Laura Porter
Peachtree City, GA
Laura Porter is Co-Founder of ACE Interface, LLC. With Dr. Robert Anda, Ms. Porter develops and disseminates educational products and empowerment strategies that help leaders throughout the nation to dramatically improve population health. She is honored to be a thought partner, educator, consultant and coach in two dozen states. Ms. Porter provides support and services to a wide range of groups… from parents leading informal initiatives to officials leading state and federal agencies.
Laura Porter brings to ACE Interface more than a decade of experience leading successful state-wide implementation of ACE Study concepts. Her expertise includes overseeing analysis and dissemination of surveillance and archival data to support decision making, and designing and facilitating processes demonstrated to improve population health, safety and productivity. Laura is committed to developing market forces in the ACE social movement sufficient to sustain the courageous leaders who are using ACE and resilience science and Building Self-Healing Communities.
Ms. Porter concurrently serves as the Senior Director of The Learning Institute at the Foundation for Healthy Generations, a Seattle-based non-profit. There she oversees analysis of Washington State ACE data and works with local and state leaders to embed NEAR science findings into policy, practice and community norms. (NEAR: Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACE and Resilience)
As an Associate with the Southwest and Central offices of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPT), Ms. Porter helps CAPT and its grantees to integrate powerful findings from the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences Study into prevention planning, practice, and evaluation. The CAPT is a national substance abuse prevention training and technical assistance (T/TA) system dedicated to strengthening prevention systems and the nation’s behavioral health workforce.
From 1998 to 2013, Laura Porter directed the Washington State Family Policy Council and Office of ACE Partnerships. In these roles, she worked with Senators and Representatives from the four caucuses of the Washington Legislature, five members of the Governor’s Cabinet, managers from seven state agencies, directors and members of 53 community-based collaborative organizations and leaders from ten Tribes. Laura and her colleagues developed a unique model for improving the capacity of communities to deliver stunning results for a small investment. Communities using the model have documented rEducations in the rates of seven major social problems and Adverse Childhood Experience scores among young adults. Cost savings from caseload rEducations attributable to the Family Policy Council in child welfare, juvenile justice and public medical costs associated with births to teen mothers were estimated by an independent economist to exceed $55m/biennium.
Prior to her work with the State of Washington, Laura Porter served as an elected County Commissioner. Commissioner Porter designed a service-oriented approach to water quality assurance that secured family wage jobs in the shellfish industry. She also led an inter-jurisdictional criminal justice initiative that implemented prevention, facilities and system improvements. Working cooperatively with over a dozen unions and guilds, Commissioner Porter ended a multi-year pattern of grievances and strikes, thus assuring uninterrupted county services to businesses and residents. In 1991, Commissioner Porter authored a public transportation plan which won voter approval and created the Mason County Transportation Authority. During her tenure as a founding member of the Board of Directors, Mason Transit became the first transit system in the state with all routes and services fully ADA accessible. Commissioner Porter served on the Washington Counties Risk Pool Board of Directors (liability), the Washington Counties Insurance Fund Board of Directors (health), and the Washington State Association of Counties Legislative Steering Committee.
Laura is mother to three children and grandmother to three precious grandchildren.
Video clip related to her work with CAPT.
