Registration is now open for the 8th Annual Foster Care Youth Conference! The conference is open to all foster care and transitional aged youth (ages 14-24) in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano or Yolo counties. The conference will provide approximately 150 foster care/kinship and transitioning youth with an opportunity to participate in workshops covering resumes and interviewing, communication, trade demos, hair and barbering, fashion, art and sports. Eligible youth will receive a stipend for...

When Officer John Hampton of the San Bruno Police Department in San Bruno, CA, first heard that mindfulness training was being offered to him and his fellow cops, he had two reactions. John Hampton “I think my major reaction was: ‘Oh, there’s some hippy thing that they’re trying to get cops to do,’” he said. “When I say that, it’s funny because that’s not my voice. It’s the caricature of a police officer-like voice. In the back of my mind, I was interested and open to it, but that police...

Researchers who have been looking for a way to quantify the health toll of ACEs in dollar terms, now have an example in a newly-released study of California. ACEs exacted a toll costing an estimated $113 billion annually, according to the study in the journal PLOS One that was commissioned by the Center for Youth Wellness. ACEs-associated cardiovascular disease was the condition that lead author Ted Miller dubbed “the giant in the room.” It accounted for $29.6 billion in spending, more than...

Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...

Stay current with ACEs Connection -- and easily share stories via social media and email -- by accessing ACEs Connection and/or your community’s home page on your phone. Adding an ACEs Connection shortcut to your phone works for iPhone and Android systems and makes staying logged in, checking in, and sharing out quick and easy, on-the-go! Community managers: Share this post with community members, as using the shortcut is a great way to help your members stay abreast of what’s going on! On...

By Will Carruthers, Pacific Sun, February 5, 2020 North Bay residents don’t appreciate the scale of a crime happening all around them, despite an increased effort at public outreach over the past decade, according to a local nonprofit director. “Human trafficking happens every single day,” says Christine Castillo, the executive director of Verity, a Sonoma County nonprofit that offers services and support to trafficking victims and sometimes coordinates with law-enforcement agencies...

Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...

By Erica Hellerstein, Cal Matters, January 17, 2020 A new Alameda County program focused on the connections between poverty, food and employment opened Friday morning, the latest in a countywide effort to help low-income residents by increasing access to jobs and fresh produce. The newly built, 3,300-square-foot space will provide a commercial kitchen for small, home-based food entrepreneurs, land to grow fresh produce and a place to package leftover food retrieved from some local schools to...

Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...

Nearly two years ago, a team of colleagues at LifeLong Medical Clinics jumped at the opportunity to integrate practices based on ACEs science to prevent and heal trauma in their patients when it joined a two-year learning collaborative known as the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC). A few months after training began, the staff realized they had to put on the brakes.

By Ana B. Ibarra, California Healthline, December 18, 2019 Jane Garcia started as an intern at La Clínica de La Raza in the late 1970s, attracted by its mission to provide health care to all — especially immigrants, regardless of their legal status or ability to pay. Forty years later, Garcia, 66, is the chief executive officer of the organization, which now operates more than 30 clinics in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties and serves about 90,000 patients a year. About 65% of its...

This year's coming State of Our Health Breakfast on February 7th, 2020, will feature Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. Dr. Burke Harris is the 1st and current Surgeon General of California since 2019. She is a pioneer in linking adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress with harmful effects on health later on in life. We are excited to have her share with us! You won't want to miss it! You can listen to an interview with her here . We are currently only taking in Sponsorships and Table sales.