While the impact of maltreatment on a child and their family is devastating, child maltreatment also has serious effects far beyond those for the victim. Maltreatment results in ongoing costs to taxpayers, institutions, businesses, and society at large. Local communities bear the brunt of these costs in the form of medical, educational, and judicial costs, though more tragic signs are seen in homelessness, addiction, and teen pregnancy. To create a concrete understanding of the widespread...

To view the document, click on the following link:  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health      

New and returning lawmakers take the oath of office on day one of Washington state's 2017 legislative session. — Jeanie Lindsay/Northwest News Network As advocates prepare to see how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) science, trauma, and resilience play out in the 2020 state legislative sessions — many beginning in January — they are undoubtedly asking: “What does a legislator want?" It may be a stretch to play on Freud’s question: “What does a women want?", but the query captures how...

In the final weeks of the 114 th Congress, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) welcomed her colleague Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) as a new host in the third and final briefing on addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The December 1 briefing focused on public policies to improve coordination, prevention and response to childhood trauma. In addition to joining forces to raise awareness of the impact of ACEs, Senators Heitkamp and Durbin are drafting legislation based on a framework they...

Interesting report from Futures Without Violence: Safe, Healthy, and Ready to Learn: Policy Recommendations to Ensure Children Thrive in Supportive Communities Free from Violence and Trauma

By Barbara Ferrer, American Journal of Public Health The nexus between policy actions and immigrant health is central in this issue of AJPH in two articles by Young and Wallace (p. 1171) and Rothstein and Coughlin (p. 1179), serving as a reminder of the need for public health practitioners to adopt a framework that explicitly connects the dimensions of social determinants of health with population health outcomes. Such a framework incorporates a root cause analysis to elucidate the factors...

Last Friday, February 26, 800 people filled the Laguna Honda Hospital & Rehabilitation Center in the beautiful Twin Peaks area of San Francisco. They were there for a Black History Month event coordinated by the San Francisco Health Network. The event featured presentations from two outstanding clinicians: Dr. Joy DeGruy, researcher, educator, and author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome : America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing; and Dr. Ken Hardy, professor at Drexel University...

Mental health is at the heart many of the challenges we face, including trauma and adverse childhood experiences, social isolation, institutionalized bias and discrimination, and ‘diseases of despair’ that manifest in depression, suicide, and substance misuse. Addressing social determinants of health is key to helping communities navigate adversity, heal, and flourish. PI’s new report, Back to Our Roots: Catalyzing Community Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing , illustrates how improving...

California Essentials for Childhood released its seventh newsletter in April 2017. The full newsletter, focused on Child Abuse Prevention Month, can be found attached. Check it out and #unite4kids!

Such a complex conversation... This is an area of passion for me - having worked with high-risk perinatal population for many years, conducted focus group interviews with women who were "clean" and in a treatment program - and heard first hand how and why they became pregnant while using - I was always surprised what they shared, and came to realize my assumptions were not accurate. I would urge the group to seek opportunities to work further upstream focusing on "preconception" or...

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative is pleased to share the Building Synergy and Connections Across the Essentials for Childhood Initiative Convening Summary and Presentation Slides. The Convening Summary contains a detailed overview of the information shared and the feedback provided by the participants during the convening. You will find these documents attached below. The EfC Initiative team appreciates the speakers and coalition chairs that served as panelists and the attendees who...

The California Essentials for Childhood Initiative is excited to share a newly developed attached, “Strategies for Trauma-Informed School Communities: Practices to Improve Resiliency in School-Aged Children and Address Adverse Childhood Experiences”. This new resource is intended to assist state and local public health programs, child-serving systems, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations in their efforts to educate about the need for trauma-informed school policies and practices that...

A newly developed document titled “Utilizing Data to Improve Child Wellbeing Through Community Action” has just been released and can be found attached to this blog post. The purpose of this document is to identify best practices in utilizing data to monitor and evaluate child adversity, health, development, and wellbeing in order to build community support and create policy, systems, and environmental change. This resource was created in partnership by All Children Thrive - California and...

Join Strategies TA and best-selling author of Upstream: the Quest to Solve Problems before they Happen , Dan Heath for learning and inspiration around the critical need for prevention approaches to all types of social issues, including child abuse and neglect. In Upstream , Dan Heath examines how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers. In this webinar, he will share insights and interactive discussion around...

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) highlights shared risk and protective factors for suicide and overdose in the infographic titled "Creating a Shared Approach to Suicide and Overdose Prevention." Childhood trauma and adversity, economic hardship, access to lethal means, discrimination, social isolation, and other risk factors can contribute to risk of suicide and/or overdose, while stable employment and housing, safe, supportive, and inclusive environments,...

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative is pleased to share the “ Building Partnerships to Strengthen California’s Families” Convening Summary and Presentation Slides that supported the event that took place on November 3, 2021. The Convening Summary contains a detailed overview of the information shared and the feedback provided by the participants during the convening. You will find these documents attached below. To view the recording, please access the video at this link and use...

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB) is proud to release a new resource titled, “ Opportunities to Empower and Support Girls and Women in California: An Environmental Scan of Leadership Opportunities and Economic Supports to Prevent Sexual Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, and Teen Dating Violence .” The IVPB addresses root causes of violence and applies an upstream approach to violence prevention. There is a strategic interest in...

Health in All Policies and the Essentials for Childhood Initiative would like thank all attendees’ participation in the collaborative virtual meeting series entitled, “Envisioning a Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered, and Resilient California: Supporting State Government Efforts to Move toward Recovery” that took place on Monday, December 13 , 2021 from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM. The meeting minutes and slides from this event are attached below for your review. The purpose of this formative event was...

The EfC Initiative would like to share two resources developed by Safe & Sound , an organization dedicated to strengthening families and ending child abuse, that may be of interest to you in your work. The Economics of Child Abuse Report has been updated to share the economic impact of child maltreatment and estimates that California's communities incurred $22.6 billion in economic impacts due to child maltreatment in 2021. Explore this interactive tool to learn the economic impact of...

PACEs Connection and the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , a project of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have developed two new resources, “ Community Strategies to Address California’s Digital Divide and Its Impact on Children and Families ” Report and the “ Digital Divide Brief: Community Strategies to Address California’s Digital Divide and Its Impact on Children and Families ” . “ Community Strategies to...

“Reimagining Child Wellbeing: Local Policy Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California’s Communities” is a resource developed in collaboration with the All Children Thrive, California (ACT) project and the California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) ’s , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative . This resource was created...

Please consider reviewing the s resource titled “Trauma-Informed Approaches to Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Brief”. It can be found attached to this post . The purpose of this resource is to describe the connection between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and tobacco use; share how cessation service delivery can adopt and implement trauma-informed approaches; and provide recommendations and strategies for how cessation programs can apply the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services...

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB), is releasing the Domestic Violence Prevention Program (DVP) Request for Application (RFA) 23-10059 to award up to two (2) contracts that will focus on strengthening economic security and mobility for Black women and their families. Awarded Applicants will be expected to utilize the Close to Home (C2H) community mobilization approach to conduct primary prevention, community-level strategies as a...

Nationally recognized days of awareness remind us of important civil and human rights movements led by Black and African-American communities and social justice advocates. February puts leadership, education, access, justice, policy, and governance under the spotlight. Through a PACEs science lens, this month is an opportunity to consider trauma-informed transformation through a PACEs science lens as the way forward.

In an effort to keep our free programs accessible to California during a critical time in the PACEs movement, we'd like to learn more about the role PACEs Connection programs have played in your California PACEs initiatives and the impact of your programs.