Tagged With "Sink Them even Deeper"
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2018 "4CA" California Policymaker ACEs Education Day
The second annual 4CA Policymaker Education Day on May 22, brought together 75 community members across California to visit 81 legislators or their staff members and educate them about ACEs, trauma and resilience.
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37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium Recap
"Speak Out! Confronting the Culture of Child Sexual Abuse and Secrecy" was the theme of Santa Clara County's 37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium which featured a Keynote conversation with Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast and current UCLA Assistant Gymnastics Coach Jordyn Wieber. Jordyn, and other athletes and survivors of former USA Gymnastics team doctor and serial child sex abuser Larry Nassar, earlier spoke to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee about a “culture of silence” more...
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8 Myths About Screening For Adverse Childhood Experiences
I’d like to take this opportunity to address some of the objections to screening for ACEs that I have come across. It is true that some areas of research are still emerging, such as protocols, but in other ways we are twenty years behind using the information we have to make a positive difference in our patients lives and in training new physicians to be more comfortable addressing social and experiential determinants of health.
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9 Big Questions as California Starts to Screen Kids for Trauma, ACEs [salud-america.org]
By Amanda Merck, Salud America!, February 12, 2020 Early childhood adversity like abuse and divorce is a root cause of many of the greatest public health challenges we face today. But doctors don’t even screen children for exposure to adversity. That’s changing in California, thanks to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and other child advocates. As of Jan. 1, 2020, almost 100,000 physicians in 8,800 clinics will be reimbursed for routinely screening Medi-Cal patients for adverse childhood experiences...
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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 Guide to Creating “Safe Space” Policies for Early Childhood Programs [CLASP]
From the Center for Law and Social Policy Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current immigration policy climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll. Providers can take steps to protect families’ safety and privacy by implementing policies that designate their facilities as a safe space from immigration enforcement. This guide explains federal agency guidance related to...
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A push for mental health care at colleges: Depression and anxiety ‘really eat up our kids’ (calmatters.org)
When student leaders from 23 California State University campuses came together last fall to set priorities for the academic year, improving campus mental health services received more nominations than any other issue. It beat out even that perennial concern, tuition costs. Cal State Student Association president Maggie White said she’s not surprised. “We’re seeing wait times at counseling centers that are exceeding two or three weeks, people turned away after a few appointments because...
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AVA Regional Academies: Building Trauma-Informed, Resilient, and Healthy Communities
Last week, I was fortunate to be a part of a small group of professionals in San Diego to attend the Academy on Violence and Abuse preconference session for the 30 th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment. The conference draws over 1,800 professionals in the maltreatment field from around the world each year. The session, titled: Building Trauma Informed, Resilience, and Healthy Communities: Regional, National, and Global Perspectives , had an ambitious...
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Bad childhood experiences can make us unhealthy [Sacbee.com]
Vincent Felitti, a Kaiser Permanente physician in San Diego in the 1990s, had a radical idea. Instead of just asking patients about their symptoms, what would happen if doctors asked them about their childhoods? His hypothesis, built on a hunch informed by experience, was that childhood trauma was connected to poor health later in life. Felitti helped lead an exhaustive study of 17,000 patients that seemed to confirm his theory. That was in 1998. But for years Felitti’s study and his...
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Bay Area educators help families in school districts hurt by coronavirus shutdowns [edsource.org]
By Theresa Harrington, EdSource, April 17, 2020 Even before the coronavirus struck, many families in Oakland Unified struggled to get by. But with residents forced to stay home and non-essential businesses closed, circumstances have turned dire. In response, many educators and community members are going far beyond their normal duties in these far-from-normal times. They are helping needy families with food, financial aid and technology through donations and fundraising campaigns. At some...
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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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Bill On Governor’s Desk Aims To Reduce Childhood Trauma By Diverting Parents Into Treatment, Instead Of Prison [witnessla.com]
By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, September 13, 2019 An estimated 10 million US children have parents who are currently locked up, or who have previously been incarcerated. A bill currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, SB 394, seeks to reduce the number of parents and children separated by incarceration by boosting diversion. Children arguably suffer the worst consequences of mass incarceration. In 2014, a UC Irvine study found that having a parent behind bars can be more damaging to a kid’s...
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Bipartisan trauma resolution passes the House unanimously
In the late afternoon on Feb. 26, the House of Representatives unanimously passed H. Res. 443 , a resolution recognizing the importance and effectiveness of trauma-informed care and calling for a national trauma awareness month and trauma-informed awareness day. The impetus for the resolution resides with the First Lady of Wisconsin, Tonette Walker, who has taken a strong leadership role in advancing trauma-informed policy and practice statewide through Fostering Futures , and has elevated...
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Blacks, Latinos, Women Found Less Likely To Get The Mental Health Care They Need [californiahealthline.org]
Black Californians are more likely to experience mental health problems than other ethnic groups, and they are less likely to get the care they need, according to a study released Tuesday. The study, by Santa Monica-based Rand Corp., shows a connection between untreated mental health problems and multiple absences from work, which can take an economic toll on individuals and families in the form of lost pay and even lost jobs. That dynamic disproportionately affects communities of color.
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Briefs on current adverse childhood experiences in children in selected California cities
Attached are briefs on current ACEs in children in selected California cities, with comparison with state and county data. They were prepared by the Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, a project of the Child and Adolescent...
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Bringing Baby Home Educator Training
Two thirds of couples experience a decline in relationship satisfaction upon the birth of their first child. This can lead to postpartum depression and reduced involvement by the father in the life of their children. Even the strongest relationships are strained during the transition to parenthood. Lack of sleep, never-ending housework and new fiscal concerns can lead to profound stress. The Bringing Baby Home Educator Training prepares people to independently teach pregnant and parenting...
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Budget realities challenging California school districts’ restorative justice programs [EdSource]
By David Washburn, July 1, 2019 Legions of California educators have been trained in recent years in restorative justice, which is no longer considered an obscure alternative to traditional school discipline. Yet even in districts with well-established programs, finding and keeping funding for it remains a challenge. Earlier this year, for example, the Oakland Unified School District board approved a package of austere budget cuts that appeared to have dismantled the district’s program,...
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Building Trust Cuts Violence. Cash Also Helps. [NYTimes.com]
DeVone Boggan could teach a class on the art of making a statement. In 2010, he invited a group of the most dangerous gun offenders in Richmond, a Bay Area city of about 100,000 residents, to a conference room at City Hall. At each seat was a name card starting with “Mr.” and an information folder labeled “Operation Peacemaker.” Wearing a suit and his signature fedora, Boggan began the meeting by apologizing on behalf of the city for not reaching out to the men sooner. Peace in Richmond, he...
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Bystander Intervention to stop anti-Asian/American and xenophobic harassment
As you know, anti-Asian and Asian American and xenophobic harassment are on the rise across the U.S. Unfortunately, anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia is not a new phenomenon. It has been part of our histories for a long time, and we have seen it manifested against different communities in many ways over the years. As the coronavirus pandemic escalates, we have seen more harassment, discrimination, and even violence directed at our communities. The Asian Americans Advancing...
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CA announces robust perinatal depression prevention for Medi-Cal recipients
Melinda Coates experienced a tumultuous pregnancy. “I was really mentally upset literally from day one (of the pregnancy),” she says. (Melinda Coates is a pseudonym. To protect her and her children’s privacy and safety, we are not using her real name.) Coates had hoped to get counseling last October, when she was seven months pregnant. That’s when she enrolled in the state’s Medi-Cal program, shortly after she and her abusive husband moved to California, “but nobody was able to get me in...
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CA Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) Fact Sheet
The Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) created state fact sheets on ACEs prevalence and outcomes for both children and adults using 2016/2017 NSCH (National Survey of Children’s Health) data and recent data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). In addition to 50 state fact sheets (plus one for the District of Columbia), there is one for national data . Click here for the California fact sheet. CAHMI says it aims to advance policies to catalyze...
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AB 494 (BERMAN) SIGNED: CALFRESH ACCESS SIMPLIFIED IN RECOGNITION OF HOUSING CRISIS [CAFB]
By Becky Gershon, July 16, 2019 for California Food Bank Association The law will help Californians, especially newly eligible SSI recipients, quickly access & maximize CalFresh benefits. On July 12 th , Governor Newsom signed into law AB 494 – authored by anti-hunger champion Assemblymember Marc Berman. The California Association of Food Banks was a co-sponsor of this legislation, in partnership with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and the Coalition of California Welfare Rights...
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ACEs | Alcohol's Harm to Others | Secondhand Drinking
It is likely most readers know someone or they are the someone who has personally experienced alcohol's harm to others | secondhand drinking. The tragedy is we hardly talk about it in ways that can change the lives of those affected -- especially the lives of children. In other words, we hardly talk about it in ways that can prevent, intervene, or treat adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Alcohol’s Harm to Others | Secondhand Drinking and the ACEs Connection One of the 10 ACEs measured in...
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ACEs and Our Day with Dr. Vincent Felitti
“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.” –Oprah Winfrey We think we can speak for all who attended the CA Department of Health Care Services Learning Series on January 17 th when we say we are immensely grateful to Dr. Felitti for sharing with us findings from the original CDC-Kaiser ACE study and inspiring us with his passion and heartfelt commitment to this body of work. Dr. Felitti, who turned 81 years old the next day on January 18 th , was the co-principal investigator on the...
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ACEs Aware Webinar: Trauma-informed practices to address stress from COVID-19
How can health care providers take care of themselves, their colleagues and their patients during this COVID-19 pandemic? First and foremost is recognizing how the pandemic can stir up trauma from the past, said Dr. Alicia Lieberman, a psychologist specializing in trauma. “COVID19 is reawakening traumatic reminders in many of us and in the families we work with. And that often makes it difficult for parents to protect themselves and their children,” she noted. Lieberman, the director of the...
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ACEs Champion Julie Kurtz Gives Every Child (and Adult) a Voice
Julie Kurtz hasn’t stopped creating ways to build and promote resilience in herself and others who have experienced trauma since she left her family home for college at age 18. Although she experienced four types of adversity during her childhood, the CEO of the Center for Optimal Brain Integration has traveled a complex journey to mitigate those adversities by recognizing her own internal resilience, building skills to buffer her toxic and traumatic stress, uncovering her voice through...
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ACEs Science Champion Series: Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
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Action Alert! Campaign for restorative discipline in schools deadline TOMORROW!
The Children’s Movement is helping to promote restorative justice practices in schools by eliminating suspensions or expulsions for “willful defiance” through Senate Bill 607 authored by Senator Nancy Skinner . You can view the letter at this link here , and sign on before the deadline tomorrow, Wednesday 2/21, at 5pm. Five years ago, California schools issued an astounding 709,702 suspensions, nearly half for “defiance/disruption,” a catch-all category used to justify disciplinary action...
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Advancing a Plan for Addressing Trauma and Building Resilience within L.A. County Systems [prnewswire.com]
LOS ANGELES , Oct. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First 5 LA, the California Community Foundation, The California Endowment, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation along with other local, state and nationally-recognized expert organizations today released a report to advance a comprehensive trauma and resiliency-informed approach in Los Angeles County . Building on research and the experience of experts from Los Angeles , the report defines trauma as the effects of a...
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Adversity and resiliency: The case for integrating ACEs and Strengthening Families approaches
Attached is the PowerPoint that was presented by Diane Kellegrew, Jane Stevens and Katie Albright in a webinar April 16. And below is the slide that ID's the presenters.
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Allen Nishikawa: ACEs Storyteller Helps People Develop Their Resilience
Sonoma County ACEs Connection members Allen Nishikawa and Lena Hoffman at California Policymaker Education Day, 2018 Allen Nishikawa, a sansei, or third-generation Japanese American, majored in political science and American history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he participated in antiwar (Vietnam) marches. But it was his experience as a military brat — moving from school to school across the U.S. and even to Japan as a child — that shaped his own childhood experiences and...
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Amid affluence, youth homelessness surges in the Bay Area (edsource.org)
The San Francisco Bay Area, with its Teslas, tech start-ups and $3,700 one-bedroom rents, is one of the most affluent regions in the country but also home to nearly 15,000 homeless children. Most of the students are in the urban areas, but they also live in the wealthy enclaves. They're in Menlo Park, they're in the San Ramon Valley, they're even in Ross in Marin County, where the median household income tops $200,000. And they're most certainly undercounted: parents report to schools...
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An Alternative to Suspension with Trauma-Informed Dynamic Mindfulness: Building Stress Resilience, Emotion Regulation and Empathy
At the November 2019 Northern California Safe and Healthy Schools Conference at UC Berkeley, Niroga Program Managers Sam Weiss and Fatima Ahmed facilitated a session incorporating the theory and practice of Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) to a standing room only crowd.
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'An invisible crisis': Toxic stress is helping to shorten life spans in many Kern County communities [
People who live in Oildale, Kern River Valley and Taft — three impoverished, majority-white communities — have the highest premature death rates across Kern County, dying four to 17 years sooner than those in other parts of Bakersfield. Residents in those three communities have an average life expectancy of between 68 and 72 years old — roughly eight to 10 years less than the national average, according to data analyzed by the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Human Needs. It’s...
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An opportunity to shape the Children's Bill of Rights in California
The ACEs/Resilient Sacramento community is ideal for providing insightful feedback about the needs of California's children!
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As California Expands Ban on ‘Willful Defiance’ Suspensions, Lessons From L.A. Schools, Which Barred Them Six Years Ago
September 18, 2019 by TAYLOR SWAAK A s California this month expanded a statewide ban on suspending younger students for defiant behavior, lessons on how this increasingly sweeping school discipline reform may play out can be found in Los Angeles, which barred such suspensions on an even broader scale six years ago. Previously in California, “willful defiance” suspensions were not permitted in grades K-3. Beginning in July 2020, under the new state law , they will be prohibited for students...
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As California Moves to Screen Children for Childhood Trauma, Poverty Has To Be Part of the Equation
In California, we are coming full circle in recognizing the connection between poverty and health.
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As Homelessness Rises in Many Parts of California, Counties Search for Solutions [calhealthreport.org]
By Alyse DiNapoli, California Health Report, July 17, 2019. Many California’s counties reported having more homeless residents this year, according to the 2019 Point in Time surveys, which aim to count the number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night. The surveys are completed once every year or two years depending on the county. San Francisco and San Jose counties reported increases of 17 percent and 42 percent in the last two years, respectively. Los Angeles County...
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CalFresh Healthy Living Programs
CalFresh food benefits are available to individuals and families who have been impacted by COVID-19. CalFresh provides monthly food benefits based on household income and expenses at the time of application. Even if temporary, individuals and families who have experienced a change in their circumstances may apply for CalFresh through one of California’s 58 counties. Californian’s can visit GetCalFresh.org to apply or call 1-877-847-3663 (FOOD) to be connected to their local county social...
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California Child Welfare Policy and Progress, Winter Issue [Insight]
The California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership Report This issue of in sights provides an overview of the latest legislative developments in California, including data and perspectives on the policy and practice transformation taking place with the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). Beyond a comprehensive summary of child welfare state legislation, this issue also includes a discussion on the key provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act. The issue concludes with...
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California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative’s “Enhancing the Collective Vision” Slides Are Available and Opportunity to Participate in an Orientation Webinar
The California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative convened more than 65 stakeholders on Friday, July 12, 2019 to assess the current state of collective action around adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); align EfC Initiative goals and project interventions with existing efforts; identify mutually reinforcing activities; and establish a collective agreement on how to strategically promote Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships, and Environments (SSNR&E), to prevent and reduce child...
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California Governor Signs Flurry of Health-Related Bills On Topics Ranging From Abortion Medication to School Start Times
California Governor Signs Flurry Of Health-Related Bills On Topics Ranging From Abortion Medication To School Start Times : Gov. Gavin Newsom capped the end of the legislative session with a bill signing marathon over the past few days. And some of the most notable measures from the year were health-related. Here’s a look at some of them: ― Students at California’s 34 California State University and University of California campuses will have access to medication-induced abortion — commonly...
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California Legislation to Increase Supports in Schools
The HEARTS team met folks from Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ) in April last year when they contacted us about AB2701 , a bill that sought to create a state-wide grant program for providers of school-based trauma services using the HEARTS program approach as a model. Dr. Joyce Dorado and I worked with the team just before it was presented and I was excited to testify at a hearing about the bill. I went to Sacramento the day before to see another hearing taking place, and spent...
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California Legislators Take Aim at School-based Policing [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
State laws that encourage alternatives to school-based policing in California may have done little so far to decrease the number of students funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline, but a bill introduced in January aims to change this through policy enforcement and data collection. Current state law requires California schools to collect data on police and student interactions to be submitted to the Department of Justice upon request. In reality, the law’s enforcement mechanisms are...
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California, Like Other States, Needs Independent Monitor to Solidify Reform, Ward Off Abuses (jjje.org)
Despite the well-publicized harms of prisonlike institutions for youth, there are few states like Illinois or New York that endow nongovernmental watchdog groups with the authority to inspect facilities. Some states have failed to establish even a credible governmental monitor of their youth system. California, with its long history of institutional abuses, is notable for its lack of dedicated independent monitoring. From 2004 to 2016, the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice was subject to...
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California may start next school year sooner if coronavirus is under control [sfchronicle.com]
By Alexei Koseff, San Francisco Chronicle, April 28, 2020 California schools could reopen this summer to help make up for a “learning loss” that early closures forced by the coronavirus pandemic caused this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. Schools typically start the academic year in mid- to late August, but the governor said that might be moved up to as early as July if the pandemic is under control. “We recognize there has been a learning loss,” Newsom said at a news conference. “We...
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California moves to curtail expelling children from preschool — yes, preschool [edsource.org]
After successfully reducing expulsions in its K-12 schools , California is now moving to restrict the practice with even younger children — at the preschool level. To that end, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation last month that bars state-subsidized preschool programs from expelling kids unless an exhaustive process aimed at supporting the child and family is followed first. Children can be expelled from preschool as a result of any number of aggressive behaviors that could jeopardize the...
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California Mulls Guidelines for School Telemental Health Programs (mhealthintelligence.com)
California lawmakers are pushing a bill to develop a statewide policy for telehealth and telemedicine that will give students remote access to mental health services. AB 2315 , which is now headed to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, calls on the California Department of Education and Department of Health Care Services to develop connected care guidelines within two years for the state’s public schools, including charter schools. The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and State Assembly. “For...
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