates the ways in which toxic stress is a contributing factor. That’s where ACEs Aware comes in. The ACEs Aware initiative is a first-in-the nation effort to screen patients for ACEs and toxic stress to help improve and save lives. ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur when we’re young. The associated toxic stress that ACEs create are a root cause of many common, serious, and costly health and social challenges. The good news is that toxic stress is treatable when patients understand the impact of toxic stress on their well-being and have effective tools to manage it. Early detection and intervention are associated with improved outcomes related to toxic stress, which is why Stress Busters are so important. Stress Busters are practical interventions that can be used with patients and clients as part of the clinical response to an ACE screen. They introduce seven evidence-based strategies for regulating toxic stress, including physical activity, supportive relationships, experiences in nature, quality sleep, balanced nutrition, mindfulness, and mental healthcare. Implementation of Stress Busters in clinics is meant to help health care teams use Stress Buster tips and strategies when working with patients and clients to support them in managing stress and promoting overall health. In 2024, ACEs Aware expanded the marketing efforts and reach of Stress Busters with organic social, email marketing, partnerships, events, and more. Much of the Stress Busters content has even been repurposed for the Live Beyond campaign, which has amplified its reach even further. Through Stress Busters, ACEs Aware gives people the tools to manage toxic stress. With our help, people are adjusting their lifestyles to mitigate the stress response and improve their overall health.
Priority Audiences(s)
Our primary audience is comprised of health care providers, including physicians and Network of Care members. We’re particularly interested in the 43,870+ individuals who have taken our flagship training, Becoming ACEs Aware in California, as they understand the fundamentals of ACEs and are primed with the steps to help patients heal from toxic stress. The Network of Care includes various care professionals, such as community-based organizations, human service and health education professionals, and caregivers. As Stress Busters have widespread relevance, our secondary audience includes patients with ACEs. We ensure our content is also digestible and actionable for this broader audience.
Behavioral Objectives
Our primary goal is to educate health care providers about evidence-informed stress mitigation strategies (Stress Busters) that they can share with their patients and clients, and ultimately implement into their work. This is reflected in the mission of the ACEs Aware initiative: through education and training, to create a better world for our children, families, and communities by working together across sectors to prevent and address the impact of ACEs and toxic stress. We intend for this education to lead to two types of behavior change: 1. Implementation of Stress Busters as a technique to manage day-to-day stress and counter toxic stress from ACEs. We’re asking health care providers to change the operations of their clinic or practice to integrate Stress Busters as a form of intervention. In doing so, they are not only changing their behavior, but they are also expanding the reach and impact of the ACEs Aware initiative. 2. Stress Busters course completion. We aim to increase the number of health care professionals, including physicians and Network of Care members, who take the Stress Busters course series, Stress Busters: Clinical Strategies for Preventing and Mitigating Toxic Stress, so they can develop their clinical response to childhood adversity and toxic stress through the comprehensive exploration of Stress Busters. The series is a resource for action that sets providers on the path to implementation, consisting of eight individual courses: an introductory course, and one course for each of the seven Stress Buster strategies.
Description of Strategy/Intervention
The Stress Busters campaign funnels audiences from awareness to conversion. Throughout 2024, we spread awareness by introducing the seven Stress Busters strategies and their effectiveness, we piqued interest in learning more about these strategies and how to implement them through education, and we motivated audiences to embark on their journey to implementation by taking the Stress Busters course, with the ultimate goal of integrating Stress Busters into their work so that their patients and clients can begin to heal from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. The Stress Busters website, launched in September of 2023, includes an overview page, as well as seven additional pages that go into more depth about each Stress Buster, providing handouts, a video overview, and supporting resources. Shortly after the website launch, the online course series, Stress Busters: Clinical Strategies for Preventing and Mitigating Toxic Stress, launched in November of 2023. It aims to help health care teams use Stress Buster tips and strategies when working with patients and clients to support them in managing stress and promoting overall health. The launch of the Stress Busters site and course series prompted our communication efforts to generate awareness and interest, to educate health care providers, and to drive behavior change. In the development of the campaign, we tapped into the ACEs Aware community. We leveraged the expertise of physicians, the unique insights of various health care workers, and the lived experiences of youth and young adults to inform the Stress Buster materials and the campaign as a whole. ACEs Aware Councils and Advisors, including the Youth and Young Adult Council, the Community Partners Council, Youth Advisors, and Adult Patient Advisors played a big part in developing and disseminating resources for Stress Busters. In particular, the Youth and Young Adult Council, which consists of 21 members who represent all regions in California and a variety of lived experiences – such as being immigrants, living in rural communities, being system-impacted through foster care, or being unhoused – provided feedback on Stress Buster resources in the development stages. As true partners and advocates for Stress Busters, these Council members even use Stress Busters in their own lives, which helps them stay grounded, balanced in their work, and happier overall. “Overcoming the effects of ACEs and toxic stress has been a mix of intentional healing practices, building strong relationships, and reshaping harmful narratives about myself.” Testimonials like this one from Celeste Walley, Patient Advisor and Youth and Young Adult Council Member, authenticate the informed input from our Councils. This Council has also played a big part in co-creating campaign materials for the Live Beyond campaign, our partners in spreading awareness about ACEs and toxic stress. The integration of their perspectives informed the Stress Busters campaign in ways that would resonate across audiences. Next, we asked ourselves how we could best compel audiences to learn more about Stress Busters and implement the strategies into their work. With the insight from various partners and Councils, our campaign strategy became clear: to get health care providers to implement the Stress Busters tips and strategies in their work by showing them the benefits of stress mitigation strategies with real-life, relatable scenarios, demonstrating the importance of intervention in healing from ACEs and toxic stress, and giving them the tools necessary to make a positive impact in their patients’ or clients’ health and lives. Our Council members and physicians alike indicated just how important it is to show people how healing is achievable for anyone, through our evidence-based strategies. We want to show audiences that these techniques can make a positive and life-changing impact in the well-being of those looking to manage their day-to-day stress and those who experience toxic stress from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). We want audiences to know that we are a trusted source with a deep understanding of what toxic stress looks like, what people might be facing, and how Stress Busters can offer a solution. In order to educate and inspire health care professionals, we reached them on channels where they have proven to be responsive and receptive to this kind of education: ACEs Aware’s social media channels (including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X), email communications to the ACEs Aware email list, and professional and educational events.
Implementation
Since the launch of Stress Busters, we’ve made consistent marketing efforts across organic social media, email, and both in-person and virtual events. We focus our social media efforts on the four main platforms where we find our audiences: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X. In consultation with our team of health experts, we disseminated social content highlighting each of the seven Stress Busters, designed to help health care providers and patients connect with the concept of Stress Busters, and consider its importance and application in their practices and lives. We developed variations of content to help people with stress management at various points in their healing journeys, increasing relatability with those who may need a little extra support. We also regularly share our Stress Busters wheel, included in our campaign artwork, across channels. This visual aid includes all seven Stress Buster strategies and is an informative tool that gives people a high-level understanding of how to mitigate toxic stress. It tends to be a top performer on social media, excelling across channels in impressions and shares. Regularly sharing Stress Busters content across ACEs Aware-owned channels has had a significant impact on the initiative’s overall performance, with nearly 25% of overall ACEs Aware impressions and engagements attributable to Stress Busters. To increase visibility and reach, we created a partner toolkit, so that our partners, such as the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), the California Office of the Surgeon General (OSG), and Live Beyond can easily introduce their audiences to Stress Busters across social media. We work closely with our partners to align on the amplification of Stress Busters across their channels, optimizing the influence we can make. The Live Beyond campaign is a particularly important partner as well as extension of our team. Live Beyond allows us to reach our secondary audience of patients with ACEs more prominently, as they speak directly to patients, youth, and young adults who have experienced ACEs. Stress Busters resources have also been repurposed for the Live Beyond campaign across social media, which has amplified its reach significantly. Word of mouth and engagement from our ACEs Aware Councils is also a driver in this campaign. Our Councils spread the word about Stress Busters to their friends, families, and peers, touting the importance of taking care of your body and mind, and setting an example for the next generation. When it comes to email marketing, we share reminders and updates pertaining to Stress Busters in the ACEs Aware monthly newsletter, such as the availability of our Stress Busters patient handouts in Spanish. Understanding the importance of multi-channel promotion, everything that has been shared in our newsletter and email communications is also amplified across our social media platforms. To reach physicians and health care professionals, we also made it a priority in 2024 to build our presence at in-person and virtual events to spread the word about Stress Busters. ACEs Aware has hosted virtual webinars and trainings that feature Stress Busters, including “Connecting with Nature to Mitigate Toxic Stress,” “Mitigating Toxic Stress with Mindfulness and Meditation,” and most recently, “Practical Tools for Building Resilient Communities” which introduced a Stress Busters toolkit for community-based organizations. At in-person conferences and events – such as the CAFP Family Medicine Prism of Practice (POP) Conference, the First 5 Child Health, Education, and Care Summit, and the California School-Based Health Alliance School Health Conference – we distributed a range of Stress Busters collateral featuring the Stress Busters wheel, including magnets, postcards, and stickers to educate and act as simple, persistent reminders to attendees to implement the strategies. Our marketing efforts resulted in earned media coverage throughout 2024, including the SF Chronicle article, “Childhood trauma’s impact costs California $1.5 trillion a year. Bay Area doctors are trying to break the cycle” and a BusinessWire press release about the launch of the Live Beyond campaign. Stress Busters has also been highlighted by innovators and across various websites of community-based organizations that aim to educate the public about health and wellness.
Evaluation Methods and Results
Through education, partnerships, and resources for action, we’ve encouraged audiences to implement Stress Busters into their work throughout 2024. Key performance indicators include social media performance, website traffic, webinar and course registrations, feedback, and audience testimonials. Our 2024 social media performance is a testament to this campaign’s impact. Stress Busters content generated 46.6K impressions and 3.2K total engagements across ACEs Aware channels. Our 6.3% average engagement rate exceeds cross-platform benchmarks. A strategic partnership with Live Beyond has also expanded the reach of Stress Busters to young adults. Live Beyond’s Stress Buster content reached upwards of 60K views in 2024, with one post featuring influencer @thelizzyo receiving 20K views and 850 likes on Instagram alone. Website traffic indicates a growing interest in learning about Stress Busters. 1.6 views per active user across Stress Buster webpages suggest that people return to the site, indicating that our efforts generate interest that can lead to behavior change. Webinars are also indicative of desired behavior change. Our “Connecting with Nature to Mitigate Toxic Stress” webinar received nearly 750 registrations and high praises. Participants were inspired and excited about what they learned, nearly half indicating that they will implement changes in their practice based on the presentation. The “Mitigating Toxic Stress with Mindfulness and Meditation” webinar compelled 100% of attendees to agree that it enhanced their knowledge base, with 97% noting that the material provided will be useful in their practice. Stress Busters’ increasing momentum is reflected in our latest webinar, “Practical Tools for Building Resilient Communities,” targeted to our Network of Care. We elicited a total of 609 registrants. Surveying early registrants, we discovered that 96% of those who use Stress Busters in their work already found it useful. After learning additional techniques in the webinar, attendees became eager to “reinforce [their] services” with the new Stress Busters toolkit designed for community-based organizations (CBOs) that was presented. Completion of the Stress Busters course is a telling step toward implementation. Course reviews like “absolutely necessary in patient care” reiterate the need for this initiative and the potential for behavior change in health care. Whether it’s supporting clients or helping themselves cope and manage stress, audiences report the profound impact of Stress Busters: “Stress Busters are not just useful, they are essential in my work. They help me maintain my own well-being, model healthy coping strategies for others, and create a supportive environment for healing and growth. By prioritizing stress management, I can show up as my best self, both personally and professionally” (Anthonia Otunla, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor). Implementing Stress Busters allows audiences to create a “more supportive and resilient environment” for clients and themselves, especially for those in challenging, high-stress situations. Stress Busters help people change their lifestyles for the better. People use our techniques to stay present, process emotions, and seek out moments of joy, helping them daily. They’re eager to share what they’ve learned personally and professionally, becoming advocates for this campaign, and furthering our impact across California and beyond.
Entry Letter: S