Tagged With "Center for Child Counseling"
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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 September Agenda and Meeting Minutes
Agenda and meeting minutes for the September 2018 Meeting of the Dutchess County ACES Task Force.
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2019 February Agenda and Meeting Minutes
Agenda and meeting minutes for the February 2019 Dutchess County ACES Task Force.
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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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2019 State Trends in Child Well-Being [aecf.org]
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The 30th edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® Data Book begins by exploring how America’s child population — and the American childhood experience — has changed since 1990. And there’s some good news to share: Of the 16 areas of child well-being tracked across four domains — health, education, family and community and economic well-being — 11 have improved since the Foundation published its first Data Book 30 editions ago. The rest of the...
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7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress (www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org)
To grow and learn, we must try new things. The process of struggling, tolerating failures, and prevailing builds confidence and the deep feeling of “I can do it.” But we–especially children–lose the positive aspects of struggle and stress when the amount of stress, especially traumatic stress, becomes too great and/or sustained. Persistent and long-lasting stress on the mind and body caused by overwhelming emotions leads to traumatic stress, a condition characterized by a nervous system in...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus - for Students Everywhere, Online or Not [washingtonpost.com]
By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, March 26, 2020 “Anxiety” is one of the words you hear frequently about our individual and collective reactions to the coronavirus pandemic — which has stopped public life in its tracks in much of the world. Kids are anxious. So are their parents and teachers and principals and superintendents and friends and elected officials. For those people who were anxious before covid-19, the sense of apprehension has only deepened. Given that, this post offers...
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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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April marks Child Abuse Prevention Month [davisenterprise.com]
By Special to The Enterprise, Davis Enterprise, April 4, 2020 As the community responds to measures put in place to “flatten the curve” and conserve our medical resources in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), many families are placed in a state of unprecedented stress — financially, emotionally, personally and professionally. Families and children face fear and anxiety due to the increasing severity of restrictions, ongoing disruptions in routine, uncertainty about the future, and...
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As crisis mounts, researcher explains what lasting stress does to our bodies and biology [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Ryan White, Center for Health Journalism, March 18, 2020 Think of the brain, honed by millennia of evolution, as a powerful predictive machine, constantly scanning the horizon for signs of what’s to come. Like an eager young scout, the brain relishes the state of readiness. But what happens when that future is shrouded in a thick fog of uncertainty? Or worse, when that veil conceals real threats to our safety and well-being that exceed our control? That’s essentially the situation we all...
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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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Cabin Fever Tips for Stir Crazy Kids
Cabin fever grabbed the 3 yr. old boy relentlessly in the winter weather. Grumpiness took over until I offered him a big poster board on the floor and crayons-to-boot, suggesting he use his whole body to get all those tense feelings out. He jumped into the activity like a thirsty horse heading for water. His whole body swiveled and swerved, moving with the action of the crayons. He continued until he was out of breath, then leaned back and looked at his creative expression of tension leaving...
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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 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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'Children Live a Lifetime Before They Come to School' | Teachers Working to Ease Childhood Trauma [wbir.com]
By Gabrielle Hays, WBIR 10 News, February 10, 2020 Melissa Bucks spent 36 years of her life teaching kindergarteners and first graders in Knox County. She just retired in May but is still involved in the classroom and in the community. After almost four decades in education, she can recall how trauma in the classroom changed over time and how it impacts some of our youngest children who are trying to learn. “It was always different but there was always one child, two children or three...
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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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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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Groundbreaking Grant Shown to Mitigate Impact of Childhood Trauma [amnews.com]
By Ben Chandler, Betty "B.J." Adkins, and David Finke, Advocate-Messenger, August 13, 2019 Semple Elementary first-grade teacher Christina Carter read a story to her class about a child who faced stressful events every day, making it hard to focus at school. After the story, she gave her students a prompt — if Ms. Carter only knew. Some of the responses were eye-opening. “If Ms. Carter only knew … I get my sister ready in the morning and that’s why we are always late.” “If Ms. Carter only...
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Groundbreaking Grant Shown to Mitigate Impact of Childhood Trauma [amnews.com]
By Ben Chandler, Betty "B.J." Adkins, and David Finke, Advocate-Messenger, August 13, 2019 Semple Elementary first-grade teacher Christina Carter read a story to her class about a child who faced stressful events every day, making it hard to focus at school. After the story, she gave her students a prompt — if Ms. Carter only knew. Some of the responses were eye-opening. “If Ms. Carter only knew … I get my sister ready in the morning and that’s why we are always late.” “If Ms. Carter only...
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Homeless Students Suffer Consequences of Housing, Food Insecurity | Homeless, Butte County [chicoer.com]
By Natalie Hanson, Chico Enterprise-Record, January 16, 2020 At least 70% of Oroville’s high school students are considered socioeconomically-disadvantaged. In Chico, Between 400 and 500 children are categorized as housing insecure at any time during the Chico Unified School district’s school year. Across the county, thousands of students often rely on each district for help just to get to school and to get a meal. In these statistics a tragic side is seen in the Butte County homelessness...
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How Childhood Trauma Can Result in Workplace Violence
Considering the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in a person’s life can prove useful in understanding and mitigating the risk of workplace violence.
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How Early-Life Challenges Affect how Children Focus, Face the Day [Washington.edu]
By Kim Eckart, UW News, June 4, 2019 Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, also can lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry, muting the effects of stress hormones. These hormones rise to help us face challenges, stress or to simply “get up and go.” Together, these impacts to executive function and stress hormones create a snowball effect, adding to social and emotional challenges that can continue through childhood. A new...
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I Was Pregnant When He Hit Me. Here’s #WhyIStayed. (www.thedailybeast.com)
Author: Anonymous Updated Apr. 14, 2017 2:49PM ET / Published Sep. 10, 2014 5:55AM ET I was eight weeks pregnant with my second child when my husband hit me. To be fair, he told me that he would kill me while he throttled my neck, and once I broke free I tried desperately to fight back. Then he hit me. Open hand right across the face, so hard it felt like a punch. We were about to go to sleep, but I decided to tease him about his weird habit of having the pillow a certain way on the bed.
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Leading an Organization Through the COVID-19 Crisis [blog.boardsource.org]
By Phil Buchanan, BoardSource, March 26, 2020 Editor’s note: Running an organization is a huge responsibility on its own, but doing so in today’s environment is truly a different beast. We are in uncharted waters. This post, originally published as a series of tweets by Phil Buchanan — president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) and author of "Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count" — touches on 15 things to keep in mind as you adjust to the many...
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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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Parent with ACEs: Is it Time to Change Your Parenting Playbook [sfbayview.com]
By Diana Hembree, San Francisco Bay View, February 1, 2020 If you experienced severe hardship as a child, are you more likely to have children with behavior or mental health problems? The short answer is yes. A recent UCLA study shows that the children of parents with four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse or neglect, are twice as likely to develop ADHD, which makes it more likely children will become hyperactive and unable to pay attention or control their...
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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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Pinetree Institute Podcast With Dr. Christina Bethell: Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and ACEs.
The Pinetree Institute is a Maine non-profit located on the NH border in Eliot. They conduct research and present workshops on ACEs and resilience. A workshop with Dr. Christina Bethell was scheduled for today, but was cancelled because of COVID-19. Dr. Bethell's field of expertise is PCE (Positive Childhood Experiences) and their role in combatting ACEs and promoting resilience throughout the lifetime. Because of the circumstances, Pinetree Institute is offering a 40 minute podcast in which...
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Playing Teen Sports May Protect From Some Damages Of Childhood Trauma (npr.org)
Playing Teen Sports May Protect From Some Damages Of Childhood Trauma May 28, 2019 4:43 PM ET SUSIE NEILSON Participation in team sports as a teen may help protect against the long-term mental health effects of childhood trauma. Hero Images/Getty Images As a child, Molly Easterlin loved playing sports. She started soccer at age 4, and then in high school, she played tennis and ran track. Sports, Easterlin believes, underlie most of her greatest successes. They taught her discipline and...
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Powerful Federal Hearing on "Identifying, Preventing and Treating Childhood Trauma"
Riveting and emotional: The full, first-ever Congressional hearing on “Identifying, Preventing, and Treating Childhood Trauma” by the Oversight Committee chaired by Representative Elijah Cummings. Across the hearing, the story of developmental trauma is well-conveyed and powerful.
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Real Strategies to End Bullying - what gets assessed gets addressed.
October is National Bullying Prevention Month and we'd like to shed some light on this global epidemic that is greatly affecting our youth: 1 in 3 students are targets of bullying 12,000,000 students will be bullied this year 100,000 kids skip school each day because they do not feel safe Learn how experts are tackling bullying through data tracking, relationship mapping, community organizing, and more. Educators will walk away with a real roadmap that they can use and implement right away...
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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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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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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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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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Ways to Counter the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences [psychologytoday.com]
By Veronika Tait, Psychology Today, October 4, 2019 Groundbreaking research conducted in the 1990s found that the greater number of negative childhood experiences a person had, the more likely they were to experience poor health outcomes later in life such as heart disease, liver disease, and cancer. A new study published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect has found that positive experiences, such as having a teacher who cares about them, can buffer against these negative outcomes.
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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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What You Need to Know if Your Child is Depressed. (No. 1: You Are Not a Failure.) [washingtonpost.com]
By Neha Chaudhary, The Washington Post, February 3, 2020 A woman walked into an emergency room with her 13-year-old son, her lips pursed. He was there for a psychiatric evaluation for suicidal thoughts that he had voiced to his school counselor. After my evaluation of her son, I sat down with her to talk. She didn’t look pleased. “I hope you’re here to tell me you’re discharging him,” she said. “We have to get to soccer practice in an hour.” What I was about to tell her was the opposite.
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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.