Virginia Statewide Conference - Sept 17, 2026

Need Help Now

We Are
United Against Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma steals

more years of life

than cancer, heart disease and car accidents combined.

The years it doesn't take, it takes over — in addiction, mental illness, and prison.
Door 01

I'M Carrying
Something

I survived something as a child — or something is happening to me now. Or I love someone who did.

ENTER HERE
Door 02

I'M Raising A
Child

Parent, grandparent, foster or adoptive parent, kinship caregiver, guardian.

ENTER HERE
Door 03

I Work With
Children

Teacher, social worker, CPS, nurse, counselor, coach, youth pastor, first responder, foster parent.

ENTER HERE
Door 04

I Want To Help
People Heal

A clinician already — or someone called to this work who hasn't been trained for it yet.

ENTER HERE
Door 05

I Lead An
Organization

A company, a congregation, a school system, a hospital, an agency, a city.

ENTER HERE
Door 06

I Want To Help
End This

I'm not a professional. I just can't unknow what I now know.

ENTER HERE
/ WHO WE ARE /

UACT is a coalition
with one purpose.

We unite organizations and individuals — across faith, healthcare, education, foster care, prisons, policy, and business — behind a single aim: to dramatically reduce the prevalence childhood trauma and the downstream consequences addiction, illness, incarceration, and early death that follow it.

We don't compete with the people already doing this work. We connect them.

01 / Awareness

Name what has gone unnamed. Most people carrying this have never been told what it is.

02 / Healing

Build a workforce large enough to reach 180 million wounded adults.

03 / Prevention

Stop the wound before it happens. The healing of one generation is the liberation of the next.

About UACT
Michael J. Menard
/ WHY THIS EXISTS /

For twenty years I believed my brothers Patrick and Adam died of bad character. Weakness. Bad choices.

At seventy, I went looking for the real reason. What I found was childhood trauma — things they never chose, done to them before they could refuse.

They were not weak. They were wounded. I built UACT because nobody told us the difference.

Michael J. Menard

Founder & CEO, UACT
Author of Greater Than Gravity
Read the whole story

Name the wound. Heal the wound. Stop the wound

THE PATHWAY

Unaddressed trauma cascades through a life. Each stage flows into the next - a predictable, preventable cycle.

01

The Wound

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — abuse, neglect, household instability — overwhelm the developing nervous system.

02

Nervous System Dysregulation

Chronic baseline hyper-vigilance rewires the brain's threat response, making safety feel impossible and connection feel dangerous.

03

Addiction, Suicide, Incarceration

Substance use, self-harm, and social withdrawal emerge not as failures of character, but as rational attempts to regulate unbearable internal pain.

04

Systemic Collapse

Family breakdown, institutional failure, rising healthcare costs, and strained law enforcement — all downstream of a single wound left untreated.

05

Chronic Illness and Early Death

7 of 10 top preventable deaths: anxiety. Autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular collapse, cancer — the body carries what was never resolved.

THE METRICS

1,401

Daily preventable deaths in America.

Derived through PHP methodology linking early HCBA directly to clinical endpoint series of major cause-of-death categories.

$14.1T

Total economic burden annually.

Peterson et al., JAMA Pediatrics 2023. Quantifying the deep infrastructure loss across healthcare, security, and productivity systems.

THE CONCLUSION

And none of it is inevitable.

WHAT UACT IS

A standards coalition, not a service provider.

A global standards coalition

Qualifying trauma responses across public policy and clinical role.

An objective accreditation body

Creating verifiable certification tracks for cities, agencies, and institutions.

A convener of institutional leaders

Unifying law enforcement, healthcare executives, and policymakers under one framework.

The connective tissue

We lift up and accredit existing local impact systems - we do not compete with them.

WHAT UACT IS NOT

Operated exclusively by clinical institutions and care providers.

Not political

Promoting civil safety is a human right, completely detached from faction or party.

Not religious

Our foundation is exclusively clinical evidence, scientific metrics, and biological data.

Not a feel-good campaign

Focused on structural innovation, rigorous system auditing, and measurable outcomes.

Not in competition with members

We exist to accredit, strengthen, and elevate existing local impact systems.

Accrediting Trauma Responsiveness

A four-stage framework - from unawareness to verified institutional action. The standard that defines what serious commitment to healing looks like.

STAGE 01

Trauma Unaware

Generational cycles continue without language, measurement, or systemic intervention.

STAGE 02

Trauma Aware

Institutions acknowledge the trauma exists but treat only surface symptoms when ad-hoc funds.

STAGE 03

Trauma Informed

We know. Trauma is understood, workshops are held - but structures remain fundamentally unchanged.

[ THE GAP KNOWLEDGE LEAVES ]
STAGE 04 UACT CERTIFIED

Trauma Responsive

We do. Verifiable protocols are codified, systems audit performance, and measurable human outcomes are required.

To be trauma informed is to know. To be trauma responsive is to do.

The Global Trauma Institute will open in Q1 2026. Click here to put your name on the preregistration list.

National Covenant

The Founding Charter

Sign your name. Choose your metric. Get to work.

By adopting the Charter, signatories commit to objective transparency, measurable community healing targets, and active collaboration inside America's first coordinated trauma responsive framework.

More about the collation Download the Charter Join the Coalition
October 10, 2026 - Washington, D.C.