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By Lauren M. Johnson , CNN July 18, 2019 Florida will become the third state in the US to require students to learn more about mental health, behind Virginia and New York. The Florida State Board of Education voted on Wednesday to require public schools to provide students in grades six and above a minimum of five hours of mental health education annually. The announcement comes as studies reveal more about how screen time and social media impacts teenagers mentally. According to the...

By JEN JOHNSON, LPC Whether you’re healing from illness, trauma, or other difficult times, these mindfulness stress reduction techniques can support your healing. The Congressional Prevention Coalition estimated that 90% of disease is caused or complicated by stress. People with higher ACES scores are more vulnerable to stress related illness. Therefore, reducing stress makes good sense for health from both a prevention and disease management standpoint. 5 Things You can do to reduce stress:...

Bethany Christian Services has an office in Winter Garden, Central Florida, where they are the only local social-service agency that is actively partnering with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help children find temporary homes until they find a U.S. sponsor. “ We’re doing a lot of trauma-informed care ,” Bethany’s executive director for Florida, Laurie Stern explained. “There’s going to be some anger and confusion. It’s wrapping your arms around that child and letting...

STORYCATCHERS HELPS JUSTICE-INVOLVED YOUTH FIND THEIR VOICES AND RESOLVE OLD TRAUMAS BY MAKING THEM THE STARS OF THE SHOW. Storycatchers Theatre — also known as Storycatchers — is a nonprofit musical theater group that works with justice-involved youth in Chicago. Through programming both inside and outside of the justice centers, children and young adults turn their life stories into musicals. [For more on this story, written by Nation Swell, go to:...

By Daun Kauffman Riveting and emotional: The full, first-ever Congressional hearing on “Identifying, Preventing and Treating Childhood Trauma” by the Oversight Committee chaired by Representative Elijah Cummings. Across the hearing, the story of developmental trauma is well-conveyed and powerful. The magnitude and the priority of addressing developmental trauma were clear. [For more on this story, written by Daun Kauffman of ACEs Connection, go to:...

By David Murphey and Jessica Dym Bartlett, Child Trends, July 9, 2019. Exposure to adversity in childhood is widespread and can pose a serious threat to individual health and well-being over the life course. By age 18, nearly half (45 percent) of children in the United States have had at least one adverse experience; among young children and other vulnerable subgroups, the prevalence is much higher. Childhood adversity is defined as one or more stressful events or conditions that can...

A hearing of unprecedented scope and depth on ACEs science and childhood trauma — " Identifying, Preventing, and Treating Childhood Trauma: A Pervasive Public Health Issue that Needs Greater Federal Attention " — will be held this Thursday in the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. You can watch the live stream at 10:00 am ET through a link from the committee site. Along with testimony from trauma survivors, the hearing will include testimony on the prevalence and impact of adverse...

When Dr. Walter Gilliam’s groundbreaking national study was released, exposing expulsion rates in state preschool programs, the findings asked us to explore not only the way we meet the social and emotional needs of young children, but how our implicit bias plays a role. The data showed that 4-year-olds are 50% more likely to be expelled than 3-year-olds, Black preschoolers are 3.6 times as likely as White preschoolers to be expelled, and boys are more than four times as likely as girls to...

Valencia’s Peace and Justice Institute has started a common read Facebook group to focus on books related to the theme of the most recent conference Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing . We are starting with Nadine Burke Harris' book, The Deepest Well. We hope you and members from your organization, family, or community will join in the conversation! The first discussion question was just posted today and it would be wonderful to have a robust ACEs Connection Central...

Valencia’s Peace and Justice Institute is excited to announce that we received a grant from the Khatoon Foundation to continue momentum around the work of ACEs and resilience in Central Florida. With this grant, we are able to bring on a Project Coordinator (Kelsey Visser) for 10 hrs/week for 4 months. Since our “sector” as Valencia College is education, our focus will be on contributing the following to the educational goals of the ACEs work: Film Screenings: Coordinating and marketing 2...

Shannon has over 25 years experience working with children in preschool and after school settings. Originally from Boston, Shannon holds a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology as well as an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. Since moving to Florida in 2000, she has built a career working in the early intervention field with ages 0-5, as well as working with truant teens as a case counselor in child welfare and currently as the Behavior Specialist for the YMCA of the Suncoast.

Not long after she finished her medical residency at Stanford University about a decade ago, Nadine Burke Harris got to work as a pediatrician in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. She founded and became CEO of a clinic there, focused on addressing health disparities in the community. It was in talking with those children and their families, she says, that she first realized how many of her patients experiencing the worst health outcomes — those with the highest levels...