Tagged With "trauma informed"
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4CA Policymaker Education Day is Back!
We're back!! Join us for Policymaker Education Day 2019 on MAY 1!
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
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...
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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Alameda County Data Dashboard: Child Adversity and Well-Being
A product of the Essentials for Childhood Initiative (EfC), the Child Adversity and Well-Being Dashboards contain indicators of child adversity, health and well-being utilizing data available on kidsdata.org . For more information about the dashboards, please refer to the California Data Dashboards page. The Alameda Data Dashboard contains select indicators of child adversity and well-being. The dashboard is a product of the Shared Data and Outcomes Workgroup of the California Essentials for...
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Building trust is now a critical part of health care
In a video clip , a hospital patient turns away in protest as a physician enters the room. “Why do you all keep coming in my room!” she asks in frustration. The physician moves a chair out of the way and sits down at eye level with the patient. “You’ve had to see so many people,” he acknowledges. “And I’m tired of it!” she yells. “I already know I have to get both of my legs cut off. That’s what they keep saying. I don’t have a choice!” “You don’t feel like you have a choice,” he repeats...
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California Launches New Comprehensive, Consumer-Friendly Website and Public Service Announcements to Boost COVID-19 Awareness [gov.ca.gov]
From Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, March 18, 2020 New, one-stop state website: www.covid19.ca.gov New PSAs feature California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Angell and California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris SACRAMENTO – California Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the launch of a new Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) public awareness campaign to provide useful information to Californians and inform them of actions they can take to further prevent the spread of...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
All photos courtesy of Antioch Middle School staff Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up...
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Have you signed up yet? PE Day is coming soon! (May 1)
Join the 4CA team at "PE" Day: Policymaker Education Day is May 1, 2019 in Sacramento. Join us to learn about emerging policy and opt to visit legislators' offices to educate and inform about ACEs, trauma and resilience. Register now!
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Is your voice at the table? Talking about trauma: Findings and opportunities from an analysis of news coverage [bmsg.org]
Although new media platforms are changing the way people consume the news, newspapers (including their online components) continue to influence local and national policy debates, and traditional news outlets remain a key source of information for the majority of news consumers. 2 News coverage can set the agenda for debates regarding public policies that could prevent or address childhood trauma. 3-6 If news coverage doesn't discuss childhood trauma or doesn't make connections to the...
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Leaders in SF public housing deal with their own and community trauma head on
Sengthong Sithounnolat, Jeris Woodson, Donald Greene, Ashley Blanco On a recent Saturday, 10 people gather around a table at the offices of Trauma Transformed in Oakland, Calif., where quotes from figures like Frederick Douglas, Nelson Mandela, and Coretta Scott King grace one wall as light streams in from a skylight above. The group is known as the Resident Warriors, which meets weekly. One participant talks of her recovery from addiction and her mother’s murder. Another mentions being...
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New ACEs data on Kidsdata.org
On behalf of California Essentials for Childhood, I am very excited to announce the release of a new Child Adversity and Resilience data topic on Kidsdata.org! This has been a collaborative effort between the CA Essentials for Childhood Initiative's Shared Data and Outcomes Work Group and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. I represent ACEs Connection Network on Essentials and am the co-chair of the Shared Data & Outcomes Work Group so I couldn't be more thrilled about...
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New Prevention Institute Report Offers Framework for Preventing Community Trauma, Building Resilience
A new Prevention Institute report, featured Wednesday in USA Today , offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding the relationship between community trauma and violence. In doing so, the report provides insight into how we can overcome the inequities that contribute to a cycle of inner-city gun violence, poverty, unemployment, and poor health in communities of color. As additional treatment models are developed for individual trauma, there is a growing need for addressing trauma as a...
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Oakland, CA, youth organization takes next step in systems change to heal trauma
In a room in East Oakland, Calif., photos of children are projected on a screen. “Who is that?” asks Briana Moore, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice and a master trainer for the East Bay Agency for Children’s Trauma Transformed program. “Bill Clinton,” responds one of the 20 employees of the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC).
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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RYSE gathering: To promote healing from trauma, institutions need to stop seeing youth as the problem
A young man told clinical therapist Marissa Snoddy recently that when she calls him a leader, she got it all wrong. “He said, ‘I just came from Juvenile Hall,’ I’m not a leader.” But, she said, “We just kept giving him love. And we said, ‘You’re courageous for showing up and being here,’” The very fact that he was there, she explained, showed he was a leader. Snoddy related the anecdote recently for 80 people attending the Trauma and Learning Series launch led by Rising Youth for Social...
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Shifting the focus from trauma to compassion
photo: Rolf Schweitzer/CCO Dr. Arnd Herz, a self-described champion for ACEs science, would like nothing more than to witness a greater appreciation of how widespread adverse childhood experiences are. Herz, a pediatrician and director of Medi-Cal Strategy for the Greater Southern Alameda Area for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, would also like to encourage more people in health care to engage in a trauma-informed care approach, a change in practice that he says not only benefits...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Trauma: a Story of Hope
Trauma: a story of hope Any story about healing trauma is a story of hope, and a story for all of us. Because we all carry trauma. Whether we think of ourselves this way or not. We know now that we all carry trauma because we know that trauma is transmitted intergenerationally . And we know that in the U.S., our country was built on--and continues to be sustained by--legacies of trauma : violence against Native Africans, violence against African Americans, violence against Latinos, violence...
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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...
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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Upcoming Training Opportunity, "Trauma Informed Care: NEAR Informed Solutions"
The Public Health Institute and John Muir Health are excited to sponsor this one-day training. This is a training for providers, educators, and community leaders to better understand Trauma Informed Care. The training will share insights and strategies from the self-healing communities work in Washington State. This training will be held on February 27, 2018 from 9:00am-3:30pm at the First 5 Conference Center. The address is: 1115 Atlantic Ave., Alameda, CA, 94501. For more information,...
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Trauma to Trust uses ACEs science to heal wounds between community members, police
photo courtesy of EJUSA/Ron Holtz Studio Forty-seven-year-old Al-Tariq Best, founder and executive director of the HUBB , an arts and healing organization for youth, recalls the rage, humiliation and fear he felt as a 17-year-old when he and three other Black friends were pulled over by police in Newark, N.J. Al-Tariq Best “[There were] all these people around us. They search the car. They strip the car down. They make us pull our pants down in broad daylight. And I'm, I'm upset. And I'm...
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The 'war on drugs' was a war on people of color
In the spring of 1982, Susan Burton turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of her 5-year-old son, who had run into the street and was hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer . Over the course of the next 17 years, Burton was in and out of prison. “Each time I left, I felt a little more broken,” she told me recently. What would have made a difference, she said, was “if there could have been a way to have therapy from traumatic childhood events, disappointments and...
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Youth Detention Facility finds culture of kindness more effective than punishment
A corner of the Multi-Sensory De-escalation Room, All MSDR photos courtesy of Valerie Clark When a young person enters the de-escalation room in the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility , they’ll find dimmed lights, bottles of lavender, orange and other essential oils, an audio menu featuring the rush of ocean waves and other calming sounds, along with squeeze balls, TheraPutty, jigsaw puzzles, and an exercise ball to bounce on. TheraPutty, squeeze balls and more Sometimes, with a...
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Policing in schools: Redefining public safety to be supportive & healing, instead of punitive & criminalizing
A recent video , shared on the national news, shows a 16-year-old Florida student being slammed to the ground by a police officer working at her school. It’s one of many such incidents of school-based police violence against students captured in videos around the country. Some of the victims are as young as five years old. About 47% of U.S. schools employ armed police officers , known as school resource officers, who are there to keep students safe. But students who attend these schools...
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Peer-led organization offers San Francisco's unhoused food, work, dignity and more
He is sprawled out on the sidewalk, motionless, flushed cheeks framed by high cheekbones. He’s slender, probably in his mid-20s, his straight, coal black hair pulled back, and his orange t-shirt twisted up over his stomach. “He’s OD’ing on fentanyl!” shouts a guy holding a skateboard.
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Dan Press traces how legal work for Native Americans led to advocacy to uproot trauma
L-R Dr. Mary Cwik, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, Dan Press, Dr. Zach Kaminsky, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Prewitt In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation. Dan Press “I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens...
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Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice with Special Guest, Becky Haas, Pioneer in Developing Trauma-Informed Judicial Initiatives
Please join us for our new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Dr. Porter Jennings-McGarity, PhD/LCSW, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being...
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The 2023 Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator Program is now Open For Registration
PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.
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The 2023 Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator Program is now Open For Registration
PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.
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Check Out New July Dates Added to the 2023 CRC Summer Curriculum and the Official Launch of the Dedicated CRC Community Page
July is a time to celebrate all summer has to offer by building bridges and innovating with community to get to the heart of trauma-informed awareness and resilience building. This month, we’ve added new July dates to the summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum—but that’s only half of the good news. Last year, the CRC began as a pilot program. Now that it's evolved, what better time to bring accelerator participants together in a PACEs Connection CRC community than the summer? We are proud to announce...
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Growing Resilient Communities Embraces the New Year: Welcome CRC Fellows, Grow with Google Partnership Announcement & Unveiling New Interactive Tools
To prepare for the year ahead, we have a few very special announcements we’re excited to share. First, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the 700+ community champions, facilitators, managers, and advocates in our COOP and Growing Resilient Communities program for your commitment.
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Creating Resilient Communities in 2024: The Year of Cultivating Resilient Networks Through Healing Centered Cultural Wisdom
As we head into our full CRC curriculum this January, we invite current and future CRC Accelerator participants to join us with collective care and self care in mind.
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CRC Accelerator Hiatus Reminder & April “Hour of Power” to Support CRC Participants With Only One Event to Completion Learn CRC Fellowship Next Steps
As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.
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EXCITING NEWS – PACEs Connection is BACK!
Former PACEs Connection employees Dana Brown (L) with Vincent Felitti, MD, co-author of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study, and Carey Sipp (R) in San Diego in January, 2024. The last few months have been quite challenging, but we pushed, persevered, and didn’t give up hope. The “we” is Carey Sipp and Dana Brown. We were long-time staff members of PACEs Connection determined to reinstate the website and the resources and information we provide to communities after the platform went...