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Benchmarks NC -- " Benchmarks is an alliance of nationally accredited agencies committed to providing quality care, leadership, and accountability in services to children, adults and families in North Carolina. Member agencies of Benchmarks deliver a broad continuum of behavioral health, child welfare, education, development disabilities and residential support services." Center on the Developing Child , Harvard University -- "We are a multidisciplinary team committed to driving...

Despite the landmark ACEs study in 1998, ACEs screening is uncommon in medical clinics - barriers include lack of time, ACEs resources, confidence in addressing sensitive topics, etc. Flanagan et al. developed a training program for clinicians that addressed the barriers, added resilience measures, and included clinic-specific adjustments. The study found that conversations on ACEs and resilience improved women’s trust in and relationship with their clinicians. After the training, clinicians...

Photo/CreativeCommons "In response to an increased need to care for babies born to mothers with substance abuse issues, we developed GunderKids, a care management program that provides integrated medical care beyond standard-of-care, well-child appointments for these socially complex families. Methods: The program incorporates frequent visits to the pediatrician and the care team, which includes pediatric nurses, a pediatric social worker, and a child psychologist. Enrollment is volun- tary.

With her husband and two young children, (Dr. Candy) Stockton packed up and moved hundreds of miles north to rural Shasta County. Today, Stockton, 42, practices family medicine at the Shingletown Medical Center in a tiny town in the shadow of Mt. Lassen, 30 miles east of Redding. The majority of Stockton’s patients live in poverty. “The economy is terrible,” she said, adding that the lack of educational opportunities for kids creates a cycle of despair that can afflict families for...

What are the reasons that parents or caregivers do not fully disclose their own or their young children’s ACEs when asked to fill out an ACE screening form in their child’s pediatrician’s office? That was one of the many questions raised in a recent webinar entitled Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Pediatric Primary Care Setting: Practical Considerations and Lessons Learned . Dr. Kavitha Selvaraj, an attending physician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s hospital...

Photo: Verkeorg/ creativecommons ______________________________________________________________ "This study examines relationships between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adolescent health indicators among a sample of 8th, 9th, and 11th graders participating in the 2016 Minnesota Student Survey." Read more about this study in the journal Global Pediatric Health .

Screening Time [AAP.org]-- " The American Academy of Pediatrics developed this site - which includes video-based training modules, conversation simulations, a screening tool selector, and a resource center - to help you learn more about the screening process for maternal depression, developmental concerns, and social determinants of health. Useful for doctors, nurses, front office staff, care coordinators, and others involved in the process, this resource will help you gain a better...

https://civileats.com/2018/03/26/what-children-understand-about-food-insecurity/

Join the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) on Wednesday, April 25 at 12:00 PM PST for a Q&A session and a “sneak peek” of its new member website, which provides a wide range of resources to help pediatric practices make the case and implement screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). NPPC is an initiative of the Center for Youth Wellness.

A friend of mine recently referred her grandchild and his pregnant wife to a Bringing Baby Home class, because she noticed that the wife had a horrible background of abuse and at times had difficulty functioning. What the grandmother noticed with this couple was a change in the family dynamics. the couple knows how to get along, the father is engaged in parenting, and the baby thriving. This is really starting at the root of the problem. 20 years ago, Drs. John and Julie Gottman worked with...

"Existing research on childhood adversity and health risk across the lifespan lacks specificity regarding which types of exposures to assess and when. The purpose of this study was to contribute to an empirically-supported framework to guide practitioners interested in identifying youth who may be at greatest risk for a lifelong trajectory of health disparities. We also sought to identify the point in childhood at which screening for adversity exposure would capture the largest group of at...

On the day after the 2016 presidential election, a group of pediatricians arrived at the Customs and Border Protection processing center here. Their host was Marsha Griffin, MD, a pediatrician who practices in this border town and is co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Immigrant Health Special Interest Group. Griffin had been at work with two fellow AAP members on a policy statement for the academy calling on the government to stop separating families who've been apprehended...