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7 - 8 May 2025

The Biology of Belonging

Human beings cannot thrive without a sense of belonging. Why? That is the question this ground-breaking conference will explore.

Over the past two decades, Scotland has been remarkably successful in raising public awareness of the impacts of adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma. Discussions about the importance of emotionally attuned relationships now take place across all professional sectors and in countless family homes. What are the most essential steps we can take to boost a sense of belonging within our families and communities?

This conference brings together world leading experts on this question. Each of these world-leading experts is well placed to speak on the reasons that belonging matters and on practical steps that can be taken to foster it. We are delighted to be able to welcome them to our shores. We are so pleased that the Scottish public can share in the insights they have to offer.

ACE-Aware Scotland held our first major event in 2018. Nearly 2500 people came because they wanted to know more about the importance of relationships for human thriving. Every year since, we have hosted a major event, and every year we continue to be inspired by the public’s enthusiastic hunger for this information.

So this year we are returning to the Armadillo, where there will be plenty of space for this momentous, two-day event, featuring some of the most sought-after voices on the theme of belonging. We can’t wait to welcome you all and to feel once again the energy of being in the room together.

Tickets

The numbers below include tickets for this event already in your cart. Clicking "Get Tickets" will allow you to edit any existing attendee information as well as change ticket quantities.
Day 1 - Early Bird
Wednesday 7th May 2024 Standard Ticket £139 incl VAT
£ 119.00 incl VAT
537 available

Tickets

The numbers below include tickets for this event already in your cart. Clicking "Get Tickets" will allow you to edit any existing attendee information as well as change ticket quantities.
Day 2 - Early Bird
Thursday 8th May 2025 Standard Ticket £139 incl VAT
£ 119.00 incl VAT
535 available

Tickets

The numbers below include tickets for this event already in your cart. Clicking "Get Tickets" will allow you to edit any existing attendee information as well as change ticket quantities.
2 day - Early Bird
Wednesday 7th to Thursday 8th May 2024 Standard Ticket £249 incl VAT
£ 215.00 incl VAT
1219 available
SEC Armadillo
Exhibition Way
Glasgow
G3 8YW
7th and 8th May 2025
9am to 5pm
ACE Aware Nation -2025-Biology of Belonging-square

Speakers - Day 1

Dr Gordon Neufeld

Dr Gordon Neufeld

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist with over 50 years of experience with children and youth and those responsible for them. A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld is an international speaker, a bestselling author (Hold On To Your Kids) and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm. Dr. Neufeld has a widespread reputation for making sense of complex problems and for opening doors for change. While formerly involved in university teaching and private practice, he now devotes his time to teaching and training others, including educators and helping professionals. His Neufeld Institute is now a world-wide charitable organization devoted to applying developmental science to the task of raising children. He is a father of five and a grandfather to seven.

Claudia Gold

Dr Claudia Gold

Claudia M. Gold, MD is a pediatrician and writer who practiced general and behavioral pediatrics for over 20 years and now specializes in early relational health. While working on the front lines in a busy rural pediatrics practice, she “discovered” the world of research and knowledge in the field of infant mental health through her studies with the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute in the early 2000’s. The experience led to a profound transformation of her clinical work with families. She has devoted her professional life to spreading this knowledge through writing, teaching, and public speaking. She is on the faculty of the Early Relational Health fellowship at UMass Chan Medical School and the Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Gold has extensive experience with families hard hit by the opioid crisis in her community in rural Western Massachusetts, and currently works as a clinician with Volunteers in Medicine, Berkshires serving a primarily immigrant population.

Dr. Gold’s most recent book is Getting to Know You: Lessons in Early Relational Health from Infants and Caregivers ( Teachers College Press Spring 2025) She co-authored  The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience and Trust with infant researcher and psychologist Ed Tronick (Little, Brown Spark 2020). Her other books include The Developmental Science of Early Childhood (2017), The Silenced Child (2016), and Keeping Your Child in Mind (2011) Dr. Gold speaks frequently to a broad variety of audiences including both parents and professionals in the United States and around the world.  She received her BA from the University of Chicago and MD from U of C Pritzker School of Medicine.

Richard Schwartz

Dr Richard Schwartz

Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a highly effective, evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Dick lives with his wife Jeanne near Chicago, close to his three daughters and his growing number of grandchildren.

Speakers - Day 2

Darren Burns

Mr Darren Burns

Darren is the Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Timpson Group, as well as being the head of the Timpson Foundation. He specialises in both the recruitment and retention of ex-offenders and others who face barriers to employment. Darren also fosters relationships with many UK prisons and organisations such a police and probation services.  He also manages the Timpson prison training academies, and has responsibility for overseeing the transition from custody and into the workplace. He is passionate about diversity and inclusion and also provides consultancy services for forward thinking businesses, as well as helping to educate others on the benefit of employing ex-offenders and other marginalised groups. As a former Police Officer, his experience of working in some of the most challenging parts of the UK enables him to help break the offending cycle and ensure marginalised groups can find employment.

Darcia Narvaez

Dr Darcia Narvaez

Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and Fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Born in Minnesota (USA), she grew up living around the world as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican-German American but calls Earth her home. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, classroom music teacher, classroom Spanish teacher, and seminarian, among other endeavors. She uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development and human flourishing. Her most recent books include Restoring the Kinship Worldview, and The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected CommunitiesHer book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award. Her recent short films are Breaking the Cycle, The Evolved Nest, and Reimagining Humanity. She hosts the webpage EvolvedNest.org and serves as president of KindredWorld.org

Dan Siegel

Dr Daniel Siegel

Dan Siegel is the executive director of the Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where he was also Co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Culture, Brain and Development and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine.

An award-winning educator, Dan is the author of five New York Times bestsellers and over fifteen other books which have been translated into over forty languages. As the founding editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology (“IPNB”), Dan has overseen the publication of one hundred books in the transdisciplinary IPNB framework which focuses on the mind and mental health.

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dan completed his postgraduate training at UCLA specializing in paediatrics, and adult, adolescent, and child psychiatry. He was trained in attachment research and narrative analysis through a National Institute of Mental Health research training fellowship focusing on how relationships shape our autobiographical ways of making sense of our lives and influence our development across the lifespan.

Learn more about Dr. Siegel at: www.drdansiegel.com | www.mindsightinstitute.com