Tagged With "Big Challenge is Systems"
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SaySo and Karen McLeod Honored at NC Child’s Voices for Children Breakfast
The 2019 Voices for Children Breakfast was hosted by NC Child earlier this month. Members of the child advocacy community came together to celebrate achievements in their work with families and children and recognize leaders who have made a difference. SaySo (Strong Able Youth Speaking Out) was awarded the first-ever Community Voices Award. SaySo is a statewide association of youth aged 14 to 24 who are, or have been, in the North Carolina foster care system. As youth who have first-hand...
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Sponsorship Opportunities Available!
We hope you will consider sponsoring our exciting Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Fourth Annual Conference coming up on September 11-12, 2019 in Winston Salem. Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence is a leader in system integration and this conference brings together leaders from various systems all across the state. Not only will private providers be in attendance, so will Departments of Social Services, various LME/MCOs, experts with lived experience, and other child and...
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Tonier Cain Deserves an Evidence-Based Apology
Tonier Cain spoke at the Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence conference last month in North Carolina. If you don't know her name you might recognize her as the woman featured in the Healing Neen documentary ( which is must see). I am just starting to recover from her speech. Seriously. It was hard to stand after she spoke. When I did, I went right to a yoga mat in the self-care calm room for a while. I took off my high heels and curled up in a ball for a bit. I'm still digesting her words.
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Why We Suck (at Self-Soothing & Self-Care): Dr. Dawn O'Malley
Without coffee and yoga, I'm kind of a jerk. These are my personal "puppy uppers and doggie downers" and prevent me from being cranky, quick to cry, and ready for conflict. Coffee and calming make life more manageable. Humans seem tolerable. Without helpers I might veer into hating humans for being so needy which is not a great trait for a parent, partner or a professional. Or a self. My partner says coffee and exercise are acts of kindness, services he does to promote public safety. In...
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Working within Trauma Informed Systems
Trauma informed systems are great for the people that we serve but we also know that that they cause additional stress on the people who work in the system. Therefore, to have a trauma informed system, we have to pay attention to both burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress. We talk to workers during Trauma 101 about what they need from their employers and encourage knowing your workers better so that you can have better supervision and meet everyone’s needs. Praise is key to this work which...
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A Kaiser pediatrician, wise to ACEs science for years, finally gets to use it
Dr. Suzanne Frank has known about the impact of childhood adversity on young lives for decades. She’s seen the fallout in the faces of young people huddled in beds at a children’s shelter where she worked years ago. She’s seen it as the regional child abuse services and champion for the Permanente Medical Group. And she’s seen it in hospital examination rooms where, as a member of the Santa Clara County’s Sexual Assault Response Team, she’s been called in to examine shell-shocked children...
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ACEs science can prevent school shootings, but first people have to learn about ACEs science
The shooting in Florida isn’t only a gun regulation issue. It’s a systems change issue. All of our systems have to change their approach to changing behavior — whether it’s criminal, unhealthy or unwanted behavior — from a blame, shame and punishment approach, to one that is based in understanding, nurturing and healing….in other words, ACEs science.
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ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
This was a WONDERFUL ACES Connections resource from the 2018 ACES Conference around education: "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...
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Benchmark's Member-Only Annual Meeting
Last week Benchmarks hosted their Member-Only Annual Dinner and Meeting at the beautiful Grandover Resort in Greensboro, NC. Benchmarks’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Karen McLeod, presented awards to Representative Josh Dobson, Senator Ralph Hise, and Stephanie Gilliam, DHHS Chief of the Mental Health Licensure and Certification Section at the Division of Health Services Regulation for their tireless work for the children and families of North Carolina. Susan Perry, Chief Deputy...
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Benchmarks - Partnering for Excellence Job Post - Pitt & Craven County Project Assistant
Hi Everyone! Benchmarks is expanding and we are super excited to announce that we will be hiring for a Project Assistant for Pitt and Craven County’s Partnering for Excellence initiative! Attached is a PDF of the job description and qualifications in detail. We anticipate filling this position by the end of January! Please if you would, share with those that you feel may qualify. Thank you in advance! Lavita
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Benchmarks' PFE 4th Annual Conference: "Envisioning Resilient Communities"
Benchmarks' PFE 4th Annual Conference will be held on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 (9:00am-5:00pm) and Thursday, September 12, 2019 (8:30am-3:00pm) at the Hawthorne Inn & Conference Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) redesigns the local child welfare/behavioral health system, changing the way DSS, LME/MCOs, local providers and the wider community understand the need for accessible, appropriate health services for children, youth and families who...
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Broken Places Strengthens Cleveland County
In the historical novel, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway made a significant observation regarding trauma and resiliency. He wrote “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger in the Broken Places .” These very words inspired Roger Weisberg, writer, producer and director, to create a unique film that reexamined four decades of film footage in relation to the impact of toxic stress on children. Thus, the film, Broken Places, was produced by Weisberg who invited the viewer into the...
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Call for Presenters!
We are seeking creative and innovative presentations for our breakout sessions on September 12 th . Any presentations from child-serving or family-serving systems which focus on trauma, resilience, and/or social determinants of health are welcome. Please share your innovative work with this dynamic group of participants. Here are some topics that would be a great fit for presentations: Poverty Community disruption Housing Domestic Violence Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse Discrimination...
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Cleveland County's 12th Annual Minority Health Conference
Saturday, PFE’s Program manager, Jasmine Cain was invited to speak at Cleveland County’s 12th Annual Minority Health Conference which was hosted by the county’s Public Health Department and put on by the local Minority Health Council. Each year the conference focuses on educating minority leaders and members in the community about issues facing African American and other minority groups locally. The conference also serves as a platform to address and discuss disparities faced by minorities...
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Community Resiliency Model (CRM) Information Session
Rowan County is excited to take the next steps across all sectors to foster a resilient community. We will be offering the Community Resiliency Model™ Trainer Training on January 27th - 31st, 2020 . The location will be in downtown Salisbury at St. John's Lutheran Church. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks will be provided for trainees for the entirety of the training. You can download the training flyer here. The Community Resiliency Model™ (CRM) of the Trauma Resource Institute trains community...
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Community Resiliency Model (CRM) Orientation Training: Trauma-Informed Communities (TiC), Trauma-Aware Communities (TaC), Trauma-Responsive Communities (TrC)
Last week, Benchmarks hosted an all-day orientation training on the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for twenty-two participants in Salisbury, North Carolina. This orientation is a prerequisite for the sixteen participants who will be attending the four-day train-the-trainer training offered by the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI), which will be held in early July in Thomasville, North Carolina. Since Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) staff have been very supportive regarding the...
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Craven County Lunch and Learn
Over the past few months, the Benchmark’s Partnering for Excellence (PFE) team has been working diligently to prepare our newest partnership in Pitt and Craven counties to become effective advocates as they become a more trauma-informed community. We have been thrilled by the collaboration and efforts that we have seen coming from The Department of Social Services’ (DSS) Child Welfare teams, Trillium—the managed care organization supporting the PFE implementation locally—and, local mental...
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Focusing on "Creating Nurturing Systems"
In just six weeks, stakeholders from across North Carolina will get together to learn about system integration work with youth involved with child welfare. This is the third annual Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Conference and this year, we have decided to really focus on "Creating Nurturing Systems". While the daily work of PFE can be hard and challenges us to think of new ways to meet the needs of the family, the annual conference offers us a way to celebrate our successes and...
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Hurricane Florence first responders receive free trauma/resilience training
In a webinar offered this morning by Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, leaders from several North Carolina ACEs Connection communities affected by flooding and other damage by Hurricane Florence learned more about trauma response and how to better help their communities find resilience. Karas, who was delivering her Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training at Duke University in Durham, NC, offered the free training and provided...
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Juvenile Justice Partnerships / County Collaborative Forum
Last week, Partners Behavioral Health Management held the Juvenile Justice Partnerships / County Collaborative Forum in Statesville, North Carolina. The focus of the forum was “Effectively Engaging High Risk Youth in Communities: Identifying Adolescent Substance Use Trends and Using Data to Strengthen Community Collaboration.” Eric Rowles, President and CEO of Leading to Change, led an interactive training in which he provided participants with tools and strategies to implement to connect...
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Lessons Learned from Sandra Bloom: Tackling STS at the Workplace
"We must be conscious and deliberate in engaging in self-care behaviors." ~Dr. Sandra Bloom Benchmarks North Carolina hosted our annual meeting at the beautiful Grandover Resort in Greensboro. At this meeting, successes are celebrated, and visions are sketched for the upcoming year. This year, members had the privilege of hearing from keynote speaker, Dr. Sandra Bloom, founder of the Sanctuary Model. Dr. Bloom shared how chronic stress and trauma impacts us at an organizational level.
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Navigating Adult ACES
Often we blame adults for their behavior or decision making without taking time to realize that they have untreated trauma that is affecting their lives. We all focus on children and have made great strides to identify and treat ACES but the system isn't perfect, which means sometimes it fails to identify a child in need. These children then grow up with trauma that affects their mental and physical health which makes relationships with others oftentimes difficult. This untreated trauma can...
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Partnering for Excellence Joins ACEs Connection!
Partnering For Excellence is excited to join ACEs Connection! Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) is an initiative in North Carolina which aims to align the Mental/Behavioral Health System and Child Welfare System to create better outcomes for children and families whom have experienced trauma and are now involved with the Department of Social Services. The Partnering for Excellence Model is able to assists these systems and others in collaborating to form trauma-informed...
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Personal stories the set tone of hearing in U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Opioid Crisis Response Act
Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry to her right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee but it was the personal stories that...
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PFE Booster
Have you ever needed a boost ? Perhaps it was just a little help to make you taller or did you need a few encouraging words that could help redirect your path? The staff at Cleveland County DSS were showing signs that they needed a boost up after implementing the Partnering For Excellent (PFE) initiative in Cleveland County, NC almost four years ago. With changes in leadership, staff and organizational structure, including the welcome of a new director, along with general fatigue and...
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PFE Presents at The 32nd Annual Research and Policy Conference on Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Behavioral Health
Earlier this month, Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Program Manager, Jasmine Cain and Ollie Harris Behavioral Health Center's Director, Katie Munger presented in collaboration at the 32 nd Annual Research and Policy Conference on Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Behavioral Health in Tampa, Florida. This collaboration began in an effort to assess the need for trauma-informed behavioral health services for adults in Cleveland County. As a result of Benchmarks’ PFE goal to...
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Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina 2019 Learning and Leadership Summit
Last month, Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Chief Research and Development Officer, Jenny Cooper, and Project Coordinator, Julia Holcomb, co-presented at the Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina (PCANC) 2019 Learning and Leadership Summit in Raleigh, North Carolina. Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) is an initiative intended to improve the behavioral health and well-being outcomes for children involved in the child welfare system. It creates a partnership between the...
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Reflections on the Film Suicide: The Ripple Effect
To start off Mental Health Awareness month I attended a screening of the film Suicide: The Ripple Effect. The film is a documentary that explains the events and mind frame that led to Kevin Hines—known widely as “The Golden Gate Jumper”—to attempt death by suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The film focuses on Kevin’s life, advocacy, and influence after surviving such an attempt and the healing process that followed. As someone who is immersed in ACEs science, I could not help...
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Resilience
On the 27th of April 2018, Rowan-Salisbury School System hosted a showing of the movie Resilience at the Norvell Theater in Salisbury, North Carolina. Upon entering the lobby of the Novell Theater, shortly after 6pm that evening, the amount of enthusiasm and partnership surrounding the showing of Resilience and the trauma work being done within the community was breathtaking. The lobby was filled with teachers and social workers and many key community stakeholders, all working together to...
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Resilience Screening at 2019 Special Needs Mini Conference
A couple weeks ago, Partners In Learning hosted its annual Special Needs Mini Conference for anyone in the community interested in learning more about various techniques, practices, and programs that influence children, particularly those with special needs. Partners In Learning’s mission is to model the highest quality learning environment that stimulates families and the community to provide optimal growth and development of children. The focus of this year’s conference was resiliency. The...
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New Name- More Great Work
Greetings! You haven’t heard from Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) since our world changed in March. We have been busy on the ground making sure that our social services system and mental health system had all of our attention as we worked to navigate these uncertain times. As we make our way to a “new normal”, we are back and better than ever. In the near future, you will see a revamped site with information about another exciting project being shared. To that end, we are...
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Introducing Benchmarks’ Standardized Assessment Protocol
According to leading research, 99% of children entering the foster care system have experienced trauma in their lifetime, and few of those children receive the trauma-informed healthcare they need to recover and prosper. These children are more likely to not only suffer short-term from their trauma, but long term as well. Children who do not receive effective, holistic healthcare experience a lifetime of mental health disorders, substance misuse, and physical illnesses, including diabetes,...
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Expanding Trauma Services in Foster Care
Benchmarks is thrilled to announce the addition of two new counties to our Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP) project—Burke and Rutherford Counties! Burke and Rutherford began partnering with us this summer. The two counties will work together, with Partners Behavioral Health Management and Benchmarks, to prioritize children in their foster care system who need to receive trauma-informed clinical assessments. In addition to providing their foster care system with these assessments, the...
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Worth the Effort: Building Resilience in Social Workers
Let’s talk ·R·E·S·I·L·I·E·N·C·E! Resilience is an individual’s ability to overcome adversity, and it is influenced by many factors. A person’s resilience is strongly impacted by their environment and support systems within their lives. A supportive environment, relationships, and connections with other trusted and dependable human beings can make a tremendous difference in the lives of children and families who have endured toxic stressful and traumatic situations. We know how important...
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Benchmarks Unveils New Infographic
Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence redesigns the local child welfare/behavioral health system, changing the way DSSs, MCOs, local providers, and the wider community understand trauma and the need for accessible, appropriate mental health services for children, youth and families who have experienced potentially traumatic events. PFE aims to lead communities to an understanding of the importance of trauma-informed and trauma-responsive communities, to create a lasting change in the...
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Standardized Assessment Protocol Spotlight: Surry and Yadkin Departments of Social Services
Over the past year, Surry and Yadkin Counties' Departments of Social Services have partnered with Benchmarks' Standardized Assessment Protocol pilot to bring about positive outcomes for children, ages 4 and up, in their foster care program. Both Surry and Yadkin joined the project before CoVID-19 changed every aspect of their jobs. What began as an in-person implementation project, quickly, and without warning turned into being completely virtual-- all while partnering with a coordinator...
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Going Virtual: How to Have the Most Success with Virtual Trainings
Like many of you, we have had to learn (and quickly might I add) to adapt our work to remote working needs. In doing this we have had to work closely with our partners to not just keep the work we do in our cross-system projects afloat…but to thrive as well. With new partners engaging in the work we do throughout COVID, we have really honed in our skills for conducting trainings virtually. Below we share what we call “lessons learned” on how to improve the virtual learning experiences of...
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2021 Resolutions- Thinking Beyond the Norm!
With a new year beginning, it is also a time that many of us set the traditional new year’s resolutions. The top four resolutions made for 2021 according to a recent poll were losing weight, increasing exercise, saving money, and making more friends. Are you surprised that after experiencing a pandemic in 2020 that managing stress did not appear as one of the top 4 new year’s resolutions in the poll? I noticed that the top four goals have tangible outcomes that are measurable – lower numbers...
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Labor of Love: Why TiCCAs? A Clinical Coach Conversation
In an increasingly stressful, productivity driven world, one might ask themselves, “Why would mental health professionals add more to their plates? Why would they agree to do a Trauma Intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (TiCCA) for clients, rather than a regular Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (CCA)? Are we just reinventing the wheel?” Benchmarks’ Clinical Coaches, Jacqueline Millican-Crabb, LCSW, LCAS, CCS of Nazareth Child & Family Connection, and Celena Ditz, MS, LMFT of...
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Resilience: The Foundation of a Strong Child-Welfare System
Resilience, which is defined as the capacity to recover from difficulties, is a vital tool in building a strong child welfare system, but what does that really mean? It is easy to say that resiliency is important, but effectively utilizing systems and tools for children and families as well as the employees who serve them is a different challenge. Through the latest research, we know resilience is made up of many different factors, from one’s genetics to their environment and support...
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TiCTaC: Trauma-Informed & Trauma Aware Communities
Everyone knows about TiCTaCs right? The tiny little breath mint candies that come in the adorable little boxes? They are typically found in the grocery store checkout aisles and gas stations. They’re offered in a variety of colors and flavors! So why are we sitting here talking about candy? This tiny treat is often mentioned during our work with DSS agencies and other community agencies. These fun little candies appear to have very little significance, but they have a much bigger meaning in...
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Social Workers are Essential: Highlighting National Social Work Month
The month of March brings an abundance of things to celebrate, including National Social Work Month! The National Association of Social Workers dedicates March as a time to celebrate the incredible social work profession and to educate others on the many contributions made by social workers in our communities. This year’s theme “Social Workers are Essential” calls our attention to the indelible role of the social worker in responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Indeed, for...
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How Benchmarks Center for Quality Integration’s Organizational Culture Influences Community Work
Organizational culture is the overall personality of an organization. This is comprised of attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and the values of an organization. An organization’s culture shapes and controls the interactions within the partnerships between agencies. Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (The Center) internal organizational culture is reflected and filtered down to our communities through the daily work we do. The Center strongly values advocacy for the child welfare,...
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Book Club: One Way Life-Long Learning is Encouraged in the Center for Quality Integration
Benchmark’s Center for Quality Integration, made up of the Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP) and Partnering for Excellence (PFE) teams, prioritizes learning about trauma and its effects on the children within child welfare systems. Both PFE and SAP seek to assist children who have experienced trauma in improving their outcomes and access to trauma-informed services. To be a champion of trauma-informed systems, the team must prioritize lifelong learning about the topic. One of the ways...
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Exploring the Impossible Imperative
Every year our Benchmarks Center for Quality Improvement (CQi) team carefully selects books for our team to read as a part of our “book club”. The goal of this book club is to increase our team’s knowledge, expertise, and understanding of the systems and individuals we aim to serve through our work throughout the state. Last week, staff wrapped up the club book “The Impossible Imperative: Navigating the Competing Principles of Child Protection” written by Jill Duerr Berrick. We know when...
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Breaking the Stigma: Notable Names with a Child-Welfare Experience
May is National Foster Care Month--a month where we are intentional about acknowledging children, families, volunteers, mentors, policymakers, child welfare professionals, and other members in the community who are involved in Foster Care. An important topic, and one worth discussing, is helping children break the stigma associated with being in Foster Care. Considering all the trauma that can be experienced by children within the child-welfare system, foster children might feel as though...
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Child Life Specialist Work within Child Welfare
There are many human services professionals who work within the child welfare system to help improve the lives of those involved in that system. One such professional that assists children and families in some of their most difficult times are Certified Child Life Specialists. Certified Child Life Specialists are professionals who strive to reduce the negative impacts for children and families caused by trauma in different settings. Their training and education come from educational courses,...
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In it for the Long Haul
In a few short weeks, Rowan County DSS will host their last implementation meeting for the Partnering for Excellence (PFE) initiative. Rowan County DSS has been working in partnership with Cardinal Innovations for the last seven years to implement the PFE pathway among their staff and improve the "trauma informedness" of their community. Building a trauma informed culture within the agency and among community members and stakeholders is much more than providing education and improving...
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Support is Key: How Licensed Independent Practitioners in North Carolina are Navigating Medicaid Transformation
In North Carolina, Medicaid Transformation is well under way with most beneficiaries receiving services through Medicaid Managed Care as of July 1 st , 2021. In this model, recipients choose an integrated health plan—covering both their physical and mental/behavioral health needs—from one of five prepaid health plans (PHPs) with which the state is contracted. This is a shift from North Carolina’s previous Medicaid system which separated the physical and mental/behavioral health dollars and...