Tagged With "Chief Justice's ACEs Informed Courts"
Calendar Event
The 2nd Annual Resilient Church Conference (Glendale AZ)
Calendar Event
The Third Annual Conference on Buddhism and Race
Blog Post
Justice Matters is an organization comprising...
Justice Matters is an organization comprising 21 diverse religious congregations in Lawrence, KS. Its mission is to "move Lawrence toward a City of God where justice rolls down like a mighty river", according to Ben MacConnell, its lead organizer....
Blog Post
71 ACEs Initiatives Join ACEs Connection in 2019
We are proud to celebrate the 71 community initiatives that joined the ACEs Connection network in 2019. They are listed below, and can be found along with all existing ACEs Connection communities via the ACEs Connection map. Communities in the United States: Midwest ACEs Indiana Coalition Ardmore (OK) Behavioral Health Collaborative: Chisago County (MN) ACEs Initiative Franciscan Health ACEs Connection FH–Jasper & Newton Counties (IN ) FH–LaPorte County (IN) FH–Lake County (IN)...
Blog Post
A Buddhist cop’s approach to justice (lionsroar.com)
Cheri Maples, a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and former police officer, addresses the U.S.’s crisis in policing and how a Buddhist outlook could help foster more positive relations between citizens and police. I became serious about developing a consistent mindfulness practice when I attended my first retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately as “Thay”), in 1991, seven years into my twenty-year police career. Thay convinced me that part of the skill set of a police officer was the...
Blog Post
A Florida ACEs Tour
RADICAL GRACE – WHAT I LET GOD SEE AND ACCEPT IN ME ALSO BECOMES WHAT I CAN SEE AND ACCEPT IN MYSELF. AND EVEN MORE, IT BECOMES THAT WHEREBY I SEE EVERYTHING ELSE. ~ RICHARD ROHR For the past three months, I’ve been driving through various parts of Florida witnessing events and gatherings of communities committed to creating safe, loving, trauma informed, and trauma healing spaces. On Friday February 22nd, I was in Tarpon Springs, attending the monthly gathering of Robin Saeger’s...
Blog Post
ACEs & African Americans Community on ACEs Connection
ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...
Blog Post
ACEs Science Champion Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
Blog Post
Action needed today by trauma advocates to urge Congress to address mental health and trauma in current COVID-19 legislation
The follow is a message from Dan Press, Legal Advisor to the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice ), about the need to contact Congress regarding a COVID 19 funding bill being considered this weekend. He is urging ACEs science/trauma advocates and leaders to send emails to their U.S. Senators and Representatives immediately to address the mental health and trauma implications of this pandemic. All – I hate to bother you on a Sunday, but we urgently need you to contact Congress to...
Blog Post
An ACES Presentation as a Sermon
My 45-minute Understanding ACES teaching was delivered on Sunday to a church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. This will be followed by a special weekly series that addresses the Christian/biblical solution to the many spiritual risk factors that stem from early life trauma.
Blog Post
Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh (lionsroar.com)
bell hooks: I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love. The civil rights movement was such a wonderful movement for social justice because the heart of it was love—loving everyone. It was believing, as you taught us yesterday, that we can always start anew; we can always practice forgiveness. I don’t have to hate any person because I can always start anew, I can always reconcile. What I’m trying to understand is why are we moving away from...
Blog Post
Building a Resilient Community (United Way of East Central Iowa)
ACES: Building a Resilient Community Childhood trauma has affected the majority of people in our community. Specific family problems as well as child abuse and neglect (summarized as Adverse Childhood Experience, or ACEs) have been shown to...
Blog Post
Building a Trauma-Informed Nation - Be a Part - Become an Amplifier Site
Home Background REGISTER to participate in person REGISTER to participate via webcast REGISTER to participate at an amplifier site (webcast downlink) REGISTER to host an amplifier site Amplifier Site (webcast downlink) Speakers...
Blog Post
Building community by facing collective trauma with hope
It was a sunny fall afternoon a few years ago. A friend posed a very interesting question as we ate our dinner on the deck at a local restaurant. “What do you think, Chris, about the possibility of a whole group of people experiencing a reaction to trauma? Like, maybe our whole nation is still traumatized from 9-11-01, or Katrina, or maybe just a whole host of cascading traumatic events?” We spoke at some length about what a reaction to trauma would look like in a society at large, and it...
Blog Post
Chaplain Chris Haughee Interview
To quote a friend who just gave her testimony at our church about her own struggles with mental health misdiagnosis and recovery, she was told after her first hospitalization, “This won’t be the first time you deal with this.” Our trauma is always with us.
Blog Post
Clergy embrace trauma informed training in Greater Philadelphia region
An exceptional all-day “Trauma-Informed Training for Clergy” event was held in Philadelphia in May 2017, organized by JSR Educational Enrichment Strategies, Inc. Founder and President Doris Smith-Ribner, Retired PA State Appeals Court Judge. Judge Smith-Ribner recognized the need for this training particularly for those on the front lines of dealing with the impacts of trauma and its prevalence within Philadelphia—the Clergy. Here is her report from that meeting. Highly-regarded trauma...
Blog Post
Divinity School graduate finds his community in ministry [The Harvard Gazette]
By Lian Parsons, June 27, 2019, The Harvard Gazette Israel Buffardi, M.Div. ’19, walked a long and winding path before finding his calling. The Rhode Island native was raised Catholic and from an early age felt a strong draw to spirituality and ritual. At age 14, he decided he wanted to become a priest. This plan changed when he realized he was queer. Coming out precipitated many questions about his faith, such as the acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ people. “I felt like I had a deep...
Blog Post
“Does Anyone Want the Child?”: Mom’s Viral Response to the Question That Destroyed Her Boy Is Too Powerful to Ignore (faithit.com)
It is said that if just ONE family in every single church across America agreed to take in ONE foster child, there would be nobody left in the system. Think about that for a minute. How many families do you have at your church? How many churches do you have in your town? It would take just ONE of those families from each of those churches to close what seems like an impossible revolving door. Sarah and her husband learned of the overwhelming foster care needs while researching adoption...
Blog Post
Elevate Montana - Helena Affiliate and "trial run" of new trauma-informed curriculum for churches
To date, over 80 copies of the curriculum Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations have gone out around the country. Released this past spring, most have ordered it to preview the materials prior to utilization this coming fall. So, while feedback has been positive, there have been few users with specific comments related to how their teaching experience has gone (because, well... they...
Blog Post
Five things your congregation can do to support criminal justice reform [afsc.org]
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, with over 2.4 million people currently behind bars. Poor people and people of color are incarcerated at vastly disproportionate rates. Many prisoners are held in solitary confinement or denied adequate medical care and educational opportunities, and few resources are invested in reentry or community programs. AFSC works to end mass incarceration, improve conditions for people who are in prison, stop prison...
Blog Post
For those that ordered... the trauma-informed curriculum for churches is headed out the door this week!
It's been a labor of love more than a year in the making, and it is exciting to see the curriculum come together and head out to those that will give this first version a "test drive" this spring and (hopefully) give me some great feedback so I can make improvements over the summer and make the curriculum better! It is called "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations." The study is...
Blog Post
Getting Proximate to Pain and Holding the Power of Love (dailygood.org)
KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: I was introduced to Lucas Johnson by the great civil rights elder, Vincent Harding. He told me that this young man embodies the genius of nonviolence for our century — nonviolence not as a withholding of violence, but as a way of being present. And it was a great pleasure to bring him together with Rami Nashashibi, a kindred force in the Muslim world. Lucas is based in Amsterdam. Rami’s center of gravity is the South Side of Chicago. They both are evolving the...
Blog Post
Healing our Communities through Trauma Informed Ministries
Thirteen faith leaders, behavioral health providers, and community leaders gathered on August 12 in City Heights for an introduction to the science and practice of adverse childhood experiences, and to hear about an upcoming series of workshops about mental health services in their communities. The series, which is led by Pastor Jesus Sandoval, chair of the Faith Based Academy, intends to bring together 25 Hispanic and 25 African American ministries with staff from San Diego County's Health,...
Blog Post
Investing in the Next Generation of Health-Focused Leaders [RWJF.org]
Looking out upon the worshippers at New Era Church in downtown Indianapolis, Rev. Dr. Clarence C. Moore sees row after row of families facing difficult challenges stemming from a pressing statewide problem: the over-incarceration of black people. Indiana ranks second in the country for the number of children who have an incarcerated parent. As a result, many children live in single-parent households or foster care, and live in poverty. Many lack a formal education until they reach...
Blog Post
Investments in New Hanover County’s Resiliency Paying Off During Time of Pandemic
Cliff Barnett, Wilmington city council member; pastor at Warner Temple AME Zion, and chair of the Family Faith and Community committee for the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (RTF), shares experience in using sign language during a regularly scheduled RTF meeting. (Other photos are from recent monthly RTF meetings). With training, community’s front lines are proving resilient to and aware of trauma’s impact WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA April 7, 2020 Two years ago, the Resiliency Task Force...
Blog Post
Jimmy Carter Makes One Final Push to End Racism [TheAtlantic.com]
Jimmy Carter, 91, has a wish for his fellow Baptists: end racism. “Our country is waking up now to the fact that we still have a long way to go in winning a battle that we thought was over in the 1970s or ’60s,” he said in an interview. The longtime Sunday school teacher and former United States president wants to start this change within his own faith: He’s pushing churches to organize around social-justice issues, including racial discrimination. But the future of progressive Christianity...
Blog Post
LGBTQ, Traumatized Homeless Youth More Vulnerable to Being Trafficked, Report Finds [jjie.org]
By Stell Simonton, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 21, 2019 Understanding how homeless youth are trafficked is important information for the organizations offering them services. That’s the conclusion of a report released today based on a 2018 count of homeless and runaway young people ages 14-25 in Atlanta. “Clearly, talking about trafficking is critically important,” said Eric Wright, chairman of the sociology department at Georgia State University, who led the survey and...
Blog Post
LucidWitness: Increasing Public-Awareness of Developmental Trauma
LucidWitness blogposts are designed for social media to help grow awareness of developmental trauma among your network(s).
Blog Post
New Trauma-informed curriculum for training ministries available as an instant digital download!!
I have been blessed by the response to the curriculum "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks," now having sent it out to ministries in 26 States and the District of Columbia. I have already received a little feedback and made some minor changes to content, but what I am most excited about is that t he curriculum is now available in a downloadable digital format! For those that have not seen previous posts on the curriculum, the study is for adult small groups or classes and is laid out into the...
Blog Post
Peek Inside a Classroom: Jasmine
© Elliot Gilfix/Flickr . What happened to Jasmine? . Photo © Jinx!/Flickr When you look...
Blog Post
Peek Inside a Classroom: Jose
Photo credit Max Klingensmith at flickr . Jose was one of the calmest, quietest, most peaceful boys in the classroom. The kind of boy everybody loves. ...
Blog Post
Personal stories from witnesses, U.S. representatives provided an emotional wallop to House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on childhood trauma
Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...
Blog Post
Population-Based Analysis of Temporal Trends in the Prevalence of Depressed Mood Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Youths From 1999 Through 2017 [jamanetwork.com]
By Alexandra H. Bettis, Richard T. Liu, Jama Pediatrics, October 21, 2019 Depression in adolescence is highly prevalent and associated with negative long-term outcomes.1 Despite decades of research on treatment for adolescent depression, sexual minority youths remain a particularly at-risk group.2 Temporal trends inform progress in addressing the need to eliminate health disparities among sexual minority populations.3 To our knowledge, this study presents the first population-representative...
Blog Post
SAMHSA’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach
Please check out SAMHSA's new guideance on Trauma: http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content//SMA14-4884/SMA14-4884.pdf From the intro: "The purpose of this paper is to develop a working concept of trauma and a trauma-informed approach and...
Blog Post
Soil-to-Sanctuary: Black Churches, Powerful Cultural Forces, Set Their Sights on Food Security
“We feel that apolitical and ‘color-blind’ approaches to addressing food inequity fly in the face of the statistics, which clearly show that Black people are disproportionately impacted in a negative way by food apartheid, environmental racism, and discrimination in planning and public policy,” says Brown. “To ignore these realities in [so-called] food justice work is a gross miscalculation at best.” ...
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Something to Consider... for the next time you teach or preach on worry
As I start to talk with pastors about why ACEs matter and why they should inform themselves and their congregations, I regularly hear something like this: "But why does it matter? What difference should it make in ministry? Can't I simply preach and teach the Bible and leave the results up to God?" By way of answer to these questions, I am starting to put together a training called "10 things that kid with ACEs would like you to know: moving your church toward greater empathy." The following...
Blog Post
Study Uncovers Barriers to Addressing Mental Health Issues in the PC(USA) [pres-outlook.org]
By Presbyterian News Service, February 7, 2020 Although Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members and leaders desire to address mental health issues in their communities and churches, many feel unprepared to do so. That’s according to a churchwide study recently conducted on behalf of the leadership staff of the Presbyterian Mental Health Initiative called for by the 2018 General Assembly. The study was commissioned by the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Compassion, Peace & Justice Ministry,...
Blog Post
The Dalai Lama on a Human Approach to World Peace (upliftconnect.com)
Bringing Back the Humanity Anger plays no small role in current conflicts such as those in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the North-South problem, and so forth. These conflicts arise from a failure to understand one another’s humanness. The answer is not the development and use of greater military force, nor an arms race. Nor is it purely political or purely technological. Basically it is spiritual, in the sense that what is required is a sensitive understanding of our common human...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Congregation Movement in Arizona
As a social work professional, I was involved in the trauma field twenty years ago. But I became a charismatic nondenominational church pastor, starting a college campus prayer movement. With my cultural heritage and training at an evangelical seminary, the focus of my ministry has been intercession, multi-ethnic discipleship and servant leadership. However, the development of community service involvement with the ministry brought me back to the engagement in my previous professional field.
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Congregation Movement in Arizona
As a social work professional, I was involved in the trauma field twenty years ago. But I became a charismatic nondenominational church pastor, starting a college campus prayer movement. With my cultural heritage and training at an evangelical seminary, the focus of my ministry has been intercession, multi-ethnic discipleship and servant leadership. However, the development of community service involvement with the ministry brought me back to the engagement in my previous professional field.
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Congregations Community of Practice meeting Apr 29
This message is from Cherri Pruitt Cherri J. Pruitt, Region VIII Maternal and Child Health Consultant HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau 999 18 th Street, South Terrace, Suite 472 Denver, Colorado 80202 303-844-7872 (phone)...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Congregations Community of Practice meeting June 24 2015
Short summary of presentations and topics discuss Briefing on Welcoming Movement and Welcoming Congregations Stephanie Kreps Stephanie Kreps from ?? shared the Unitarian Universalist...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Congregations Community of Practice meeting May 27, 2015
LINK TO THE RECORDING OF THE MEETING: https://hrsa.connectsolutions.com/p1zlsjfmfww/ Short summary of presentations and topics discuss Northeast Michigan Trauma-Informed Community Action : With the goal of making Northeast...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
Unconditional Love: Faith Leaders as Agents of Change in the ACEs and Resilience Movement
The Rev. Sanghoon Yoo learned about the ACE Study, saw the film Paper Tigers and understood that there might be a way to bridge the chasm between faith-based views of wellness and traditional approaches to mental health. “When I heard from the science and Paper Tigers that one of the most important factors for resilience is unconditional love, I thought: That’s not medical. That’s my language. That was an ‘aha’ moment for me; I never thought mental health and faith would go together.” Yoo,...
Blog Post
USD Kroc Insight newsletter - Look Both Ways: Religous Leaders and the Challenge of Engaging Community and Police
Across the United States, including in San Diego where the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (Kroc IPJ) launched the Building Trust Partnership (BTP), relationships between communities and law enforcement are strained and plagued by mistrust. To build relationships and restore trust between police and communities while confronting difficult, emotionally and politically charged issues, religious leaders must engage with both sides and remain neutral, even when speaking to one may be...
Blog Post
"Warriors of HOPE" Series Continues This Sunday on "Breaking the Silence" Radio Program with Special Guest, Judge Steven Teske!
The fourth week of the 6-week "Warriors of Hope" event will continue this Sunday night at 8 pm Central Time on "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" radio program. This 6-week event features six very special guests that will offer their insight on the power of HOPE in their lives and provide encouragement, wisdom and insight on the need for resilience in lives today. This series has resulted in praise from around the world from the listeners that have tuned in. This week's guest...