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We know a high ACE score is connected to “substance-related disorders,” but oftentimes it’s overlooked that food can be that substance of choice, too—not just drugs or alcohol.

(Merced, California) Valley Children’s, along with a collaborative of Merced community-based organizations, has been selected as a $500,000 recipient by the California Department of Health Care Services to combat adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress screening. ACEs are stressful or traumatic events children experience before the age of 18, including abuse and neglect. The screenings will focus on patients at Valley Children’s Olivewood Pediatrics in Merced. “Children who are...

CAPTA (The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act) was first passed in 1974 and has been reauthorized ever since. The FVPSA (Family Violence Prevention and Services Act) was first passed in 1984 and has been reauthorized ever since. Both were expected to be reauthorized during the present Congress. This will NOT happen. The must-pass Omnibus Bill will not include reauthorization CAPTA and FVPSA even though there is bipartisan support for these basic federal programs. Unknown amounts of...

To advocate is to plead for, support, or recommend action for a cause; at least, that's what the general definition tells us. In reality, advocacy entails much more than what a dictionary definition or complex training tells us. For those of us who have taken on this work, we know it requires passion, heart, and determination. As we continue to pursue a society where trauma-informed relationships and care are the standards, there will be inevitable pushback. The pushback may take our...

Hello. I am a mental health curriculum developer currently looking for prospective peer and lived experience trainees based in Oregon. There's an opportunity this month to fund development of a free course on trauma-informed peer support and advocacy/activism skills from a mad justice / liberation / decolonization perspective. Can also somewhat tailor this to other learning needs you may have and happy to chat about that. Course completion will also mean earning a Peer Support Specialist...

(Note: I was looking through some old essays and found this one I wrote for a wellness website exactly 10 years ago. With a couple of updates, it still rings true to my decades-long commitment to breaking cycles of addiction and abuse.) It’s as omnipresent as bad Christmas music: that vague sense of dread for people who are related to an active addict at holiday time. “I don’t know when he’ll do it, but I know it’s a matter of time before he’ll drink too much and make an ass out of himself.”...

Why is there so much emphasis on healing from the effects of unsupportive and harmful parenting and so little emphasis on the prevention of unsupportive and harmful parenting? Is it a money issue? Is there money to be made in intervention, treatment, healing, and rehabilitation? Is there money to be made in primary prevention?

Image via Rubén Moreno Montolíu/Flickr Our home, from space. Author: To read more of Tod Perry's article, please click here. Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.” The overview effect...

First, here is an opinion published in CALMATTERS by Richard Wexler who is Executive Director of NCCPR. His interest in child welfare grew out of 19 years of work as a reporter for newspapers, public radio and public television, often doing stories about child abuse and foster care. He is the author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse (Prometheus Books: 1990, 1995). Wexler is a graduate of Richmond College of the City University of New York and the Columbia...

By Laura Gallant, 12/15/22, https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ Registration is now open for the HOPE National Resource Center’s 3 rd Annual HOPE Summit – Practicing HOPE. Register before January 15th to get the early bird special worth $50 off the full registration price. The Keynote speaker will be Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, PhD, MPA-URP, Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Professor of Human Development and Social Policy, and Director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy...

Action Alert: Contact Your Senators and Representatives About CAPTA on December 15! Contact your members of Congress to tell them to reauthorize the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is a critically important federal program that funds interventions to help children when they have been seriously harmed, as well as family support services which prevent child abuse and neglect from occurring in the first place. It is essential that...

Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates of Kos is considered the father of modern medicine. An influential physician and scholar, Hippocrates was adamant about effective healthcare practices. During his career, Hippocrates implemented an essential policy for future physicians to follow. To establish consent to heal, doctors should ask patients if they are willing to give up the things that cause them to be sick (Hippocrates & Asulanus, 1526). Hippocrates believed physicians needed...