Tagged With "Childrens Residential Treatment Centers"
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12 Things I Wish My Doctor Understood About Childhood Trauma
It doesn’t happen that often anymore, but one place where I almost always get triggered with my Childhood PTSD symptoms is when I visit the doctor. I could never even put this into words before. But now that I’m mostly healed from my Childhood PTSD symptoms, I want to express what I wish my doctors – all the doctors of my life – had understood about the effects of Childhood trauma, about me. Note: This is one of my most personal posts ever. Unless you’re someone who really prefers text, I...
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2019 National Trauma-Informed Health Care Education and Research (TIHCER) Meeting – Tulsa, OK
A newly established national group of experts known as TIHCER (pronounced “tīs-er”) recently convened for a first-time working meeting at The University of Oklahoma in Tulsa to advance the important cause of T rauma- I nformed H ealth C are E ducation and R esearch. The gathering brought 26 members representing 10 states. This diverse group of experts comprise members from a variety of healthcare professions — medicine (physicians and residents/medical students), clinical psychology,...
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A Black Immigrant Woman Is Now the Most Powerful Health Official in California [vice.com]
By Richard Morgan, Vice, July 18, 2019. It was an early summer morning at the San Ysidro Health Center, situated on the Mexican border. A flu outbreak gripped a nearby ICE detention center, where a larger humanitarian crisis continued to unfold, threatening the future of hundreds of children. In a small conference room, brimming with 20 or so of the San Diego area’s most diverse academic and activist minds, Nadine Burke Harris sat at the head of the table. The 43-year-old pediatrician from...
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A Call to Children’s Residential Treatment Centers: Please, Please Do Your Own Trauma Work
The challenges of becoming an effective trauma-informed organization are considerable for sure. Taken as an opportunity, and not a burden, they present a unique platform for organizational learning, healing, and growth. Among so many other things, the efforts inure to the benefit of a milieu that becomes a sanctuary for healing and where little boys are not subject to blame for unintended treatment outcomes.
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A Case for Collecting Adverse Childhood Experiences Data
Let me start with a radical statement: I love data. One of my favorite activities in my role as chief strategy officer at Children & Families First , a large non-profit child and family services agency, is turning columns of numbers into sets of colorful graphs. But even more satisfying is watching someone engage with the data as it reveals previously hidden meaning. Since 2014, Children & Families First has been collecting adverse childhood experience (ACE) data from the people we...
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A Pandemic Benefit: The Expansion of Telemedicine [nytimes.com]
By Jane Brody, The NY Times, May 11, 2020. Even if no other good for health care emerges from the coronavirus crisis, one development — the incorporation of telemedicine into routine medical care — promises to be transformative. Using technology that already exists and devices that most people have in their homes, medical practice over the internet can result in faster diagnoses and treatments, increase the efficiency of care and reduce patient stress. Without having to travel to a doctor’s...
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A Trauma Informed Mission Statement in Clinical Psychology
One of the earliest steps many ACEs Connection community initiatives take, is to create a mission statement. If you're ever stuck for ideas, check out examples like the attached statement from the University of San Francisco Center for Child and Family Development, School Based Counseling.
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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ACEs Research Corner — January 2020
Research papers this month include links between ACEs and bullying, dropping out of high school, adult disability, and the effects of countering ACEs.
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ACEs Research Corner — November 2019
[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Jackson DB, Chilton M, Johnson KR, Vaughn MG. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Household Food Insecurity. Am J Prev Med. 2019 Nov;57(5):667-674. PMID: 31522923...
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ACEs Science and Racism
This is a collection of resources regarding structural racism and trauma. This list aims to give a broad overview and is not all-inclusive. We welcome suggestions; if you have any, please comment below! The titles below and the PDFs in attachments are in alphabetical order. BSC Full Report Trauma Resilient Informed City Baltimore: This is the full report of the work, data, lessons, and direct quotes from several teams of people from various backgrounds in the Baltimore community as they...
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ACEs teach us why racism is a health equity Issue: Dr. Flojaune Cofer (Part One)
Dr. Flojaune Cofer and Ben Duncan , each from public health backgrounds that focus on health disparities, addressed ACEs in the context of health equity for their panel entitled ACEs, Race, and Health Equity: Understanding and Addressing the Role of Race and Racism in ACEs Exposure and Healing . Cofer and Duncan co-presented to a standing-room-only audience on day one of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access co-hosted by ACEs Connection and the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco...
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Adaptive Change to RECOVER Your Organization
The next installment of Villa of Hope's webinar series for the Alliance for Stronger Families & Communities is "Adaptive Change to RECOVER Efficiency & Strength to Build a Culture of Change & Empowerment." It takes a humble and courageous leader to do this work!
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Adding layers to the ACEs pyramid -- What do you think?
When the RYSE Center opened its doors in 2008 in Richmond, CA, says Kanwarpal Dhaliwal , community health director and a RYSE co-founder (and ACEsConnection member), staff members didn’t talk about complex trauma per se, but they...
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Addressing ACEs as a Social Transformation Initiative
It's time for adult children to fully recover from the lies they were programmed to believe about themselves and others when they were developing, and to adjust the norms in our society to ensure the healthy development of our descendants and the recovery of the adult affected.
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Addressing Trauma and Building Resiliency as Comprehensive Disaster Planning and Response
The attached memo is intended to make observations about communities affected by disaster-related trauma, and to offer recommendations for trauma-informed recovery. Community examples provide case studies or models for other communities grappling with similar issues. Suggested resources and tools provide communities with support for accelerated action. Memo authors represent active cross sector networks that contribute to resilient community infrastructure development, awareness building,...
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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Toolkit [emergingminds.com.au]
From Emerging Minds, February 2020 This toolkit contains information, advice and practical tools for individuals and professionals who work with, or care for, children who have had adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs are very stressful events or circumstances that children may experience during their childhood. They can have significant impacts on children’s physical health, mental health and social functioning during childhood, adolescence and later life. The resources in this...
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After 40 years in solitary, activist Albert Woodfox tells his story of survival [theguardian.com]
My wrists were handcuffed to my waist by a leather strap. These restraints would become standard for me for decades to come. They walked me to a car and I got in. A captain next to me started elbowing me in my chest, face, and ribs. They drove me to a building just inside the front gate that housed the reception center and death row. Inside was a cellblock called closed cell restricted, or CCR: another name for solitary confinement. In the stairwell they beat me viciously. I couldn’t fight...
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Association Between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Mortality Among Responders and Civilians Following the September 11, 2001, Disaster [jamanetwork.com]
By Ingrid Giesinger, Jiehui Li, Erin Takemoto, et al., Jama Network Open, February 5, 2020 Key Points Question What is the association of mortality with baseline and repeated assessments of posttraumatic stress disorder in a population exposed to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, over 13 years of follow-up? Findings In this cohort study of 63 666 World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees, posttraumatic stress disorder was associated with an increased risk of mortality...
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At an HIV Clinic, Patients and Staff Have a Voice in Shaping Trauma Informed Care
Dr. Edward Machtinger, director of the Women and HIV Program, front row, center and clinic staff To the casual observer, the offices of the Women and HIV Program at the University of California San Francisco look like any other primary care clinic. There’s a waiting room with vinyl-covered chairs for the clinic’s patients. Staff check in patients from a non-descript desk ringed with a bank of computers. A video screen promotes the clinic’s services. But as you make your way further into a...
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At an HIV Clinic, Patients and Staff Have a Voice in Shaping Trauma Informed Care
Dr. Edward Machtinger, director of the Women and HIV Program, front row, center and clinic staff To the casual observer, the offices of the Women and HIV Program at the University of California San Francisco look like any other primary care clinic. There’s a waiting room with vinyl-covered chairs for the clinic’s patients. Staff check in patients from a non-descript desk ringed with a bank of computers. A video screen promotes the clinic’s services. But as you make your way further into a...
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Author Hopes to Put Her Emotions Journals in the Hands of Girls in Every State
Back in the spring, I was in the middle of putting together a panel on community interventions for ACEs when the conference planning chair suggested adding Tara Shephard. We had an amazing panel that day, but Tara hit it out of the park. Her love and care for African-American girls in Arkansas and the adversities they face was apparent in every word she spoke that day. To give some background, Tara is an author, education and mental health advocate; an auditor for the American Correctional...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Because of Andres Perez, 10,000+ Latinx parents in Northern California embrace trauma-informed parenting
Andres Perez immigrated to San Jose, Calif., from Mexico in 1990. He was 24 years old, undocumented, knew little English, lacked job skills, and had a pregnant wife to support. He hit the ground running by completing an ESL program in San Jose City College, and, while working days at any job he could find, at night he earned an associate of science degree with specialization in electronics and computers in 2002. Fortunately for thousands of Latinx parents and their children, he never worked...
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Blog Post | How Understanding Trauma Can Strengthen Health Care Organizations: A Q&A with Sandra Bloom
Knowledge regarding the impact of trauma on individual health and behavior has become more mainstream in health care over the last several years. However, the effects of trauma on groups, organizations, and entire systems of care, are not as widely understood. The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) recently spoke with Sandra Bloom, MD, associate professor of health management and policy at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health and co-founder of the Sanctuary Model , to...
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Brief trauma training videos now available for families & professionals
Trauma Sensitive Approaches for Home and School is a series of three brief (under 10 minutes each) training videos for use by school personnel, families, child welfare and other professionals. Developed by Formed Families Forward, a parent resource center, as part of the Virginia Tiered Systems of Supports project, the videos cover: - Understanding Trauma Awareness; - Responding to Trauma; and - Building Trauma Sensitive Schools One page fact sheets are available to accompany each video.
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Building A Trauma Informed System of Care Toolkit
We are delighted to make available the Building Strong Brains of Tennessee funded, Building A Trauma Informed System of Care toolkit. This toolkit is based upon the work of the Northeast Tennessee ACEs Connection group and it's many partners since 2015. In time, Building Strong Brains of Tennessee will also have printed copies available. In preparing this toolkit, Dr. Andi Clements and I tried to share in a very transparent fashion the steps we've taken, mistakes we've made and inspiring...
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Building Bridges to Resilience in Santa Barbara County
The full moon was setting and the sun was rising as organizers from KIDS Network, Children & Family Resource Services, Casa Pacifica, and the Department of Behavioral Wellness began setting up the 2019 BRIDGES TO RESILIENCE Conference on October 14 th at the beautiful Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. The stately halls and ballrooms were a flurry of activity as staff prepared to receive over 350 community members who work with children, youth and families in Santa Barbara County.
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Case Statement on Trauma Informed Approaches
Attached is a Case Statement on Trauma Informed Approaches--it is a review of the Greater Harrisburg Area's and beyond's ACE scores, the outcomes of these ACEs and some ideas of how to resolve the negative consequences of this crisis of epidemic proportions. Please use it to advance the cause of moving from the bad news of ACEs towards the good news of becoming trauma informed and resilient. I would also welcome your comments, questions and recommendations! Thank you.
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Change Package is Now Available!
Click here for the Change Package : Fostering Resilience and Recovery: A Change Package for Advancing Trauma – Informed Primary Care Earlier this year, to help primary care address the impacts of trauma, the National Council for Behavioral Health, with the support of Kaiser Permanente, launched a three-year initiative, Trauma-Informed Primary Care: Fostering Resilience and Recovery . “Trauma work is not new to the National Council. With effects across the lifespan, we’ve spent the last...
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COVID-19 and the Ten Principles of the CRISIS Framework Fostering Community Resilience and Preventing Vicarious Trauma
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about community-wide sorrow and vicarious trauma. In order to be prepared to manage traumatic grief and vicarious trauma, healthcare leaders, local behavioral health providers and other professions in related fields, along with individuals, families and organizations, need to take active roles in preparing for community-wide bereavement. The ten principles of Barbara Rubel's CRISIS Framework (Community Resilience in Situations Involving Sorrow) can help you...
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Criminal Records Create Cycles of Multigenerational Poverty [americanprogress.org]
By Jaboa Lake, Center for American Progress, April 15, 2020 As many as 1 in 3 people in the United States have criminal records, creating barriers across several domains. Certain groups in particular—including people of color , sexual minorities , transgender and nonbinary people , people with disabilities , people with serious mental illness , and people living in poverty —experience disproportionate, negative impacts related to the criminal legal system. These disparities reflect...
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Developing Community Resilience During the COVID-19 Outbreak
I have been fielding requests about community resilience development and want to share with all of you a document that others are finding helpful. I initially created the document (below and pdf attached) for our host entities to distribute to their cohorts (1500-plus people) of N.E.A.R. Master Trainers embedded in 25 states and a province. Dr. Rob Anda, Laura Porter and I train Master Trainers in N euroscience, E pigenetics, the A CE Study, and R esilience; additional information can be...
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"Drive Thru Preschool"
During this time of social distancing and the legitimate scare of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to develop a sense of "normalcy" for our little ones (keiki). We can do this by keeping them on a schedule, making sure that we are listening to their concerns and meet their unmet needs. Due to COVID-19 preschools in Hawai'i have shut its doors to instruction, however this preschool has continued to operate by meeting the needs of the homeless and at-risk homeless families they serve.
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Environment Matters: It's More Than Just Common Sense
The connection we are trying to make with those we serve can be only as effective as the level of safety one feels within the space we are doing the work.
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Erasing My ACES
Why I hid ACES from my medical records in order to receive equal treatment.
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Essentials for Childhood Framework
From the CDC’s Injury Prevention & Control, Division of Violence Prevention: "Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are essential to prevent child abuse and neglect and to assure all children reach their full potential. The Essentials for Childhood Framework proposes strategies communities can consider to promote relationships and environments that help children grow up to be healthy and productive citizens so that they, in turn, can build stronger and safer families and...
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Evidence of Trauma-Informed Care's Effectiveness in Residential Substance-Use Settings
Hello ACEs and Trauma-Informed Community, My name is Travis Hales, and I am a researcher at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. I have recently collaborated with the University at Buffalo's Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care to conduct a multi-year study on the impact of a substance-use residential agency adopting and implementing Trauma-Informed Care on a variety of organizational, staff, and client level outcomes. I wanted to briefly share the results of our study that...
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Expanding the Toolkit: Trauma-Informed Practice Institute. Addressing Indirect Trauma. Early Bird Registration OPEN NOW!
Addressing Indirect Trauma by Caring for the Caregivers Sat, 05 Oct 2019 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. EST Case Western Reserve University’s Tinkham Veale Ballroom 11038 Bellflower Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106 The Center on Trauma and Adversity will host the 2nd Annual Expanding the Toolkit: Trauma-Informed Practice Institute on October 5, 2019 at Case Western Reserve University’s Tinkham Veale University Center Ballroom. The focus of this year’s institute is on indirect trauma with keynote speakers:...
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Fearing Coronavirus, Many Rural Black Women Avoid Hospitals to Give Birth at Home (PEW TRUST)
By April Simpson, April 18, 2020, PEW Trust Black women are two to three times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy than white women, regardless of income or education. Black midwives could be part of the solution, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, but restrictions on midwifery make it difficult to practice in many states. Pregnant women in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi have been calling nonstop to CHOICES Midwifery Practice in Memphis, but the center is...
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For Addicted Women, the Year After Childbirth Is the Deadliest [pewtrusts.org]
Katie Raftery was in a Massachusetts prison for drug-related crimes when she found out she was pregnant with her second child. A longtime heroin user, she was released to a residential drug treatment program where she stayed for seven months, until her baby was born. She got through pregnancy and drug treatment without a hitch and delivered a healthy baby boy with no complications. But at exactly six weeks after childbirth, Raftery said she started feeling lonely, empty and disengaged. The...
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Framework to Reduce Criminalisation of Young People in Residential Care [apo.org.au]
From the Victoria State Government, February 2020 The safety and wellbeing of young people and staff is paramount in providing residential care in Victoria. Attention needs to be directed at ensuring young people placed in residential care receive the necessary support to enable them to achieve the same outcomes as their peers in the broader community. A significant proportion of young people in residential care have experienced extensive abuse and neglect. The impact of this trauma may lead...
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Heyman Oo integrates ACEs science as foundation of pediatric care
Dr. Heyman Oo, a 34-year-old primary care pediatrician, first learned about the science of adverse childhood experiences in medical school at a grand rounds held around 2012 at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, which she attended from 2009 to 2014. The presenter was none other than Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician who went on to become California’s first Surgeon General. The founder and former director of the Center for Youth Wellness drew millions of views for her TED talk on...
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How Exercise Has Helped My PTSD Recovery [bustle.com]
People exercise for many reasons, and one of the major ones is for its mood-boosting benefits. But as someone who lives with co-occurring mental illnesses, I was skeptical as to whether these benefits would actually work for me. However, as I read more and more research about the therapeutic benefits of working out, I decided to give exercising on the regular a shot. Developing an exercise routine as a way to cope with my PTSD and eating disorder became a pivotal moment in my healing process...
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How to Put Racial Equity at the Center of Neighborhood Investment [housingmatters.urban.org]
By Kimberley Burrowes, Housing Matters, February 19, 2020 The effects of discriminatory policies limit opportunities for people of color and their communities. The lingering effects of redlining and racial covenants have left many historic, once-thriving Black neighborhoods in need of revitalization as hypervacancy, blight, and neighborhood social and economic distress restrict opportunities for residents to build wealth for future generations. New investments can revitalize neighborhoods...
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I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked. [nytimes.com]
By Claudia Rankine, The New York Times, July 18, 2019. In the early days of the run-up to the 2016 election, I was just beginning to prepare a class on whiteness to teach at Yale University, where I had been newly hired. Over the years, I had come to realize that I often did not share historical knowledge with the persons to whom I was speaking. “What’s redlining?” someone would ask. “George Washington freed his slaves?” someone else would inquire. But as I listened to Donald Trump’s...
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In the Arena with NOW Podcast Episode, "Letting Communities Lead" (30 min)
The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is excited to share the second episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. In our second episode, we speak with members of the Young Child Wellness Council (YCWC) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama ,...
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Inside the Adverse Childhood Experience Score: Strengths, Limitations, and Misapplications [ajpmonline.org]
By Robert F. Anda, Laura E. Porter, David W. Brown, et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine, March 25, 2020 INTRODUCTION Despite its usefulness in research and surveillance studies, the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) score is a relatively crude measure of cumulative childhood stress exposure that can vary widely from person to person. Unlike recognized public health screening measures, such as blood pressure or lipid levels that use measurement reference standards and cut points...
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Introducing Dawn Daum, Community Manager: Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond
The movement to incorporate trauma-informed care, and the wave to bring awareness to ACEs science has manifested in to the perfect storm; the perfect mix of compassion and frustration. I've said over and over again, once you become aware of the research and science behind trauma, and start to talk to other people about what it all means and how it looks, its a game changer. Since our agency-wide ACEs/Trauma 101 training by Acesconnection.com community member, Dave Wallace , atleast once a...
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Introducing Lisa Wright, Community Manager: Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond
Hello Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community! I am excited to be one of the community managers for this new ACEs Connection community. I have worked as an outpatient trauma-focused treatment clinical social worker since 1993. My work has included providing treatment for children, teens and adults who have experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, exposure to violence (community, family and interpersonal), witness to homicide and those with problem sexual behavior/sexual offending histories.
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Introducing Melissa McGinn, Community Manager: Becoming Trauma Informed & Beyond
What can readers expect to learn from you? At this point in my career I am doing less direct practice, and more teaching, training and consulting. My focus has really shifted to helping individuals, organizations and systems put their knowledge of trauma, ACES and resilience into practice. What does being trauma informed actually look like in our day to day interactions, on the job, or in our community? Over the last few years there has been a positive increase in the amount of awareness in...