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Psychiatric hospitalizations of Latino children and young adults in California are rising dramatically and at a much faster pace than among their peers, according to state data. While mental health hospitalizations of young people of all ethnicities have climbed in recent years, Latino rates stand out. Among those 21 and younger, rates shot up 86 percent, to 17,813, between 2007 and 2014, according to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Thats compared with a 21 percent...

Child abuse costs nations worldwide billions of dollars a year, experts report. In high-income nations, the median cost of child abuse equals a loss of 1.2 percent of per capita income, or $150 billion a year in the United States. The estimated cost in China -- a middle-income country -- is $50 billion a year, the experts added. In East Asia and the Pacific, the cost of emotional child abuse alone is more than $48 billion a year, the researchers said. The findings, from an international...

On Thursday, Feb. 18, join the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW) for a day of action to raise awareness about adverse child experiences and the health effects of toxic stress in children.

The people who are doing most of the pioneering work to integrate trauma-informed, resilience-building practices based on ACEs research (writ large) are doing so in cities and counties across the U.S. Now that more state agencies are learning about ACEs, many people in local communities are wondering what they can ask states for to help grow local efforts.  Karen Clemmer, the maternal child adolescent health coordinator for Sonoma County’s Department of Health Services, and I were...

Last week, on two separate days in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, about 150 people (total) convened to listen and brainstorm about creating trauma-informed communities. Futures Without Violence, which is rolling out its Changing Minds campaign later this year, hosted both events.  Some very interesting and important themes emerged from the two days: Residents with lived experiences should participate in the decision-making bodies of service providers and vested...

Echo's conference this year is packed with great workshops for teachers, parents and anyone who works with children and their families. In addition to the not-to-be-missed keynotes (such as Susan Craig ), we are proud to present: Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres Workshop Spotlight: Holistic Healing for Immigrant & Undocumented Youth In this important workshop, Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres will talk about an often overlooked aspect of student mental health - the mental and emotional...

When President Barack Obama announced last month that he is taking executive action to ban the solitary confinement of juveniles in federal prisons, it was a rare case of Washington setting policy more liberal than what comes out of Sacramento. In California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature, bills to restrict the use of solitary confinement on youth have stalled for the last four years amid objections from labor and law enforcement groups that run juvenile halls. Now, citing the...

California's new corrections chief plans to add training on diversity and leadership for prison employees and to examine what has been effective in other states to change employees' attitudes as he tries to alter a culture that often pits prison guards against inmates and outsiders. "They (guards) have worked under very difficult situations and we have to figure a way to get them engaged in the rehabilitation process and not just be somebody counting heads," Scott Kernan told The Associated...

On February 22-23, 2016, our friends at Advancement Project will be hosting the 8th Annual Water Cooler Conference at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel. Don't miss out on this chance to hear keynote speakers Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character ; David B. Grusky, the Director of Stanfords Center on Poverty and Inequity; and Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, the Co-Director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. Panelists...

The Community & Family Services Division at the Spokane (WA) Regional Health District has come through again, with a Spanish version of the parent handout (in English) that we posted last year , and which has been downloaded thousands of times. The English versions came about whiledoing a story about the trauma-in formed elementary schools in Spokane, WA .I interviewedp ublic health nurse Melissa Charbonneau who said that she'd been giving an...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may have taken an extended paternity leave after the birth of his daughter, but generally, American men do not take more than a few days. Ninety-six percent of American men are back to work within two weeks of a baby's birth. "There might be some stigma attached," says Gordon Dahl, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. " 'What if I take paternity leave, will I not get the next promotion? Or will people think I'm not as connected to the...

.... The human-trafficking issue has been gaining attention. Although trafficking also refers to those forced into slave labor, in this context it refers to children who are pushed into the commercial sex trade. We think of them as “child prostitutes,” but activists frown on that description given children are not at the legal age of consent. If they are viewed as victims of sexual abuse rather than as prostitutes, that could change how the system treats them. Currently, these...