By Rosemary Tisch, Psychology Today, January 1, 2021 We should be very worried”, states Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Director of Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child : · Risk for child abuse increases during economic crises. · Parental job loss due to the pandemic can have negative consequences on young children, including increased risk for psychological and physical abuse at the hands of their parents. · Emergency Room doctors are reporting more severe abuse cases, although child...

By Liz Simons, EdSource, December 17, 2020 California’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care may seem at first glance like an overly forward-looking plan in this time of urgent need. But the plan is a template for a better life, not only for our youngest children, whose futures hinge on their access to quality early learning and care, but for women — working mothers and the early childhood workforce, almost all women, disproportionately women of color. Unfurled during a tidal wave of...

The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP)’s, Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative invites your participation in a webinar entitled, “Creating Compelling Messaging with California ACEs Data” on Wednesday, January 20 th from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM. This webinar will feature presentations from Shaddai Martinez Cuestas, MPH, Strategic Communications...

The Transform Trauma with ACEs Sciences FREE Film Festival continues this weekend. Please join us to watch parts 1, 2, and 3 of the PBS Whole People series at your convenience, on ACEs Connection, by clicking play on the videos below: Whole People | 101 | Childhood Trauma | Episode 1 (27 min) Preview: Whole People | 102 | Healing Communities | Preview | Episode 2 Whole People | 102 |Healing Communities Episode 2 (27 min) Whole People | 103 |A New Response | Episode 3 (27 min) This is one of...

New ACEs Aware Grant Opportunity to Support Trauma-Informed Networks of Care The Department of Health Care Services in partnership with Office of the California Surgeon General and the today released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a second round of ACEs Aware grants , with a submission deadline of December 21, 2020. The new grants will target California communities that want to build or execute a robust Network of Care to effectively respond to ACEs and toxic stress to meet the needs of...

The Office of Child Abuse Prevention is pleased to announce the availability of up to $750,000 per year of federal and state funding for the Economic Empowerment Program for up to ten grantees for fiscal years (FY) 2021-23. Applicants must currently be an agency qualified to receive the Community Services Block Grants serving families with children living in poverty or a subcontractor of such an agency. The Economic Empowerment grant will provide funding for support and training in the “Your...

“It needs to be familiar” “And immediate” “Has to feel comfortable to access” “Yes, personal to the family” “They have to be able to connect easily” “Right. It has to be useful” When the Ready4K content team sat down to create a trauma-informed curriculum , they knew they had to address all 5 Protective Factors . After careful consideration and analysis the team knew they could address the first 4 factors in specific and actionable ways through our Fact, Tip, Growth messaging. But the fifth,...

From Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 2020 In this presentation, Center Director Jack P. Shonkoff joins a panel of experts to discuss how early childhood experiences can affect lifelong health, including not only the young brain, but other developing physiological systems. [ Please click here to view the webinar .]

From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, November 2020 While billions of dollars have been appropriated by federal and state governments since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, a series of polls by NPR, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation find that a substantial share of households have not been protected from serious impacts of the pandemic across many areas of residents' lives. “The Impact of Coronavirus” poll series offers a national look...

A mother, frantic with worry, brought her newborn in for a checkup at the pediatric clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby. And over the next several months, no amount of reassurance could convince the mom that her child was eating, sleeping and growing just fine. If anything, the mother’s worry led to behavior that raised alarm bells for her health care providers. Dr. Kate Margolis “[The family] wasn’t returning calls from the provider, and...

A newly developed document titled “Adverse Childhood Experiences Data Report: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), 2011-2017: An Overview of Adverse Childhood Experiences in California” has just been released and can be found following link and attached to this blog post. The purpose of this resource is to report state and county prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California; describe ACEs-related geographic and demographic disparities; and to offer details...

By Dr. Bob Sege, 10/22/20, positiveexperience.org/blog [...] The spirit of HOPE is simple: children are not products to be graded, sorted, and labeled, and parents are complex human beings who love their children and do everything in their power to care for them. This sounds simple. However, we live in an age where accountability has been translated into systematic evaluation–including children’s physical and developmental progress, parents’ and caretakers’ mental health education and...