Tagged With "Coronavirus Pandemic likely to Trigger"
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Trauma-Informed Care is Not a Program For Your Clients
Understanding the long-term impact of developmental trauma, how trauma impacts the brain, and the science of resiliency is a powerful first step toward change. It is exciting to watch people begin to let this knowledge soak in… and even more exciting when they begin to ask “Now what?” As I have worked with organizations across the state, I have found that often what they are really looking for is the curriculum or recipe book that they can follow for their clients or students. Even those...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Calming Corners
In our trauma-informed classrooms blog post last week, we talked about choices. We mentioned the benefit of having a space in the room where a child can go to help them calm down and become regulated. While this has become increasingly common at the elementary level, we have found that this is a tool that can work for students of all ages. Even when we survey adults about the things that help them to calm down when they are upset, one of the most common answers we hear is that they want time...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Choices
One thing that is common among many traumatic events is a complete lack of choices. When a person feels like they do not have a choice or control, it can be triggering and cause the negative emotions that the person ties to the original trauma. While you can do a lot relationally with how you interact with your students, you can also set up your physical space with choices in mind. As you think about choices in your classroom, here are a couple of options you may want to consider. First of...
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Trauma-Informed is Messy Business…
Words like trauma-informed and resiliency get thrown around a lot these days. And for many, the visions they call up are a bit too glossy. You see resiliency and trauma-informed aren’t always pretty. Resiliency can look like closing the bathroom door and collapsing in tears… but then washing your face and going back into the world, carrying the belief that you can survive and the hope that things will get better. It looks like begrudgingly going on that walk with a friend, when the little...
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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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UPDATED with The Human Element: Hosting a Film Screening to Start or Grow an ACEs Initiative: How-to Guide
Movie screenings of documentaries, such as Paper Tigers or Resilience are popular ways to introduce communities to ACEs science. Cissy White provides details about how to put on a screening event.
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Visualizing Health Equity: One Size Does Not Fit All Infographic [rwjf.org]
To build a Culture of Health, we must first ensure everyone has the basics to be healthy. And when it comes to expanding opportunities for health, thinking the same approach will work universally is like expecting everyone to be able to ride the same bike. Download and share this image to #PromoteHealthEquity, and help create a shared vision of better health for all. [To read more, please click here .]
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Wellness and Resiliency Toolkit for Kids with Trauma
I'm excited to share a booklet created for youth in Oregon foster care at a Wellness camp this summer. Youth were provided with these quick, easy and effective (and evidence based) "Mindful Moments" exercises in their Wellness Toolkits and they were practiced throughout the day at camp so that they could be remembered in times of stress and dysregulation. The exercised are designed to quickly bring them back to a state of calm. The youth really enjoyed them, and found them easy and...
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What Does the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Mean for Families? [jamanetwork.com]
By Lindsey Thompson and Sonja A. Rasmussen, JAMA Pediatrics, March 13, 2020 A new viral illness called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was discovered in China in December 2019. Lessons learned from China and similar viral diseases can help families prepare for spread in the US. How children in the US will be affected is still mostly unknown. So far, proportionately fewer children have gotten sick in China, and the effects on them have mostly been mild. It is important for families to...
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What’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness? [Minful Leader]
By David Treleaven A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice. A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before. “Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems to be making things...
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What’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness? [Minful Leader]
By David Treleaven A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice. A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before. “Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems to be making things...
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What Will It Be Like When the Lockdown Lifts? [psychologytoday.com]
By Bryan E. Robinson, Psychology Today, April 15, 2020 Although we don’t know exactly when, at some point in the future self-isolation will end, and many of us will return to offices, restaurants, and houses of worship. But what will that look like? One thing for sure, we will never return to normal; we will return to “a new normal.” And each of us will have repair work to do as we re-enter the world of physical proximity to coworkers and reconnecting with friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
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When Hidden Grief Gets Triggered During COVID-19 Confinement
first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...
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When It Comes to Your Mental Health, Listen to Your Body [verilymag.com]
In our culture, lack of sleep is worn like a badge of honor. We glorify busyness. Very few things cause us to change up our usual routine or do anything other than what we expect of ourselves. We tend to run on overdrive, barreling through the day’s to-do lists regardless of what we are feeling, to the point that we often don’t even realize what we are feeling—and not just emotionally. We often suppress or ignore physical and emotional feelings that get in the way or slow us down—feelings...
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When pregnant women who abuse opioids are treated like criminals, their babies suffer (latimes.com)
Laws that punish women who abuse drugs during a pregnancy are often billed as a way to protect unborn babies from addiction. But new research finds they have the opposite effect: After states enact laws treating pregnant drug users as unfit mothers or criminals, the number of newborns who contend with drug withdrawal jumps significantly. The new findings suggest that laws that criminalize a mother’s drug use during pregnancy or threaten to remove newborns from their mothers’ care discourage...
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Why Intentionally Building Empathy Is More Important Now Than Ever (kqed.org)
Those in helping professions like teaching, social work, or medicine can buffer themselves from burnout and “compassion fatigue” with self-care strategies, including meditation and social support . A study of nurses in acute mental health settings found staff support groups helped buffer the nurses, but only if they were structured to minimize negative communication and focused on talking about challenges in constructive ways. English Professor Cris Beam also studies empathy and wrote a book...
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Why Kids With ACEs Shouldn't Get a Pass on Chores
Don't worry that chores are too stressful for kids with ACEs, says trauma researcher Bob Sege, MD. “You don’t want to coddle them,” Sege said, “because the message they will get is that they are damaged goods. They need to know that the adversity they suffered is only one part of them; it’s not all of them.”
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Why Resilience is Harmful and How to Improve it
Resilience is awesome, but also poses some risks and challenges. In 2012 a special edition of the Social Justice Studies academic research journal explored some of the risks. An intro and 5 academic research articles go very deeply into the topic of the "Dangers of Resilience Promotion." All the articles can be downloaded free at this link. https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SSJ/issue/view/70 I will attempt to summarize those 6 articles here in common language, cuz the articles are...
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Why the Nation Should Screen All Students for Trauma Like California Does [theconversation.com]
By Sunny Shin, The Conversation, November 18, 2019 As the first person to hold the new role of Surgeon General of California, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is pushing an unprecedented plan to implement universal screenings for childhood trauma within the state’s schools. Childhood trauma is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as an “emotionally painful or distressful” event that “often results in lasting mental and physical effects.” Burke Harris’ plan is already more than a dream:...
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Why Trauma Survivors Can't Just "Let It Go" [themighty.com]
Laura's Note: This article is preaching to the choir here, I know, but maybe some of us can use a reminder not to beat ourselves up for not succeeding at following the conventional "wisdom" on recovering from childhood trauma or other difficulties that occurred in the past (because for trauma, especially the childhood variety, it doesn't work) -- and to remind ourselves that it's not only OK to abandon to "let it go" method, but far more productive and healthy in the long run to take the...
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Working Sessions
Merita Irby (Managing Partner, Big Picture Approach Consulting And Co-Founder & Executive Vice President, The Forum For Youth Investment) led the interactive working sessions. Cross-sector table activities focused on identifying what “ready and resilient” look like; the skillsets and mindsets that will help children be “ready”; and how different organizations and sectors can effectively partner. The slides and workbooks that guided the activities are available here.
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World Premiere: Stress & Resilience: How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 13, 2019 When the stress in your life just doesn’t let up, and it feels like you have no support to get through the day—let alone do everything you need to do to be the best parent you can be—it can seem like there’s nothing that can make it better. But there are resources that can help, and this kind of stress—known as “toxic stress”—doesn’t have to define your life. In this video, learn more about what toxic stress is, how it...
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YBRS survey and report from Monroe County, New York
Elizabeth Meeker, an ACEs Connection member from Monroe County, New York shared that her county schools added ACEs questions to their Youth Behavioral Risk Survey (YBRS) in 2015, which is administered to students in schools. They were kind enough to share the instrument as well as a summary report of findings (both attached here). Elizabeth has indicated that she is available to answer questions that you all may have about the implementation of the survey. Thank you Elizabeth, for sharing!
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The Resilience Champion Certificate-Organizational Training
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12 Myths of the Science of ACEs
The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...
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12 Myths of the Science of ACEs
The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...
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3 Concepts to Help Trauma Survivors Move Forward Into Healthier Relationships
It’s good, healthy and human to want love and seek it out. We live longer, healthier lives when we feel close to someone safe. Some people feel painfully disconnected, and long to open up to others. But then they stop themselves from reaching out. As therapists, we want to empower people to build more meaningful connections. For all of us, healthy relationships matter . In fact, deep relationships are essential to life as a healthy human being. For trauma survivors, the act of deepening...
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6 Habits of Hope (dailygood.org)
If we are not present, we will not see what’s happening and therefore miss out on life. Conversely, whenever we pay attention, life reveals itself to us Being present also cultivates intrinsic hope because it gives us more choices about how to act and makes it more likely that our choices will be appropriate in the moment. Mindfulness Being present is not only about noticing what is happening in the external world; it is also about noticing what is happening in our minds. In fact, you can’t...
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7 Ways to Help a Child Deal with Traumatic Stress
Traumatic stress feels awful. Thankfully, there are small things we can all do to help relax a hyperaroused nervous system.
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A Guide to Executive Function [developingchild.harvard.edu]
Executive function and self-regulation skills are like an air traffic control system in the brain—they help us manage information, make decisions, and plan ahead. We need these skills at every stage of life, and while no one is born with them, we are all born with the potential to develop them. But, how do we do that? The Center on the Developing Child created this Guide to Executive Function to walk you through everything you need to know about these skills and how to develop and practice...
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A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons [themarshallproject.org]
By The Marshall Project, May 8, 2020 Since March, The Marshall Project has been tracking how many people are being sickened and killed by COVID-19 in prisons and how widely it has spread across the country and within each state. Here, we will regularly update these figures counting the number of people infected and killed nationwide and in each prison system until the crisis abates. Cases By May 6, at least 20,119 people in prison had tested positive for the illness, a 39 percent increase...
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ACEs Connection launches Cooperative of Communities
The ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities launches today. We want to continue to contribute to the ACEs movement for as long as it takes to create a worldwide healing-centered culture based on ACEs science. We want that to take hold in this world in the same way electricity has — we only notice it if it isn’t there.
First, a clarification: Nothing on ACEsConnection.com changes! Membership remains free! Everything our current 300+ communities use stays free, and remains free for new ones.
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ACES Science 101 (FAQs)
What are ACEs? ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children's developing brains so profoundly that the effects show up decades later; they cause much of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence. ...
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ACEs teach us why racism is a health equity Issue: Dr. Flojaune Cofer (Part One)
Dr. Flojaune Cofer and Ben Duncan , each from public health backgrounds that focus on health disparities, addressed ACEs in the context of health equity for their panel entitled ACEs, Race, and Health Equity: Understanding and Addressing the Role of Race and Racism in ACEs Exposure and Healing . Cofer and Duncan co-presented to a standing-room-only audience on day one of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access co-hosted by ACEs Connection and the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco...
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BABY ACES: When we consider the traumas that qualify as ACEs, babies need their own list.
Babies are obviously very different from older children developmentally, including their ability to understand and process trauma. Indeed, a baby may be completely unaware of an actual ACE— say, the incarceration of their father— which a middle schooler would be painfully aware of. Yet at the same time, the baby could be much-more-acutely impacted by the secondary effect of this same ACE: a sad, stressed, and distracted mother. Similarly, if a parent dies in a car accident when a child is in...
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Building Resilient, Self-Healing Communities
Laura Porter, Co-Founder, ACE Interface ________________________________________ An exciting and somewhat logical outgrowth that has followed the Resilience documentary screenings sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation has been the creation of multidisciplinary teams formed to think about and take next steps within their communities. Led by Resilient Payne County, formed over two years ago, other communities are following a similar path in bringing key leaders together to assess their...
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Children of the Opioid Epidemic [nytimes.com]
It was not until her third month of feeling unwell, in the fall of 2016, that Alicia thought to take an at-home pregnancy test. Until then, she assumed her fatigue and nausea were withdrawal symptoms from the Percocets she’d been dependent upon since the year before. “When some days you don’t get enough, you could definitely throw up or wake up feeling sick,” she told me. “It was easily confused with morning sickness.” Alicia, who asked that I use her nickname to protect her privacy, was 26...
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Coronavirus Pandemic likely to Trigger more Post-Traumatic Stress Cases, LSU Researcher Says [nola.com]
By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com, March 30, 2020 A combination of stress, trauma and depression triggered by the coronavirus pandemic after the virus abates is likely to increase what’s already a high number of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among Louisiana residents, who have been hammered by natural and man-made disasters in the past, according to a behavioral epidemiologist at the Louisiana State University School of Public Health. Associate professor Ariane Rung bases that...
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David Treuer’s Rebellious New History of Native American Life [NewYorker.com]
A book attempts to counter a narrative of tragedy by examining the past. In the 2006 book “ Native American Fiction: A User’s Manual ,” by David Treuer, the novelist and academic describes an assignment that he gave to students in a Native American-fiction class. They read a short story by Sherman Alexie, in which a character is described shedding “Indian tears.” What, he asked his students, might “Indian tears” signify? The students responded with confidence, “as if unearthing whole...
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Disaster relief is about more than healing physical trauma. It's about emotional recovery too. [yahoo.com]
Disaster relief is most commonly thought of as providing food, water, and shelter to those affected by calamitous events beyond their control. But as communities in places like Texas and Puerto Rico are learning, disaster relief that only alleviates physical wants is not enough to put their communities back on their feet. After first responders have done their jobs to secure personal safety, an emotional recovery has to begin as well. [For more on this story by Rayne Ellis, go to...
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Doctors, Is It O.K. if We Talk About Why Finger-Wagging Isn’t Working? [nytimes.com]
Doctors give a lot of very good advice. Over the years, my primary care doctors have suggested better eating habits, more exercise, improved sleep hygiene, not carrying such a heavy shoulder bag, even exercises to improve my posture. The problem is, I am not sure I have ever made any changes in my behavior as a direct result. That would not come as a surprise to Ken Resnicow, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “Finger-wagging doesn’t work,” he said. “There’s...
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Documentary Broken Places uses archival footage to tell stories of ACEs and resilience over time
Why do children exposed to the same level of adversity in childhood have different outcomes? Why do some thrive and others become completely damaged? These were the kinds of burning questions that prompted filmmaker Roger Weisberg to produce the documentary Broken Places , which was shown in a private screening at the 2018 National ACEs Conference in San Francisco. The film delves into the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that each of the adults profiled in it endured first as children.
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Education resources, including mental health, for kids, families during coronavirus pandemic
We have an abundance of helpful links and posts swirling online to support families and school systems as we adjust to our new normal of learning while self-isolating at home. Thousands of free academic resources from the NYT student writing prompts, to the Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive Homeschool Resource list, to this excellent collection from BuzzFeed, and the ever-growing crowd-sourced collection aptly named Amazing Educational Resources are being shared. Our schools do so much more than...
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Ending family trauma starts with understanding the root causes of adverse childhood experiences
Trauma, the result of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), can only be prevented if we have an understanding of the root causes of childhood adversity. We know that a quarter of our children will endure at least three ACEs, which means living in households where adults misuse substances, are threatening or violent, have untreated mental health challenges, are abusive and neglectful, are dissolving marriages or are incarcerated. (We are not even talking about the one in eight children in the...
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Five Strategies for Engaging Family Partners [nichq.org]
Families have an unmatched impact on their child’s health, especially during the early years of life when children’s rapidly developing brains are laying the groundwork for their future health and wellbeing. To be the best advocates for their children, families need the right supports, whether they be access to public assistance programs like Medicaid and housing, opportunities to build a strong relationship with their child’s health provider, or resources that empower them to support their...
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Five Things You Wish Your Community’s Early Childhood Programs Knew [CitiesSpeak.org]
By NLC Staff on May 10, 2019 Cities, towns, and villages are places of innovation and solution finding. If you want to improve early childhood wellbeing—local leaders are key partners. The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Learning Community is a program of Boston Medical Center’s Vital Village. The learning community’s goal is to support local early childhood coalitions and build their capacity to work together with the broader community to improve the wellbeing of our...
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Free Resource: A Children's Book to Help Understand Social Distancing
Here's a link to the book I wrote to help kids understand social distancing and express their own emotions. This is really important or things stay bottled up inside. It is now in video version; podcast and ebook are coming. Feel free to forward to others -- kids of all ages across the nation and the globe.Reprint the link. Do an article on it. Share with friends. Circulate it. Tweet it. Free resource. Bottom line: make it viral. The cover is attached!!! I hope it helps. Navigating emotions...
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From Compassion Fatigue to Healing Centered Engagement: Turning Trauma Informed Values into Action
To pave the way for a truly strengths-based approach to full healing and recovery for both service users and burned out staff, we must educate them on (1) the central role of primal body responses to trauma (past and present), and (2) the early development of adaptive thoughts and behaviors in response to
traumatic experience.
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Great resource to search ACEs-related legistlation, bills & resolutions (by state)
Hi Everyone: Just wanted to share a few tools. Did you know there's a database on the National State Legislators site where you can search by state and by ACEs? Here's the link to this amazing tool. Here's what the database looks like. Did you know you can find ACEs and Ti laws and resolutions on a page of the Mapping the Movement tool? This is maintained by our technology lead, @Samantha Sangenito. Just be sure to click on the state you're interested in to see the bills and...