Tagged With "Empower Action Model"
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
ACEs Presentation to Retired Individuals at OLLI in Asheville
On February 22, Dr. Josh Gettinger (Family Medicine doctor & Faculty with MAHEC Family Medicine Residency) along with Melissa Baker (Director of Community Population Health at MAHEC) gave a presentation to a group of retired individuals about the science of ACEs. This was part of Hermann Gucinski's class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNC Asheville campus. "The Best Science Changes the Way We See the World" ... this was the title of the first slide, over an image of the...
Blog Post
Action needed today by trauma advocates to urge Congress to address mental health and trauma in current COVID-19 legislation
The follow is a message from Dan Press, Legal Advisor to the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice ), about the need to contact Congress regarding a COVID 19 funding bill being considered this weekend. He is urging ACEs science/trauma advocates and leaders to send emails to their U.S. Senators and Representatives immediately to address the mental health and trauma implications of this pandemic. All – I hate to bother you on a Sunday, but we urgently need you to contact Congress to...
Blog Post
Alive and Well: Moving Missouri Toward Grass-Roots and System-Wide Change
On the eastern edge of Missouri, leaders of the Alive and Well network had generated a robust media campaign to help people understand the impact of trauma and toxic stress on health and well-being. There was a monthly column in an African-American newspaper, spots about toxic stress and resilience on urban radio stations and weekly public service features on the NBC affiliate, with physicians, clergy and teachers advocating ways to “be alive and well.” Two hundred and fifty miles to the...
Blog Post
Artists in the ACE and Resilience Movement: Creative Avenues to Change
They began with a song and ended with a poem. In-between, there were photographs and giant graphic renderings, movement exercises and a “human pulse” formed when 90 people stood in a circle and squeezed each other’s hands. At a June summit in Whatcom County, Washington, titled “Our Resilient Community: A Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity,” the arts played a starring role. Kristi Slette, executive director of the Whatcom Family and Community Network, one of two Washington sites...
Blog Post
Asheville and Buncombe County’s Agenda for People with Disabilities
Asheville and Buncombe County’s Agenda for People with Disabilities
Blog Post
Birdsong: 'Story we tell about poverty isn't true' [Citizen-Times.com]
Buncombe hosts Mia Birdsong, national speaker on inequality, race, gender and community ASHEVILLE - Mia Birdsong travels the U.S. to challenge assumptions people have about poverty and family. She will speak at the Diana Wortham Theatre at 6 p.m. April 25. The public is invited. Buncombe County Health and Human Services and the Buncombe County Family Justice Center are hosting the event titled, "The Ripple Effect with Mia Birdsong." Birdsong is best known for her TED Talk: "The story we tell...
Blog Post
Building Resilient Communities by Creating Compassionate Schools
David Thompson, Buncombe County Schools Student Services Director, in Asheville, North Carolina, gives a talk at the Public School Forum of North Carolina about a curriculum that helps students overcome trauma in their lives. Attached is the accompanied article written about the talk and a YouTube video of his talk.
Blog Post
Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) launches new grassroots initiative to engage and educate Congress
CTIPP (Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice) today announced the launch of the National Trauma Campaign , calling for federal action to prevent and address childhood trauma and build resilience through educating and engaging Congress. Its widely circulated communication invited people from around the country to join the new grassroots initiative. The campaign provides ways for everyone to get involved by joining the effort, becoming a Local Liaison to take the lead in every state...
Blog Post
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 27 th – 31 st , 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. The Community Resiliency Model (CRM) of the Trauma Resource Institute trains community members to not only help themselves but to...
Blog Post
Community Voices: Creating a Just, Healthy and Resilient World
Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) is a vibrant learning collaborative of fourteen sites actively engaged in building the movement for a just, healthy and resilient world. Using the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resiliency as their organizing framework, these communities have built strong cross-sector networks to help heal and prevent early childhood adversity. From October 2016 through May 2017, we were privileged to travel to all fourteen MARC...
Blog Post
Foundation funding awarded to support Buncombe County ACEs Collaborative
Congratulations to all involved in the successful application for funding to support the work of the Buncombe County ACEs Collaborative. The award was made to Buncombe County Health and Human Services to expand the innovative work of the ACEs...
Blog Post
Grassroots resilience: Rural communities tackle ACEs
Rt to left—Adrienne Coopey, DO, Billings Clinic, MT, Lorenzo Lewis, The Confess Project, Little Rock, Ark, and Mendy Spohn, MPH, public health administrator in several counties in Oklahoma ________________________________________________ The three presenters for the “Grassroots Resilience: Rural Communities Tackle ACEs” workshop brought to life the unique challenges of addressing ACEs and trauma in rural communities and shared some valuable lessons for communities of any size. Mendy Spohn, a...
Blog Post
How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Investments in New Hanover County’s Resiliency Paying Off During Time of Pandemic
Cliff Barnett, Wilmington city council member; pastor at Warner Temple AME Zion, and chair of the Family Faith and Community committee for the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (RTF), shares experience in using sign language during a regularly scheduled RTF meeting. (Other photos are from recent monthly RTF meetings). With training, community’s front lines are proving resilient to and aware of trauma’s impact WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA April 7, 2020 Two years ago, the Resiliency Task Force...
Blog Post
MARC Booklet 2016: Features Buncombe County
Please find attached the 2016 booklet for the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project, including Buncombe County and the other 13 communities that have been selected to participate in this 2 year learning collaborative. This is a great summary of the work happening in all 14 communities across the country. I am looking forward to working with you all to share your story with the world!
Blog Post
Movement-Making in Buncombe County: Opportunity-Based Narrative and Creation Spaces
Mobilizing action can be intimidating. Creating a movement even more so. John Hagel provides the following definition of a movement: “an organized effort mobilizing a large number of independent participants in a grassroots effort to pursue a broad agenda for change.” He indicates that there are two key ingredients in movement making: 1) compelling narratives and 2) fostering creation spaces. In Buncombe County, we are experimenting with both of these notions. Opportunity-based Narrative A...
Blog Post
"Moving From Trauma Understanding to Trauma Responsive" - SAMHSA Forum
Johnson City to co-host forum on community-wide systems of care On Sept. 5, the City of Johnson City will co-host a forum entitled Moving from Understanding to Implementing Trauma-Responsive Services in conjunction with the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The forum will address SAMHSA recommendations for communities to treat trauma as a component of effective behavioral health service delivery. Statistics recently released from the Tennessee Department of...
Blog Post
National Trauma campaign webinar 3/10
Join on March 10, 2020 at 10am EST to learn more about the New National Grassroots Campaign which calls for federal action to prevent and address childhood trauma and build resilience through educating and engaging Congress. Join Zoom Meeting. https://zoom.us/j/293206175 Meeting ID: 293 206 175 One tap mobile +19292056099,,293206175# US (New York) +16699006833,,293206175# US (San Jose) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Meeting ID: 293 206 175...
Blog Post
Nurturing relationships in childhood boost adult mental health, relationships
We're proud to announce major research that suggests that positive childhood experiences — such as supportive family interactions, caring relationships with friends, and connections in the community — are associated with reductions in chances of adult depression and poor mental health, and increases in the chances of having healthy relationships in adulthood. This association was true even among those with a history of adverse childhood experiences.
Blog Post
Overview of the Community Resiliency Model, used worldwide to help trauma survivors re-regulate their central nervous system, offered in two, free 90-minute webinars.
Elaine Miller Karas , key creator of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM), will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC, Allison Wine , behavioral specialist, and Kelly Purcell , instructional coach and multi-tiered support specialist for this free, two-part training. Register now for two, FREE 90-minute sessions May 7 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST and May 14 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST (The complete overview requires attendance at both sessions. Registration link below registers you...
Blog Post
Personal stories from witnesses, U.S. representatives provided an emotional wallop to House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on childhood trauma
Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
THE BUILD HEALTH CHALLENGE 2019 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
To read the announcement and all details, click HERE and see below key dates. BUILD is looking to support dynamic collaboratives driving sustainable improvements in community health. Are you ready to BUILD with us? For this new third cohort, BUILD is looking to support up to 17 innovative collaboratives across the US t hat include a community-based organization, hospital or health system, and public health department working together in dynamic ways to address upstream challenges and drive...
Blog Post
The Sacramento Violence Intervention Program, Trauma & ACEs
On May 22, I had the opportunity to experience a presentation by DeAngelo Mack on the Sacramento Violence Intervention Program, Trauma and ACEs. The presentation was at Kaiser Sacramento and was directed to residents in the organization. I have worked with @DeAngelo Mack, @Chris Cooper and @Esmeralda Huerta through Resilient Sacramento for the past few years and have admired their work in the community, this was the first opportunity I had to attend...
Blog Post
Tools and how to use them is focus of second webinar on Community Resiliency Model, May 14, 2020
The second of two free Community Resiliency (CRM) webinars with Elaine Miller-Karas , key creator of the CRM, will be held Thursday, May 14, from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. ET, (10 a.m. CT; 9 a.m. MT, and 8 a.m. PT) and will include the practical application of tools of the model. CRM is an ACEs science-based biological model for helping individuals become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. Miller-Karas will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC:...
Blog Post
Toxic stress from El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy shootings addressed in Thursday Community Resilience Model Webinar
An ACEs Connection webinar will offer helpful self-regulation tools to those rocked by recent shootings in Gilroy, CA, El Paso, TX , and Dayton, OH. The Building Resilient Communities webinar is offered by ACEs Connection this Thursday, August 9, at 10:00 AM PDT / 1 :00 PM E D and will last approximately 1 hour. Elaine Miller-Karas will teach her Community Resilienc y Mode l. Find registration details below. This webinar is free and open to the public. It serves professionals and community...
Blog Post
Trauma & Resiliency Summit in the Columbia River Gorge
Hello all! The Columbia River Gorge is hosting a Trauma & Resiliency Summit on October 20th & 21st, 2016 in The Dalles, OR. Registration is made free to attendees through MARC Grant funding. If you are in the area please join us! And please note that registration is only available prior to the event as we have a limited amount of space. Claire
Blog Post
Trauma is Messy
I will always remember the day that, as a student teacher, I watched as a student entered my second-grade room covered in blood. After quickly establishing that he was not injured, we learned that the blood was that of his brother who had been shot the night before. No parents were around that night, so this second grader became the sole caregiver of his bleeding brother. My student would never be the same. We didn’t care about grades or test scores. We just knew that this moment would...
Blog Post
Webinar: Cultivating Our Best Selves in Response to COVID-19 | Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT
How to use the skills of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for self and others to be the calm in the storm as we face the unknown. Free Webinar Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT Speakers: Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW Linda Grabbe, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC Zoom Webinar Registration Link: https://zoom.us/j/715837300 Additional ways to join are listed at the bottom of this post. About the webinar leaders: Elaine Miller-Karas is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and...
Blog Post
Local Affiliates Accelerate ACEs-and-Resilience Movement in Montana
In Toole County, Montana, deputy sheriffs call a school counselor, from their patrol cars, after responding to a traumatic incident—a domestic abuse call, an overdose, an arrest—that involves a child. “Handle with care,” they tell the counselor, and they give the child’s name. The counselor passes that information to teachers: a quiet heads-up that the student might be hungry or sleepy, tearful, angry or distracted by whatever happened at home. “My teachers love it,” says Mary Miller, chair...
Blog Post
Help Navigating the Road to Community Resiliency
The first time I ever heard the words trauma-informed care and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study was in the summer of 2014. At the time, I was working for the local Police Department as the Director of a grant-funded Crime Reduction Project aimed at reducing drug-related and violent crime. Of the many program goals, one was to develop a rehabilitative corrections program for felony offenders with addictions in order to reduce recidivism. Though I’ve lived in this region for...
Blog Post
Greater Richmond Trauma Informed Community Network, first to join ACEs Cooperative of Communities, shows what it means to ROCK!
In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.
Blog Post
Baby courts: A proven approach to stop the multigenerational transmission of ACES in child welfare; new efforts to establish courts nationwide
The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...
Blog Post
Does VP Candidate Kamala Harris know about ACEs? You bet!
Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, has a lot in common with the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris—Jamaican heritage, surname, home state—and a commitment to addressing ACEs and toxic stress. As reported in the New Yorker article by Paul Tough, “The Poverty Clinic,” Dr. Harris told Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, about ACEs in 2008 and in response, she offered to help. District Attorney Harris then introduced her to professor of child and...
Blog Post
"It's All Connected": NJEA ACEs Task Force Reaches Beyond Educators
The March meeting of the New Jersey Education Association’s ACEs Task Force opened without an agenda. It was a virtual gathering with more than 50 people—educators, social workers, professionals in pediatrics, juvenile justice and child abuse prevention. The pandemic had landed emphatically close to home, with a governor’s order to close all schools on March 18, and participants were grappling with what that meant for their students, their families and themselves. So ACEs Task Force co-chair...
Blog Post
ACE Impact Team Aligns Efforts to Help Newark Residents Reach Greatest Potential
Five years of convening Newark’s ACE Impact Team has taught Keri Logosso-Misurell a crucial lesson: Fight the urge to reinvent the wheel.
Blog Post
Pathway for Trauma is Pathway for Resilience: Fresno Network's Message Inspires Hope
In Fresno, volunteers from local churches were already working with the schools, mentoring kids and running weekend recreation programs. Community-based non-profits were in conversation with educators; pastors were talking to social-service providers. The problems were clear: nearly 30% of Fresno’s residents living in poverty (the rate tops 40% for Black residents), with a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest parts of this sharply segregated city. For several years,...
Blog Post
New ACEs initiatives learn about strategic plan development from from New Hanover (NC) Resiliency Task Force executive director Mebane Boyd
The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...
Blog Post
LAUNCH Together Supports Social Emotional Well-Being in Southwest Denver
As the COVID-19 pandemic blurred from days into months, the leadership team of LAUNCH Together Southwest Denver began hearing about the sense of anguish and confusion felt by directors of early-childhood learning centers: Should I re-open? Is that financially feasible? Is it ethical? And how do I decide, in a sea of fast-changing information about a virus scientists are still struggling to understand? LAUNCH Together SW Denver, a collaborative formed in 2016 to boost community capacity to...
Blog Post
"Who's in Your Canoe?": Ho‘oikaika Partnership Draws on Hawaiian Values to Promote Protective Factors
Title image: Jeny Bissell, Ho‘oikaika Partnership founder and Core Partner, gives a shaka at a Child Abuse Prevention Month mayor's proclamation and concert. A brochure from the Ho‘oikaika Partnership shows four people paddling a slender boat, their bodies silhouetted against an apricot-hued sky. The tagline: “When it comes to parenting, who’s in your canoe?” The image and the metaphor are intentional, says Karen Worthington, coordinator of the 60-member, cross-sector Ho‘oikaika Partnership...
Blog Post
Data-Driven, Cross-Sector: Bounce Coalition Boosts Trauma-Informed Change in Kentucky
Student suspension rates dropped. Teacher retention rose. Membership in the PTA swelled from zero to more than 200. More kids said in a survey that there was at least one adult at school whom they could talk to if they had a problem. The data—a comparison of the Bounce Coalition’s pilot school and one with similar demographics—told the Kentucky resilience-boosting group that they were on the right track. The Bounce Coalition formed in 2014; the catalyst was a grant from the Foundation for a...
Blog Post
Youth-Led Advocacy Creates Healing Opportunities in Baltimore City
After a shooting at a historic Baltimore high school in February 2019—a 25-year-old man, angry about the school’s treatment of his sister, who was a student there, shot a special education assistant with a Smith and Wesson handgun—conversation in the city centered on whether school resource officers should be armed. Students said that was the wrong question. When City Council’s education and youth committee, chaired by council member Zeke Cohen, held hearings on school violence following the...
Blog Post
The Best for our Children: Considering ACEs in Voter Engagement.
The presidential race is a big-ticket item, but hundreds of other state and local races will impact critical issues like school funding, childcare and early education, nutrition programs, and health care. Every seat in the NC General Assembly is on the ballot, along with the Governor’s race, a US Senate seat, congressional races, and more. When it comes to elevating the importance of racial equity, voting is vital to make marginalized voices heard. Policies and systems can be changed by our...
Blog Post
Ripple Effect: Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe Partners with Schools and Service Providers to Build Trauma-Informed Community in Michigan
The week of the fall equinox was Mino-Bimaadiziwin Wellness Week at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy (SCA) in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, a pre-K through 5th grade school of about 130 students. “Mino-Bimaadiziwin” is an Anishinabe phrase meaning “to live the good life.” At the school, it started with “Mindfulness Monday”—students were encouraged to wear their favorite “thinking cap”—then segued to “Take care of our bodies Tuesday,” a “Love Your Community Wednesday" that included talking circles, and...
Blog Post
Spreading the Science: Michigan's NEAR Collaborative Aims to Infuse ACEs Science into State Departments and Agencies
Mary Mueller likes to call herself an “opportunistic infection.” What that means is that Mueller, project coordinator for trauma-informed systems in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), is determined to share the science of ACEs and resilience wherever she goes. After Mueller attended the state’s first ACE master trainer two day session hosted by the Michigan ACE Initiative , she wanted to bring the foundational science shared by ACE Interface back home—to her MDHHS...
Blog Post
"NEAR Science in Partnership with Communities": Local ACEs Collaboratives Grow Across Minnesota
The third annual gathering of Minnesota ACEs collaboratives—“Growing Resilient Communities: Collaboratives Addressing ACEs”—began with a sober recitation of inequities: We acknowledge that the wealth of this country was built on stolen land and with enslaved and underpaid labor of African American, Native, and Immigrant people…We acknowledge that the recent global uprising, which was sparked by the murder of George Floyd right here in Minnesota, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, makes for a...
Blog Post
“Unite in a Common Cause”: Minnesota Tribal Communities Use NEAR Science to Address Trauma and Promote Healing
As the Minnesota trainers expected—and welcomed—the ACE trainings in tribal settings began late and lasted for hours: multiple generations of people from the White Earth and Fond du Lac communities gathering around simmering Crock-Pots of food, sharing stories, standing in line to talk with the trainers afterward. Once, a White Earth elder was the only person to show up for a presentation, recalls Linsey McMurrin, Director of Prevention Initiatives and Tribal Projects for FamilyWise Services...
Blog Post
The Intersection of Systematic Racism, the Pandemic, and SDoMH: Reality Mandates Change
Systematic racism is at the core of mental health disparities and social determinants of mental health (SDoMH).Upstream factors obstruct patient access to needed and appropriate assessment, timely intervention, with treatment for these populations often reflecting poorer quality, and ending prior to completion of treatment. COVID-19 and the recent pandemic have only amplified meso and micro-level gaps in care. considered, provided, and reimbursed.