Tagged With "New York Times"
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Trauma in adulthood can begin in the first 2 months of life [heraldnet.com]
By Paul Schoenfeld, HeraldNet, June 9, 2019. Last week, I attended the 30th annual International Trauma Conference in Boston. Several thousand mental health clinicians from around the world attended. It was sponsored by Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost researchers and clinicians in developmental trauma. He wrote an excellent book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” which I highly recommend. In the last 10 years, the field of neuroscience has blossomed. With new imaging...
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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 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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USDA Announces Record-Breaking Funding for 2019 Farm to School Grants [USDA.gov]
By USDA, July 16, 2019 WASHINGTON, July 16, 2019 – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced today the award of more than $9 million in USDA Farm to School Program grants that will increase the amount of healthy, local f oods served in school s and c reate economic opportunities for nearby farmers. This year marks an all-time high of funding and projects in the program, with grants supporting 126 selected projects across 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These...
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WEBINAR: Amplify Impact from National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation on 8/29
High-quality early childhood education (ECE) has an enormous positive impact on lifelong health, serving as a protective factor against adult disease and disability. Children who receive high-quality ECE stay in school longer and earn more income as adults, helping to close the income inequality gap. Yet parents sometimes struggle to access or pay for available programs, and only about 16% of children who were eligible for federal childcare subsidies in 2015 received them. Given the high...
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Webinar: Crossroads of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Developmental Disabilities
Physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, child life professionals, and other patient service providers are invited and encouraged to join a webinar entitled: "Crossroads of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Developmental Disabilities" Increased levels of toxic stress, which can be caused by recurrent or chronic exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), can impair neurodevelopment, behavior, and overall health of a child (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services...
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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 Happens When Old and Young Connect (dailygood.org)
This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. has more people over 60 than under 18. That milestone has brought with it little celebration. Indeed, there are abundant concerns that America will soon be awash in a gray wave, spelling increased health care costs for an aging population, greater housing and transportation needs, and fewer young workers contributing to Social Security. Some fear a generational conflict over shrinking resources, a looming tension between kids and “canes.” As I...
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What's Lost When Black Children Are Socialized Into a White World [theatlantic.com]
By Dani McClain, The Atlantic, November 21, 2019 Jessica Black is a Pittsburg, California, mother of two black teenagers, both of whom have been disciplined multiple times at their middle and high schools. Her daughter has been suspended more than once, and teachers often deem her son’s behavior out of line, reprimanding him for not taking off his hoodie in class and for raising his voice. In observing her own family and others, Black has noticed a pattern: Behaviors that many black parents...
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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 You and Your Family Need to Know About Maternal Depression [nytimes.com]
For the first time, a national health panel has recommended a way to prevent depression during and after pregnanc y. This condition, known as perinatal depression, affects up to one in seven women and is considered the most common complication of pregnancy. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, said two types of counseling can help keep symptoms at bay. Its recommendation means that under the Affordable Care Act, such counseling must be covered by insurance with no...
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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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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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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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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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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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30 people can end ACEs in your county. Why aren’t they?
No, we don’t need the president nor congress. We do need the following people in your county to stop business as usual and focus on preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). City mayors City counselors County commissioners School board members These local elected leaders—many of them your neighbors and colleagues—have the capacity to collectively understand the emotional and financial costs of ACEs and trauma. We can’t have family-friendly cities and counties while we live in an...
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43 Amazing Benefits of Child-led Free Play
Self-directed free play is vital for the healthy development of children. Here we see 43 science-backed benefits it brings.
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5 Reasons Addressing ACEs is Good Corporate Social Responsibility
While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can potentially increase a company’s profit over time, CSR is best demonstrated with dramatic improvement in the lives of employees who have suffered from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
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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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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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Beyond the ACE score: Examining relationships between timing of developmental adversity, relational health and developmental outcomes in children (www.sciencedirect.com)
Highlights excerpted on Science Direct about a new study by Erin P.Hambrick, Thomas W.Brawner, BruceD. Perry, KristieBrandt, Christine Hofmeister, and Jen O.Collins published in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing. Link to Science Direct about a new study by Erin P.Hambrick, Thomas W.Brawner, BruceD. Perry, KristieBrandt, Christine Hofmeister, and Jen O.Collins published in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing.
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Building A Trauma Informed System of Care Toolkit
We are delighted to make available the Building Strong Brains of Tennessee funded, Building A Trauma Informed System of Care toolkit. This toolkit is based upon the work of the Northeast Tennessee ACEs Connection group and it's many partners since 2015. In time, Building Strong Brains of Tennessee will also have printed copies available. In preparing this toolkit, Dr. Andi Clements and I tried to share in a very transparent fashion the steps we've taken, mistakes we've made and inspiring...
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Building Organizational Resilience in the Face of a Ubiquitous Challenge
Ubiquitous: present, appearing, found everywhere. The challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic fit this definition better than any event I have experienced in my lifetime. We each have a moment when our life changed – a before and after COVID-19. For some it was a few weeks ago – when you worried about laying people off, contemplated canceling events or faced confounding questions such as “How do I keep my staff safe?” For many it was the news of Wednesday night, March 11: suspension of...
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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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Can Music Heal Trauma? Exploring the Therapeutic Powers of Sound [pitchfork.com]
Imagine you are a newborn baby in an intensive care unit. Maybe you were born prematurely, or didn’t get enough oxygen during the delivery. There might be an IV in your tiny arm, with a small board holding it down so you can’t rip it out. You might have a tube going into your nose. You are alone, finally stabilizing after a traumatic event. But then, the doctors come in. “It’s as if you are finally safe in your nice warm bed and suddenly, out of nowhere, someone rips the sheets off of you,...
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CDC announces Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Research & Evaluation Fellowship opportunity
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has announced an Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Research & Evaluation Fellowship opportunity that resides in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) at CDC. The new fellowship position reflects a growing ACEs capacity within the CDC. The announcement states “The selected candidate will assist with research related to evaluating comprehensive community-based prevention strategies for primary...
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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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Connections between early childhood program and teenage outcomes [sciencedaily.com]
A new study published in PLOS ONE by researchers from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development examined the long-term impacts of an early childhood program called the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) and found evidence suggesting that the program positively affected children's executive function and academic achievement during adolescence. The program targeted children's self-regulation skills while also raising the quality of inner-city...
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Control, Predictability Can Help Counter Students' Trauma, Research Finds [blogs.edweek.org]
Interventions that help students think flexibly and feel more control over their learning may help counter the effects of disadvantage and trauma, suggests emerging research at the International Mind-Brain Education conference here. More than 1 in 3 U.S. children have experienced at least one major trauma—from abuse or neglect to the loss of a family member to death, prison, or drugs—by the time they enter kindergarten. By the end of their school years, nearly half have had at least one...
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Controlled Breathing Calms Your Brain (wakeup-world.com)
The way you breathe — whether fast or slow, shallow or deep — is intricately tied to your body as a whole, sending messages that affect your mood , your stress levels and even your immune system. Yet, breathing is unique in that it’s both easily ignored (becoming a basic background of your life) and revered at the same time. In the latter case, it’s almost instinctual to advise someone to “take a deep breath” if they’re feeling anxious, stressed or fearful. While it’s long been known that...
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COVID-19: The Trauma of Witnessing So Much Illness and Death Will Have Lasting Effects [medicinenet.com]
From MedicineNet, May 3, 2020 The tragic death by suicide this week of an emergency department physician who had been caring for COVID-19 patients in New York City underscores the huge psychological impact of the pandemic -- which will linger long after the virus is gone, experts say. "For frontline responders, the trauma of witnessing so much illness and death will have lasting effects for many," Bruce Schwartz, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), said during the...
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Do you know any college students who are raising awareness about mental health on their campus?
Do you know any college students who are raising awareness about mental health on their campus? Please encourage them to apply for JED's Student Voice of Mental Health Award by our new deadline: Friday, March 1. The honoree receives: A $3,000 cash scholarship Recognition on The Jed Foundation's website A trip to NYC to accept the award at JED's Annual Gala on June 5 https://www.jedfoundation.org/ 6 E 39th Street, Suite 1204 New York, NY 10016 TEL (212) 647-7544 FAX (212) 647-7542
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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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Emotional Well-Being and Coping During COVID-19 [psychiatry.ucsf.edu]
From Weill Institute for Neurosciences, UCSF, May 2020 These are unprecedented times. We need to work extra hard to manage our emotions well. Expect to have a lot of mixed feelings. Naturally we feel anxiety, and maybe waves of panic, particularly when seeing new headlines. A recent article by stress scientist and Vice Chair of Adult Psychology Elissa Epel, PhD, outlines the psychology behind the COVID-19 panic response and how we can try to make the best of this situation. Our anxiety is...
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Emotional Wellness Toolkit [nih.gov]
How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships, and your overall mental health. How you react to your experiences and feelings can change over time. Emotional wellness is the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change and difficult times. Flip each card below for checklists on how to improve your health in each area. Click on the images to read articles about each topic. You can also print the checklists separately or all...
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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...