Tagged With "Dr. Vincent Felitti"
Blog Post
ACE Surveillance Study of Teachers and Administrators in Public and Private Schools in Southwest Nigeria, West Africa
Note: These findings were presented at the Child Trauma Conference in Lagos on October 25-26, 2019. Rationale: Many children today live with layers of stress both subtle and overt which in this report are collectively referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Specifically, these ACEs are physical, emotional and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; household dysfunction and domestic violence as well as community violence. The children have a life marked by chaos,...
Blog Post
ACEs Champion Julie Kurtz Gives Every Child (and Adult) a Voice
Julie Kurtz hasn’t stopped creating ways to build and promote resilience in herself and others who have experienced trauma since she left her family home for college at age 18. Although she experienced four types of adversity during her childhood, the CEO of the Center for Optimal Brain Integration has traveled a complex journey to mitigate those adversities by recognizing her own internal resilience, building skills to buffer her toxic and traumatic stress, uncovering her voice through...
Blog Post
ACEs Science Champions Series: Eulanda Thorne Applies ACEs Science Awareness at School and at Home
Eulanda Thorne and her children (L to R) Sarah, Joshua, Leah, Emmanuel When school counselor Eulanda Thorne discovered the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in 2018, she felt as if she were on fire. “I felt that I had missed a vital part of my education. Anyone who is in college for social work or teaching, a class on ACEs and trauma should be a required course.” Without an understanding of ACEs, she says, “I would think the students who are sent to me are being defiant or...
Blog Post
ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...
Blog Post
‘Ambassadors of Hope’ Trauma-sensitive schools understand the whole child [DerbyInformer.com]
Kindergarten teacher Erica Nunemaker ripped down the clip chart she used for behavior management in her classroom. Children moved their clip up for good behavior and down for bad behavior. Nunemaker realized the same students were moving down every day. The clip was a public display of the student’s failure, and children weren’t learning how to fix their behavior. “I’ve noticed that a lot of times we discipline them and tell them that’s not right ... but then we don’t give them a solution to...
Blog Post
Portions of the Educators’ Art of Facilitation shared in Wichita
An exercises we encountered at the Family Peace Initiative in Topeka and one that both Rebecca and Katie shared at the Moving the Needle conference in Wichita, is “pandora’s box and the cover story.” Pandora’s box contains the following evils: sickness, death, turmoil, strife, jealousy, hatred, famine……but also within the box is the light of HOPE. Katie Perez, an education consultant at Essdack, made over 400 of the boxes pictured above for those in attendance at their Moving the Needle...
Blog Post
Disabled Kids at Higher Risk of Abuse, Study Finds [Consumer.HealthDay.com]
Children with certain mental or behavioral disorders are at increased risk of abuse or neglect, a new study suggests. The findings add to evidence that children with disabilities face higher abuse risks. But they also suggest those risks vary depending on the type of disorder a child has. "We've known for years that children with disabilities have an increased risk of abuse," said Dr. Vincent Palusci, a pediatrician at NYU Langone Medical Center, in New York City. But the new study "took a...
Blog Post
Discipline bill is well intentioned, but doesn't meet needs of students, parents or teachers [VtDigger.org]
This commentary is by Alyssa Chen, a career educator who recently made the transition to education advocate and community organizer. Over the past two years, Vermont Legal Aid has brought much-needed attention to the issue of disproportionate suspension, the practice by which certain students get suspended at rates exceeding those of others. Legal Aid formed the Dignity in Schools Coalition to fight for statewide policy change. Bolstered by the findings of the Kicked Out Report (January...
Blog Post
Dr. Mona Delahooke Will Present at The Trauma-Responsive Schools Conference in California
Have you been hearing all the buzz about Dr. Mona Delahooke's new book, Beyond Behaviors ? In my opinion, it’s the best new book of 2019. Dr. Delahooke is a practicing pediatric clinical psychologist of thirty years. She is gaining critical acclaim and grassroots support for challenging the prevalent and pervasive behaviorist bias in schools. As a result, she is an emerging authority in the growing revolution to re-interpret children's misbehavior. She highlights much of the books' content...
Blog Post
How It Feels & How We Heal: Parenting with ACEs Chat Quotes (You Tube, Database, PDFs, Links)
Parenting with ACEs is sharing inspiration, information, and expertise from our chat series in 3 formats. Parenting with ACEs: How It Feels & How We Heal Quote Collection (pdf version below as well) Quotes Database (pdf version below as well) Links to Chat Transcripts and before and after-the-chat blog posts. Thanks to everyone who showed up, who shared, and who is doing the important work that is our mission (prevent ACEs, heal trauma, build resilience). We know that work happens...
Blog Post
How Severe, Ongoing Stress can Affect a Child's Brain [Associated Press via kstp.com]
A quiet, unsmiling little girl with big brown eyes crawls inside a carpeted cubicle, hugs a stuffed teddy bear tight, and turns her head away from the noisy classroom. The safe spaces, quiet times and breathing exercises for her and the other preschoolers at the Verner Center for Early Learning are designed to help kids cope with intense stress so they can learn. But experts hope there's an even bigger benefit — protecting young bodies and brains from stress so persistent that it becomes...
Blog Post
Hughes leads meeting on trauma in schools [PhillyTrib.com]
State Sen. Vincent Hughes issued a passionate plea to experts at Temple University to help serve and protect victims of trauma in grade schools in Philadelphia and across the commonwealth. “Too many kids are walking into too many toxic schools, too many toxic situations — from domestic abuse to gun violence — to get an education in [an atmosphere] that’s toxic for educators to work in,” said Hughes (D-7) during a recent hearing at the university with members of the Senate Appropriations...
Blog Post
In Search of the Missing ACEs...
I remain forever grateful that my long felt and seeming innate knowledge ( actually garnered from personal experience, work with traumatised animals and people ) has been evidenced and validated by the amazing work of Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda. They created the peg I, we, can hang our experience and expertise on and work to best apply our skills to assist others. With ACEs I am now able to communicate my knowledge with clients, colleagues and communities with the additional confidence...
Blog Post
Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit
The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs. This toolkit provides an overview of colleges and universities that have courses in trauma-informed practice and ACEs science. Most of the toolkit comprises content for a course on...
Blog Post
Setting the Wheels in Motion - Becoming a Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive School
I recently wrote a blog post about how to take the first step in creating a trauma informed care model (TIC) in your school. The first step, Establishing a Baseline, is necessary because it fuels future steps in the process. In the blog post "Is Your School Ready to be Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive," I also listed the key components of a TIC model. I am adding them here as well, because I don't want you to have to keep going back to the other blog as you are working on this process.
Blog Post
Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Misunderstood, mislabeled, mistreated
Finally, a “doctor told me NOT to call it a “mental illness” it’s a “mental injury”
Blog Post
New Guidance on Trauma Screening in Schools
In partnership with the Defending Childhood State Policy Initiative and the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, new guidance has been released on trauma screening in schools. Importantly, this document lays out a series of important considerations when determining whether trauma screening is indicated in each context, and how to go about collecting and utilizing the data generated from the process. Please feel free to share input.
Blog Post
New Resource Guide for Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Prevention
Greetings, ACN Community! I wanted to share this fantastic new resource guide developed by one of the work groups from the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. This guide provides background on best practice, principles of prevention, identifying resources for the classroom, developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. It is really quite thorough and is full of excellent ideas...
Blog Post
The Relentless School Nurse: When the Health Office Pass Includes Emotions
The collaboration between school counselors and school nurses creates safe spaces for students at school. Building a coalition between school counselors and school nurses creates a safety net for our most complex and challenging students while benefiting the whole school community. Promoting connections through intentional relationship building, and ensuring a school environment that is physically, emotionally and psychologically safe changes the culture and climate. Read about an amazing...
Blog Post
These school districts tried to arm coaches. It’s harder than it sounds. [tampabay.com]
After the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, Brevard County Schools Assistant Superintendent Matt Reed faced a challenge unlike any in his career. His team had to find, hire and train more than two dozen new employees to carry firearms on school campuses and protect students in the event of a school shooter. They had less than six months. The district missed the deadline. [For more on this story by Katherine Campione, Vincent McDonald and Christina Morales,...
Blog Post
Responding with Care to Students Facing Trauma (ascd.org)
Many K–12 students are experiencing ongoing life stresses. Recognizing this can help educators respond effectively to their needs. Looking at Felitti and colleagues' list of adverse events (which includes experiences like a parent going to jail, the death of a loved one, or substance misuse in the home), teachers will likely realize how prevalent traumatic experiences are among today's students. The ACEs study has been replicated over time and has since included looking at the impact of ACEs...
Comment
Re: Nowhere to Hide the Elephant in the [Class]room
Dr. Felitti, Thank you so much for your kind words and your suggestion. I am very honored and the DVD idea is quite intriguing! Daun Kauffman
Comment
Re: Chronic absenteeism pervasive in California and nationwide, report shows [edsource.org]
This is probably analogous to what we found in the ACE Study about the relationship of ACE Score to absenteeism from work. This slide is based on self-acknowledged information. VINCENT J. FELITTI, MD San Diego, California VJFMDSDCA@mac.com > On Sep 10, 2018, at 10:06 AMPDT, ACEsConnection < communitymanager@acesconnection.com > wrote: >
Comment
Re: Burnout Risk for In-Prison Educators Could Jeopardize Programs for Incarcerated Students
Dr. Felitti, thank you, I have replied directly to your query.
Comment
Re: Co-Parent Training Helps Kids Adjust to School [PsychCentral.com]
So many things to say about this. "Parents who argue and are often in conflict with each other over parenting issues can become more impatient and harsh with their children... Even if parents don’t take out frustration on their children, the emotional security and well-being of the child can be threatened by the presence of conflict in the home." What about parents who are in conflict with each other, period? I'm surprised this is not one of the ACEs. And yes, when will the insurance...
Comment
Re: Oregon State educators visit Cherokee Point Elementary in San Diego
Thank you Dr. Felitti. Your graciousness is tremendously appreciated. Your groundbreaking research is breaking through endemically diseased roots in our society and the transformation of the children, youth and families is bringing hope and healing to our communities.
Reply
Re: Seeking Speakers/Trainers in Virginia on Trauma Informed Schools
John Richardson-Lauve, LCSW 200 N 22nd Street , Richmond, VA 23223 (804) 644.9590 jrl@childsavers.org | childsavers.org
Comment
Re: Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast
This was an excellent inspiring podcast. Thank you!
Comment
Re: In Search of the Missing ACEs...
Hi, Dawn: These are good questions. Drs. Felitti & Anda also understood that there were other types of ACEs, but the 10 in the study were the 10 they looked at. Since then, people have expanded the definition to include more ACEs. We have included many examples of those in the Resources Center: https://www.pacesconnection.com...xtended-aces-surveys It's probably not a bad idea for organizations to ask the population they're asking and surveying what other ACEs they're experiencing in...
Blog Post
Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Care -- Workforce training framework
A colleague of mine -- here in New Zealand!! -- recently passed the attached PDF, from Scotland, onto me. It concerns a relatively recent, and still developing, proposed trauma training framework. This might be helpful to others wishing to go further in introducing TIC in their own services. It includes a consideration of ACEs. Naturally, it needs to incorporate culture-specific additions or modifications to suit your local conditions. The document as it is likely has broad application.
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast
If you are not familiar with the Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast I hope you check it out. I'm speaking to a diverse group of trauma-informed practitioners from around the globe to share their knowledge, ideas, and experiences to support those in the work. Episode 7 was released today! I had an amazing time chatting with Dr. Bruce Perry who discussed the Neurosequential Model amongst many other things! You can now access the podcast from many different platforms! (SoundCloud,...
Blog Post
Trauma-sensitive teacher
This is a good article that identifies key reasons why educators need to be trauma-informed.
Blog Post
Unintended Consequences
This article -- The Education Practice That is Costing Taxpayers Billions of Dollars -- is about what may happen to students who are suspended from school. While not everything bad happens to all students who are suspended, there are enough of them to have a societal impact. The problem is that the societal impact is far enough into the future that it becomes disconnected from the event that might cause it. Or maybe there are a lot of events that might lead to the result, but we aren't aware...
Blog Post
Vinnie Pompei wants you to know that we're all biased, and we can work with that [edsource.org]
Vincent “Vinnie” Pompei is director of the Youth Well-Being Project of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization, and the chair of Time to Thrive, an annual national conference about LGBT student inclusion. He spent more than 10 years as a middle school teacher and high school counselor in the Paramount and Val Verde unified school districts in Southern California. Pompei is also a past president of the California Association of School Counselors. On Oct. 5 at the...
Blog Post
Why I believe Gregory Williams, and his book, Shattered By The Darkness, will help save lives and revolutionize healthcare.
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
Comment
Re: John Wetten Elementary School offers traumatized kids a springboard to hope (pamplinmedia.com)
It might be of interest to collect anonymous student answers to the one-page version of the ACE Questionnaire and then pool the anonymous results so they could be projected to a trial group of older students for their discussion of what they think this information means. This has been done a few times in city newspapers and college newspapers with very meaningful discussions resulting. VINCENT J. FELITTI, MD San Diego, California VJFMDSDCA@mac.com > On Feb 27, 2017, at 6:58 AMPST,...
Comment
Re: Mental Health in Finnish Schools: So Close to Perfection [thelancet.com]
It would be wonderful if we can find a way to improve parenting skills. However, a couple of the obstacles that I have most encountered, (I am from a low-income Mexican migrant community in the Central Valley of California) include: ability to invest time in events which may not include some form of economic benefit and one of cultural stigma. That is not to say that these obstacles are not being addressed and have seen progress in overcoming them. My question would be a broad one, which...
Comment
Re: Mental Health in Finnish Schools: So Close to Perfection [thelancet.com]
Yes, parent-training is a necessary, key move, but implementation will be such a tough, tough challenge Dr. Felitti... I'm sure you know that some folks here in the West reject any concept of others' "involvement" (including 'training') in what they see as unassailable, "private", family jurisdiction. Some reject any intrusion into "sacred" personal relationships (and outcomes). Either way, ultimately, we would probably agree that "training" parents is not enough, training must result in...
Comment
Re: Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
Thank you Dr. Felitti! Wonderful ideas! Will share!
Comment
Re: Portions of the Educators’ Art of Facilitation shared in Wichita
The whole blog is insightful. This paragraph resonates with me The ACE Study’s researchers – Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr.Robert Anda -- found that most people experience ACEs, and that these experiences are lost in time and protected by shame, by secrecy, and by social taboos. I would say that these experiences are not lost in time, they are hidden in our pandora’s boxes. As long as we keep the box closed we will never be free and will remain devoid of hope. I agree "as long as we keep the...