Tagged With "Foster Care"
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11 New Communities Join ACEs Connection: May, 2019
Please welcome these 11 new initiatives from AZ, CA, CO, FL, KS, KY, MI, MN, NM, NY, UT, and VA to ACEs Connection . We also have a private community for ACEs Connection community champions, facilitators, and managers.* ACEs Connection Community Champions, Facilitators & Managers * Chisago County (MN) ACEs Initiative Colorado ACEs Connection Durango (Colorado) ACEs Connection Dutchess County (NY) ACEs Task Force Fairfax County (VA) Trauma Informed Community Network Fighting ACEs in Palm...
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2018 October Agenda and Meeting Minutes
Agenda and meeting minutes from the October 2018 Dutchess County ACES Task Force.
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2019 April Task Force Agenda & Meeting Minutes
April 2019 Dutchess County ACES Task Force agenda & meeting minutes
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2019 January Agenda and Meeting Minutes
Agenda, meeting minutes and attachments for the January 2019 Dutchess County ACES Task Force meeting.
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2019 June Task Force Meeting Agenda and Minutes
The agenda and minutes for the June 2019 ACEs Task Force Meeting.
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2019 March Agenda & Meeting Minutes
Agenda and meeting minutes for the March 2019 meeting of the Dutchess County ACES Task Force
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2019 May Agenda and Meeting Minutes
Agenda and meeting minutes for the May 2019 meeting of the Dutchess County ACES Task Force.
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...
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Avoiding ACEs by Helping Families During COVID-19 (www.astho.org)
April 15, 2020 | 11:00 a.m. | By ASTHO (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials) Staff Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood and can have negative, lasting effects on health, wellbeing, and opportunity. These exposures can disrupt healthy brain development, affect social development, compromise immune systems, and can lead to substance misuse and other unhealthy coping behaviors. Examples of ACEs include experiencing...
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Brain Injury Common In Domestic Violence (scienceblog.com)
Domestic violence survivors commonly suffer repeated blows to the head and strangulation, trauma that has lasting effects that should be widely recognized by advocates, health care providers, law enforcement and others who are in a position to help, according to the authors of a new study. In the first community-based study of its kind, researchers from The Ohio State University and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network found that 81 percent of women who have been abused at the hands of their...
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Bringing mental health care into pediatricians' offices works, finds five-year study [medicalxpress.com]
By Children's Hospital Boston, Medical Xpress, June 11, 2019. A five-year study at Boston Children's Hospital reports success with a program it started in 2013 to bring much-needed behavioral health services directly into primary care pediatricians' offices. As reported today in Pediatrics, the program improved children's access to behavioral health care, with only minor increases in cost, and got high marks from participating pediatric practices. Based on the findings, Boston Children's...
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California is Right to Focus on Adverse Childhood Experiences. Other States Should Follow [calmatters.org]
By Chuck Ingoglia (Guest), Cal Matters, February 2, 2020 It’s time to change the conversation in health care. Rather than asking, “What is wrong with this person?” medical professionals might ask, “What happened to this person?” California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris and an increasing number of practitioners are changing the conversation because they recognize that trauma early in life—child separation, racism, neglect, abuse or poverty, for instance—can manifest itself years later...
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Can Hollywood Change Attitudes About Addiction and Mental Health? [chcf.org]
By Xenia Shi Bion, California Health Care Foundation, August 19, 2019 The camera pans to the therapist as she finishes scribbling a note and sets down her pen. “You’re a perfect candidate for buprenorphine,” she says to her patient. “Let’s get you to a doctor who can prescribe it.” As far as we know, this is not a scene in a real TV show or movie, but it’s one that freelance journalist Zachary Siegel would like to see. Siegel, a journalism fellow at Northeastern University’s Health in...
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Can Trained, Paid Peer Support Help New York City Keep Foster Parents? [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Megan Conn, The Chronicle of Social Change, December 2, 2019 When Roxanne Williams became a foster parent four years ago, she started in the deep end of the parenting pool. New York City child welfare workers brought her a boy with limited English on a Friday afternoon and left after confirming her home was safe, leaving Williams to muddle through their first days together on her own. “It was rough – you weren’t getting the calls back [from her foster care agency] as fast as you wanted...
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Developing compassion for our neighbors and ourselves: trauma-informed faith
Even when we feel like God doesn’t hear us, he can guide our path to people and ideas that will resonate with our spirits and bring healing... The process of becoming trauma-informed can help us to develop compassion. We can overcome personal barriers that prevent us from reaching out to others in loving ways. We will be able to feel and share more of God’s love.
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Developing Your Self-Care Plan [socialwork.buffalo.edu]
By University of Buffalo School of Social Work, March 20, 2020 To develop your self-care plan, you will identify what you value and need as part of your day-to-day life (maintenance self-care) and the strategies you can employ when or if you face a crisis along the way (emergency self-care). There is no “one-size-fits-all” self-care plan, but there is a common thread to all self-care plans: making a commitment to attend to all the domains of your life, including your physical and...
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Director's Note about tonight's PBS broadcast of Broken Places (4//6)
The film trailer is available here. Learn more about Broken Places via this review written by @Laurie Udesky (ACEs Connection Staff) entitled, Documentary Broken Places uses archival footage to tell stories of ACEs and resilience over time . Tonight's Airing: Check your local listing time here. Film clips and more viewer information can be found on the PBS website .
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Doctors Warn of Health Effects of Trump Immigration Changes [sfgate.com]
By Sophia Tareen, Associated Press, August 18, 2019 Diabetics skipping regular checkups. Young asthmatics not getting preventive care. A surge in expensive emergency room visits. Doctors and public health experts warn of poor health and rising costs they say will come from sweeping Trump administration changes that would deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, as well as food stamps and other forms of public assistance. Some advocates say they’re already seeing the fallout even...
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Fighting ACEs Amid the Pandemic
When a pandemic hits, and suddenly nothing is the same, it’s a sobering opportunity to take a deep breath and to take stock. At Center for Child Counseling, we specialize in childhood trauma and Fighting ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and we'll keep doing what we so best...
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"Food Pharmacies" Fill Physician Prescriptions for Fresh Produce [chcf.org]
By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, January 13, 2020 Once a month, patients line up early at La Clínica de la Raza’s San Antonio Neighborhood Health Center in East Oakland. They arrive with grocery bags and $10 vouchers written by their physicians for the most basic — and yet surprising — type of medicine: healthful food. Since 2018, La Clínica has been running “food pharmacies” to help patients obtain fresh, locally sourced produce. The food pharmacy program is part of...
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Foster Care Entries for Parental Drug Use Surge [usnews.com]
By Katelyn Newman, US News & World Report, July 15, 2019. INCIDENTS OF CHILDREN entering America's foster system as a result of their parents' drug use have surged since 2000, new research shows, coinciding with the country's recent opioid crisis. Using case data from the federally mandated Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, researchers from Cornell and Harvard universities found that 1,162,668 – or nearly 24% – of 4,972,911 entries of children into foster care...
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Introduction to Trauma Informed Care
This YouTube video of a 2016 webinar is a great overview of trauma informed care, including an introduction to ACEs. Introduction to Trauma Informed Care for the Children, Caregivers and Ourselves Check out this book recommendation: The Cultural Nature of Human Development
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Introductory Trauma-Informed Care Videos for Medical Providers – in English and Spanish (chcs.org)
How do our experiences as children shape our health as adults? What does it mean to be trauma-informed, and what does trauma-informed care look like in a health care setting? Two videos, “What is Trauma-Informed Care?” and “Trauma-Informed Care: From Treaters to Healers,” developed by the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), seek to answer these questions and shed light on why health care providers across the nation are embracing a trauma-informed approach to care. The 3-4 minute videos...
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Medical students' ACE scores mirror general population, study finds
A national survey published in 2014 revealed a disturbing finding. Compared to college graduates pursuing other professions, medical students, residents and early career physicians experienced a higher degree of burnout. Citing that article, a group of researchers at University of California at Davis School of Medicine wondered whether medical students’ childhood adversity and resilience played a role in their burnout, said Dr. Andres Sciolla, an associate professor of psychiatry and...
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Parenting with ACEs Resources: Power Sharing & Sharing Powerfully
Sharing as a trauma survivor, parent (via adoption), writer, and advocate, I'm going to detail what I find crucial in any program or perspective geared towards those currently parenting with ACEs. Most important, is that any program be survivor and peer-led (or co-led). If that's the only change done, it's a good one. Who shares content, and how, is as important as the content being shared. So often, programs to parents are patronizing, punitive, and can come across as "edupuking" all over...
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Pediatric research: COVID-19 will lead to more childhood trauma. Health care must take it into account. [dispatch.com]
By Abbie Roth, The Columbus Dispatch, May 3, 2020 You might have seen the headlines warning that, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the current mental health crisis facing youth in the United States will only worsen. Like adults, children are experiencing new or intensified stressors as a result of the pandemic, including loss of routine, separation from friends and extended family, and increased anxiety and frustration. Some more extreme stressors — food insecurity, loss of a parent or...
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Permission to be actual humans during a pandemic, please
I have a single mom friend who is caring for a baby, a 16-year old, and working full-time. Her name is Heidi. This is the same friend, with an ACE score of 10, written about here a few years ago. This is what she posted on Facebook (and gave me permission to share) the day after Governor Charlie Baker announced the schools in MA will be closed, at least, until early May: The numerous and immediate comments and responses went something like this: I sighed in relief when I read Heidi's post. I...
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Practicing Love in a Pandemic (lionsroar.com)
Practicing love requires that we stop thinking only about our own wellbeing and consider how our actions impact everyone. Paradoxically, it means the most important thing we ourselves can do is to stay well. Maintaining our own good health will put less stress on the healthcare system and free up resources to help those who are sick and need care. It will also prevent the spread of the illness to those who are at higher risk to die from complications of Covid-19. Practicing love in a...
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Race Forward Statement on the Coronavirus and Its Impacts on Communities of Color [raceforward.org]
From Race Forward, March 27, 2020 As the coronavirus spreads and a public health emergency intensifies, Race Forward calls on local and state governments and those who are doing emergency planning to pay special attention to the impact that this disease and the response to its spread may have on people and communities of color. We call for an approach that provides accurate information and advances practices and policies based in science, and that ensures compassionate and comprehensive...
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Resource List for Educators
A list of resources for educators on ACEs, trauma informed schools and learning If you find other resources, this list can be updated.
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Resource List for Health Care Providers (updated 6.20.19)
A list of resources for health care providers on trauma informed care and ACEs If you find other resources, this list can be updated.
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Resources 4 Resilience (www.r4r.support) & Commentary
We have the best community. And it feels like a community even more right now when things are scary, threatening, and uncertain. Yesterday, Jondi Whitis shared an amazing resource yesterday, by way of a comment, that's great for parents, survivors, providers, and families (all of us). I am making it a blog post in case others missed it or are overwhelmed, as I have been, by sifting through the information coming at us. The home page lets you easily find practices for calming. Here's one...
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Road Map to Trauma Informed Care [Trauma Informed Oregon]
Programs, organizations, and systems that make a commitment to implementation will differ in many ways–from the service context, to the motivation for change, to hoped-for outcomes, and resources available. Nonetheless, in a developmental way, implementation moves through a number of common steps that we’ve tried to reflect in the Road Map below. The Trauma Informed Care Screening Tool (found below the Road Map) builds on the Road Map by delving into each phase and offering a series of...
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Screening for Childhood Trauma
Dr. Ken Epstein has been in the social services sector for nearly four decades and has witnessed firsthand the long-term effects of trauma. As both the son and father of fellow social workers, the work runs in his blood. Now, he’s helping Bay Area health clinics screen for and address childhood trauma through the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), led by Center for Care Innovations (CCI) and made possible by Genentech.
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Study Confirms Serious Health Problems, High Trauma Rates Among Unsheltered People in U.S. [newsroom.ucla.edu]
By Sean Coffey, UCLA Newsroom, October 7, 2019 A report released today finds that physical and mental health care needs as well as abuse and traumatic experiences are major contributing factors to a loss of housing for unsheltered people, especially unsheltered women. A research team at the California Policy Lab analyzed survey responses from more than 64,000 single adults ages 25 and older who were experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness in 15 states across the U.S. from 2015...
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The Healing Place Podcast - Lara Kain - Creating and Supporting Resilient and Trauma-Informed Schools and Communities
As the Southern California community facilitator for ACEs Connection and independent consultant, Lara brings her deep understanding of the importance of schools as community drivers for change. Lara is an experienced educator and consultant who speaks nationally on implementing trauma-informed practices in schools and building holistic, trauma-responsive systems.
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The Hidden Trauma of "Short Stays" in Foster Care [themarshallproject.org]
By Eli Hager, The Marshall Project, February 11, 2020 The children usually arrived in the dead of night, silent and terrified. For two years, Daniel Derkacs and Ashley Keiler-Green, foster parents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, regularly took in kids whose parents were suspected of abusing or neglecting them. Sometimes, as the couple scrambled to find pajamas for their latest house guest, they couldn’t help but wonder if they’d just met a child who would be with them for years to come. But they...
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The Importance of Positive Emotional Communication Starting From Infancy
“Why do some children become sad, withdrawn, insecure, or angry, whereas others become happy, curious, affectionate, and self-confident?” It has something to do with emotions and emotional communication.
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The pandemic offers a chance to transform the US' cruel policies toward poor people [cnn.com]
By Philip Alston, Rev. William Barber, and Rev. Liz Theoharis, CNN Opinion, April 30, 2020 Out of the wreckage of World War II, the United States worked with other countries to proclaim, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , that "freedom from fear and want" are people's highest aspirations. Seventy-two years later, with a pandemic laying waste to lives and livelihoods, the world is again gripped by fear and want. In the United States, the world's wealthiest nation , the coronavirus...
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TIHCER members and colleagues publish in SGIM Forum BEST PRACTICES section MOVING TOWARDS HEALING-CENTERED ENGAGEMENT: WHAT TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE CAN TEACH US ABOUT BURNOUT AND HEALING IN THE WORKPLACE
Read the full article here! https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.sgim.org_File-2520Library_SGIM_Resource-2520Library_Forum_2019_SGIM-2DSept-2D8.pdf&d=DwIFAg&c=ZQs-KZ8oxEw0p81sqgiaRA&r=KBfJSFe9eEx3b2ia4rpJlQ&m=Qqe3YfIaxBtjodz33fcGIhtYc7vQhYZXd0ViPkngwEY&s=nRa9pGpeJk2JGXd50KJ03L7ij2edxLKXwfHuTEEiKqs&e= We are excited to highlight the insights a trauma informed, healing centered lens can bring to building wellbeing and resilience for all of us.
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Trauma-Informed Care News and Notes for January 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Grief vs. traumatic grief California launches "ACEs Aware" initiative to address the public health crisis of toxic stress from childhood trauma After Bryce Gowdy's suicide, lets elevate the conversation about poverty's effects on youth Association of adverse experiences and exposure to violence in childhood and adolescence with inflammatory burden in young people Hard choices: How moving on and off reservations can increase the risk of homelessness for American...
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Trump Administration Approves Vouchers for Housing After Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, July 25, 2019 Earlier this year, we reported on the case made by current and former foster youths to use existing authority at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to connect youth aging out of care with housing supports. The Chronicle of Social Change has learned that, after a thorough review of the policy by HUD’s general counsel, the agency is set this week to approve this and notify thousands of public housing authorities.
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Two studies shed light on state legislators’ views on ACEs science and trauma policy
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...
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We Must Step Forward on Behalf of the Children at our Border [fsg.org]
By Lauren Smith, FSG, June 26, 2019. Everything I have learned in my almost three decades as a pediatrician and public health advocate caring for children and families tells me that what we are doing to migrant children at the border is morally and medically wrong. It goes against all that we know about how children should be treated. It is also not who we aspire to be as a nation. We are and must be better than this. Recent detailed reports of the appalling conditions in the detention...
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Webinar Oct. 17 — Integrating ACEs science in pediatrics: Early adopters share lessons from the field
An ACEs Connection webinar co-sponsored with 4 CA In 2017, California became the first state in the country to pass a law supporting universal screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the 5.3 million children in the state’s Medicaid program. As clinicians around California await the state’s announcement of what this new policy will entail, many are wondering what it takes to integrate ACEs science in a pediatric practice. Meet Drs. Deirdre Bernard-Pearl, R.J. Gillespie and...
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What We Can Do About Toxic Stress [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By the Center on the Developing Child Harvard University. As adults, experiencing toxic stress that just doesn’t let up—caused by things like violence or poverty, not being able to find a job, or not having enough to eat or a place to live—can feel overwhelming, like a heavy burden. Much like a truck that’s been loaded down with too much weight so it can’t move forward, these difficult circumstances can make it challenging to get through life. It can make you feel like you can only plan one...
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Why We Need to Talk About the Serious Health Implications of Childhood Trauma [yahoo.com]
By Mary Wilde, Yahoo Lifestyle, March 18, 2020 Despite four years of medical school, three years of residency and over a decade in practice, I was never taught the profound connection between high childhood stress and increased risk of chronic disease. It was at a community event sponsored by our local school district that I first learned it, as I watched the documentary entitled, “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope.” Suddenly, the medical education I had been...
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Greater Richmond Trauma Informed Community Network, first to join ACEs Cooperative of Communities, shows what it means to ROCK!
In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.
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Massachusetts Prepares for Children's Mental Health Needs During Covid
Months into the pandemic, we know the Covid-19 virus doesn’t just pose a threat to our physical health: it has serious repercussions for our individual and collective mental health too. Given ACEs Connection members’ interest in trauma-informed initiatives that support the needs of children, the Massachusetts Childhood Trauma Task Force (CTTF) wants to share its recent report on Covid-19 and children’s mental health.