Tagged With "Trauma to Trust"
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New Prevention Institute Report Offers Framework for Preventing Community Trauma, Building Resilience
A new Prevention Institute report, featured Wednesday in USA Today , offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding the relationship between community trauma and violence. In doing so, the report provides insight into how we can overcome the inequities that contribute to a cycle of inner-city gun violence, poverty, unemployment, and poor health in communities of color. As additional treatment models are developed for individual trauma, there is a growing need for addressing trauma as a...
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Oakland, CA, youth organization takes next step in systems change to heal trauma
In a room in East Oakland, Calif., photos of children are projected on a screen. “Who is that?” asks Briana Moore, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice and a master trainer for the East Bay Agency for Children’s Trauma Transformed program. “Bill Clinton,” responds one of the 20 employees of the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC).
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Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby is giving families a Resilient Start
Program Provider Sadie Williams works with financial coach Judit Trinidad as they practice family engagement for Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby Program enrollees.
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Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby is giving families a Resilient Start
Program Provider Sadie Williams works with financial coach Judit Trinidad as they practice family engagement for Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby Program enrollees.
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Policymaker Education Day Registration STILL OPEN!
Registration is still OPEN for another week to the second annual Policymaker Education Day hosted by the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) in Sacramento on May 22nd! Don't miss this opportunity to be able to share your thoughts and expertise with your Assemblymember or Senator on how to address childhood adversity in your communities. Guest speakers include Assemblymember Dr. Arambula of Fresno County, Ted Lempert of Children Now and Sarah Pauter of Phenomenal...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Program offers hundreds of young men, boys safe space to heal from ACEs
Dennis McCollins recounts some of the experiences that caused him to harden against the world as a teenager. “There were times I went to more funerals than birthdays,” says McCollins, who is the clinical director of the School Based Health Center at Greenwood Academy in Richmond, Calif. And it took its toll: “I spent time homeless. I got expelled [from school]. I was so angry and upset and mad,” he says. Dennis McCollins Then a man that he met when he was sent to Job Corps as a teen turned...
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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RYSE Center's Listening Campaign: Young people in Richmond, CA help adults understand trauma, violence, coping, and healing
"My experience with violence is very brutal...I grew up with violence as if it were my sibling." - LC participant (youth) "We know we can't run the city- it's too complex- but our experience and our voices should count, especially because we're the most effected ." - LC participant (youth) "Our city's problems are shared by us all; we are all part of the problem AND the solution. Listening is a key component to healing." - LC Share Out partici pant (adult) Three years ago, RYSE Center in...
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RYSE gathering: To promote healing from trauma, institutions need to stop seeing youth as the problem
A young man told clinical therapist Marissa Snoddy recently that when she calls him a leader, she got it all wrong. “He said, ‘I just came from Juvenile Hall,’ I’m not a leader.” But, she said, “We just kept giving him love. And we said, ‘You’re courageous for showing up and being here,’” The very fact that he was there, she explained, showed he was a leader. Snoddy related the anecdote recently for 80 people attending the Trauma and Learning Series launch led by Rising Youth for Social...
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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Trauma Transformed launches regional effort in San Francisco Bay Area
Nearly 300 impassioned and committed people crowded into the Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center last week to launch Trauma Transformed. Known as T2, the regional effort – representing the San Francisco Department of Public Health and seven Bay Area counties – is funded by a four-year, $4-million grant from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Youth, families, health directors and public health leaders...
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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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Youth court banishes blame; leads with ACEs science
YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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A middle school tackles trauma, finds more calm and less suspensions
6 th grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister/ photos by Laurie Udesky During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people burning out from the [teaching]...
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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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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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Dr. Mona Delahooke Will Present at The Trauma-Responsive Schools Conference in California
Have you been hearing all the buzz about Dr. Mona Delahooke's new book, Beyond Behaviors ? In my opinion, it’s the best new book of 2019. Dr. Delahooke is a practicing pediatric clinical psychologist of thirty years. She is gaining critical acclaim and grassroots support for challenging the prevalent and pervasive behaviorist bias in schools. As a result, she is an emerging authority in the growing revolution to re-interpret children's misbehavior. She highlights much of the books' content...
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DULCE helps pediatricians in Oakland, CA, prevent toxic stress in newborns
On a recent day in early March, Laura Lopez met a former patient of hers in the waiting room of Highland Hospital’s pediatric clinic in Oakland, CA. The patient had forgotten her Medi-Cal card and called Lopez asking for help. But in the brief conversation, Lopez, a family specialist with the DULCE program, learned about some dire changes in the patient’s life. Laura Lopez “Without me even asking, she shared with me that she had separated from her partner, that she needs to apply for food...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
All photos courtesy of Antioch Middle School staff Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up...
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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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Leaders in SF public housing deal with their own and community trauma head on
Sengthong Sithounnolat, Jeris Woodson, Donald Greene, Ashley Blanco On a recent Saturday, 10 people gather around a table at the offices of Trauma Transformed in Oakland, Calif., where quotes from figures like Frederick Douglas, Nelson Mandela, and Coretta Scott King grace one wall as light streams in from a skylight above. The group is known as the Resident Warriors, which meets weekly. One participant talks of her recovery from addiction and her mother’s murder. Another mentions being...
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
Sixth grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister (photo: Laurie Udesky) ________________________________ During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people...
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A Better Normal Friday, June 19th at Noon PDT: LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma
Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our ongoing series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma With Panelists Rev. Dr. D. Mark Wilson and Alexander Cho, Ph.D., Moderated by ACEs Connection staff members Jenna Quinn and Alison Cebulla Friday, June 19th, 2020 Noon to 1pm, PT (3pm to 4pm ET) >>Click here to register<< Please join us...
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Trauma to Trust uses ACEs science to heal wounds between community members, police
photo courtesy of EJUSA/Ron Holtz Studio Forty-seven-year-old Al-Tariq Best, founder and executive director of the HUBB , an arts and healing organization for youth, recalls the rage, humiliation and fear he felt as a 17-year-old when he and three other Black friends were pulled over by police in Newark, N.J. Al-Tariq Best “[There were] all these people around us. They search the car. They strip the car down. They make us pull our pants down in broad daylight. And I'm, I'm upset. And I'm...
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ACEs Connection reaches 200 participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau!
ACEs Connection is proud to announce we have reached 200 Speakers & Trainers participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau! What is the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau? The ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau is a service that provides subscribers of ACEsConnection a Database of ACEs speakers and trainers for hire. The development of the Speakers & Trainers Bureau was in response to a great need expressed by our communities. ACEs...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything.
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‘Trauma on top of trauma’: Bay Area students under stress from pandemic face wildfire risks [sfchronicle.com]
By Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2020 Students in the Bonny Doon school district had been back in class — virtually — for two days before the wildfires forced them to evacuate, many fleeing for their lives in the middle of the night Wednesday. Teachers and students lost homes to the powerful wildfires raging through the charming, wooded town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. School had just started, but now Superintendent Mike Heffner, who is also the principal of the...
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The 'war on drugs' was a war on people of color
In the spring of 1982, Susan Burton turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of her 5-year-old son, who had run into the street and was hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer . Over the course of the next 17 years, Burton was in and out of prison. “Each time I left, I felt a little more broken,” she told me recently. What would have made a difference, she said, was “if there could have been a way to have therapy from traumatic childhood events, disappointments and...
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Want to empower youth in communities of color during COVID? Let them lead.
Widespread reporting has revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many poor communities of color. Less widely known is how the pandemic has affected young people in those communities. “COVID-19 has had a particularly harsh impact on youth of color,” further traumatizing [juvenile-justice] system-impacted youth and their families already struggling with disproportionately high rates of disease, death, job loss and housing insecurity,” said Jim Keddy of Youth Forward . Keddy was...
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Speakers at children & youth conference call for systems change based in love, liberation
California can support children and youth by tackling the state’s — and the country’s — legacy of White supremacy and replacing it with a trauma-informed approach of love, empathy, and support.
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Youth Detention Facility finds culture of kindness more effective than punishment
A corner of the Multi-Sensory De-escalation Room, All MSDR photos courtesy of Valerie Clark When a young person enters the de-escalation room in the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility , they’ll find dimmed lights, bottles of lavender, orange and other essential oils, an audio menu featuring the rush of ocean waves and other calming sounds, along with squeeze balls, TheraPutty, jigsaw puzzles, and an exercise ball to bounce on. TheraPutty, squeeze balls and more Sometimes, with a...
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CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY - Session 8 with Robert Sege, MD, PhD | April 22
CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY LIVE WEBINAR with FREE CME/CE Educate, Inspire, Connect HOPE: Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences presented by Dr. Robert Sege Thursday, April 22, 2021 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm (PT) This interactive session will describe how ACEs screening can be enhanced by also considering HOPE: Healthy Outcomes from Positive Childhood Experiences. Children’s brains develop in response to their experiences, both adverse and beneficial. Just as adverse childhood experiences can...
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Policing in schools: Redefining public safety to be supportive & healing, instead of punitive & criminalizing
A recent video , shared on the national news, shows a 16-year-old Florida student being slammed to the ground by a police officer working at her school. It’s one of many such incidents of school-based police violence against students captured in videos around the country. Some of the victims are as young as five years old. About 47% of U.S. schools employ armed police officers , known as school resource officers, who are there to keep students safe. But students who attend these schools...
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Childcare providers use two- generational approach to help preschoolers from being expelled
It’s shocking: Preschoolers are three times more likely to be expelled than children in elementary, middle and high school, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Boys are four times more likely than girls to be kicked out, and African American children are twice as likely as Latinx and White children. One organization with childcare centers and mental health providers in Kentucky and Ohio began a long journey 15 years ago, when they began hearing about...
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California PACEs Connection initiatives spark new connections in regional meeting
Among PACEs Connection initiatives around the country, it’s well known that our social network is something like a bustling, giant town square where people share ideas, resources and any number of conversations about how to prevent childhood adversity and promote positive childhood experiences. On May 14, PACEs Connection assembled a virtual town square gathering of PACEs initiatives in California, where we have 58 initiatives sparking action all across the state. Speakers at the gathering,...
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Peer-led organization offers San Francisco's unhoused food, work, dignity and more
He is sprawled out on the sidewalk, motionless, flushed cheeks framed by high cheekbones. He’s slender, probably in his mid-20s, his straight, coal black hair pulled back, and his orange t-shirt twisted up over his stomach. “He’s OD’ing on fentanyl!” shouts a guy holding a skateboard.
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Southern Oregon Success wants all children, families to thrive by 2025
For Peter Buckley, program manager for the PACEs initiative, Southern Oregon Success (SORS), the “aha moment” around positive and adverse childhood experiences was more of an “aha month.”
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Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice with Special Guest, Becky Haas, Pioneer in Developing Trauma-Informed Judicial Initiatives
Please join us for our new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Dr. Porter Jennings-McGarity, PhD/LCSW, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being...
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The 2023 Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator Program is now Open For Registration
PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.
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The 2023 Creating Resilient Communities Accelerator Program is now Open For Registration
PACEs Connection is excited to kick off our 2023 Creating Resilient Communities (CRC) Annual Accelerator Program.
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Check Out New July Dates Added to the 2023 CRC Summer Curriculum and the Official Launch of the Dedicated CRC Community Page
July is a time to celebrate all summer has to offer by building bridges and innovating with community to get to the heart of trauma-informed awareness and resilience building. This month, we’ve added new July dates to the summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum—but that’s only half of the good news. Last year, the CRC began as a pilot program. Now that it's evolved, what better time to bring accelerator participants together in a PACEs Connection CRC community than the summer? We are proud to announce...
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Growing Resilient Communities Embraces the New Year: Welcome CRC Fellows, Grow with Google Partnership Announcement & Unveiling New Interactive Tools
To prepare for the year ahead, we have a few very special announcements we’re excited to share. First, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the 700+ community champions, facilitators, managers, and advocates in our COOP and Growing Resilient Communities program for your commitment.
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Creating Resilient Communities in 2024: The Year of Cultivating Resilient Networks Through Healing Centered Cultural Wisdom
As we head into our full CRC curriculum this January, we invite current and future CRC Accelerator participants to join us with collective care and self care in mind.
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CRC Accelerator Hiatus Reminder & April “Hour of Power” to Support CRC Participants With Only One Event to Completion Learn CRC Fellowship Next Steps
As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.
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EXCITING NEWS – PACEs Connection is BACK!
Former PACEs Connection employees Dana Brown (L) with Vincent Felitti, MD, co-author of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study, and Carey Sipp (R) in San Diego in January, 2024. The last few months have been quite challenging, but we pushed, persevered, and didn’t give up hope. The “we” is Carey Sipp and Dana Brown. We were long-time staff members of PACEs Connection determined to reinstate the website and the resources and information we provide to communities after the platform went...