Tagged With "parent with addiction"
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Introducing the Full Potential Parenting Podcast!
I'm excited to announce that The Full Potential Parenting Podcast is here! This podcast features short (6-12 min.) segments with stress release techniques that work, offers book reviews of books that have been transformational, informative, or inspiring, introduces concepts critical to any parent of a child who is experiencing big (and confusing) emotions and behaviors, and provides insights about non-pharma approaches to healing. The first few episodes are now available on iTunes here:...
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Making the Good Stuff Louder: Trauma Dad, Bryon Hamel
Byron Hamel, (AKA Trauma Dad ), is a filmmaker , children's rights and men's wellness advocate. He's also a father with "ACEs through the roof," who survived child torture at the hands of a man now on death row for infanticide. Before the Father & ACEs chat started last week (see full chat transcript ), we discussed if and how to give a trigger warning. Hamel's experienced horrific trauma during childhood. He didn't want to traumatize those on the chat but wanted to be honest.
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Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom by Yolo CAPC and YCCA
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom. This guide for parents and caregivers, which we are launching during Child Abuse Prevention Month, contains tips and resources that parents and caregivers can use to promote resilience in their children and themselves. Nurturing Children During Times of Stress explains the effects of intense stress or...
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Parenting in a Pandemic [medium.com]
By Damon Korb, Medium, March 16, 2020 It is a well-known fact that children thrive when there are routines. This time of year most children wake up, get dressed, eat their breakfast, head off to school where they move from class to class, come home and have a snack, do some homework, have some free time or participate in an afterschool activity, eat dinner, and then get ready for bed. The daily life for most children is pretty mapped out and organized. But, as children suddenly need to stay...
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Parents worrying about coronavirus' toll on children's learning survey finds [edsource.org]
By John Fensterwald, EdSource, April 23, 2020 Buffeted by the coronavirus’ impact on their lives and on schools, Californians expressed worry about the spread of the pandemic and their personal finances, and parents in particular said they were concerned about school closures’ impact on their children’s ability to learn. But in an annual voter survey by the Public Policy Institute of California , they also gave high marks to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s handling of K-12 education and to their school...
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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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Everyday coping with moral injury: The perspectives of professionals and parents involved with child protection services
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740917305285?via%3Dihub This study examines how Child Protection Services (CPS) – involved parents and professionals describe coping with moral injury through resources available within their everyday lives. Moral injury refers to the lasting harm caused by one's own or another's actions in high-stakes situations that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations. This harm can occur at multiple, interacting psychological, social...
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Helping A Child Whose Parent is Struggling with Addiction [npr.org]
By Kavitha Cardoza, National Public Radio, February 6, 2020 What can you do if you're a teacher, a neighbor, a churchgoer, a coach ... and you suspect a child is being impacted by a parent's addiction? Maybe you're thinking, "I'd love to help but it's not my business." Or "I want to reach out but I don't know much about addiction." Remember that episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where he tells children to "look for the helpers"? You can be that helper simply by being present for the...
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In Los Angeles, Drug Court’s Wrap-around Services Help Parents Quit Using Drugs, Keep Their Kids [JJIE.org]
“I didn’t know how to be a mom,” Lisa Galvan said. “I was used to being by myself. It was really hard for me to adjust and even for the kids to adjust because I never was around. So when I came back out [of rehab] they gave them back to me, and within a month I started using again.” By the time Galvan was 20, she had three children and had been using meth for seven years. She had been a drug addict for far longer than she’d been a mother, and when she tried to get sober, she found out she...
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4 New Facts About ACEs Parents Need to Know [yahoo.com]
By Lisa Heffernan, Yahoo Lifestyle, January 24, 2020 Many Americans have at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) before the age of 17. These ACEs include child neglect and emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, household challenges like substance abuse, mental illness, incarceration, parental separation, or divorce, and witnessing intimate partner violence. A collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente San Diego, the original ACE...
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75 Calm Down Strategies for Kids
I came across this webpage and wanted to share with my parent and caregiver small groups. My intern typed it up into a handout. Feel free to share.
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Addiction Isn't the Problem, It's the Symptom [pesi.com]
Note: You may receive an unsolicited invite to a class when downloading the article. By Gabor Mate, PESI, May 2, 2020 Have you ever wondered, as I have, how someone with an addiction could go through 21 detox centers and 5 treatment facilities, yet continue to relapse? It wasn’t until I started working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—one of the most concentrated areas of drug use, mental illness, and poverty in North America—that I realized... The reason these treatments do NOT work is...
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Almost 60 Percent of Parents With Children Aged 14 to 18 Reported Them Being Bullied [comparitech.com]
By Paul Bischoff, Comparitech, May 8, 2019 Bullying used to be depicted as kids being shoved into lockers and coerced out of their lunch money by the older, more popular rulers of the school. Nowadays, the focus on bullying has shifted to those hiding behind computer screens and taunting others in the virtual world. While in-school bullying is on the rise, technology and social media have created alternate avenues for bullies to wreak havoc. Whether bullying is done on school grounds or over...
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Better Training for Foster Parents Could Have Changed My Life [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
When I was 11 years old, I went to the doctor for a check-up and my whole world stopped. In that one moment, the family I had spent six months becoming a part of decided against adoption. I was removed from my biological mother at just six months, and this was the closest I had ever been to joining a family. One week before a judge made me somebody’s daughter, my almost-parents decided that they did not want “a kid with a baby.” “You’re pregnant!” “What were you thinking?” “There are...
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Personal Touch Beats Technology for Parent-School Communication, Survey Finds [edweek.org]
By Jake Maher, Education Week, February 20, 2020 A new report from the Center for American Progress finds that personalization—not technology—is seen as the most important feature of good parent-school communication by key players in the public school community. CAP senior consultant Meg Benner and research associate Abby Quirk surveyed more than 900 parents who were broadly representative of the public school population, along with more than 400 teachers and more than 400 school leaders, to...
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Prevalence and Family-Related Factors Associated With Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, Self-injury in Children Aged 9 to 10 Years [jamanetwork.com]
By Danielle C. DeVille, Diana Whalen, Florence J. Breslin, et al., February 7, 2020 Key Points Question How common is suicidality among preadolescent children, and are certain family factors associated with children’s suicidality? Findings In a cross-sectional analysis of 11 814 children and their caregivers from the baseline sample from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, the prevalence of suicidal ideation and behaviors among preadolescent children was higher than previously...
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Promoting Trauma-Informed Parenting of Children in Out-of-Home Care: An Effectiveness Study of the Resource Parent Curriculum. (Abstract Only) [psycnet.apa.org]
By Kathryn J. Murray, Kelly M. Sullivan, Maria C. Lent, et al., APA PsycNET, March 2020 Abstract The Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) is a workshop designed to promote trauma-informed parenting among foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers (i.e., resource parents). The ultimate goal of RPC is to improve placement stability and promote healing from traumatic stress in children who have been placed in out-of-home care. The current study examined data from multiple RPC implementation sites...
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Reimbursement for Parenting Education and Support Services
Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...
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Self Soothing Strategies for Parents and Kids
Learn 4 simple tools for parents and kids to calm down together. About the presenter: Joyelle Brandt is a self care coach for moms. She specializes in working with mothers who are survivors of abuse, to help them develop a personalized self soothing toolkit for stress management. As a speaker, mothering coach, and multi-media creator, Joyelle works to dismantle the stigma that keeps childhood abuse survivors stuck in shame and self-hatred. She is the author of Princess Monsters from A to Z...
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Sesame Street in Communities Takes on Trauma
Just this morning, Sesame Street in Communities announced its initiative to support foster children, foster parents, and the providers who serve foster care. Further, more trauma related topics will be addressed soon. The upcoming programing is detailed in today’s The Atlantic article “For-Now Parents’ and ‘Big Feelings’: How Sesame Street Talks About Trauma: ‘The Muppets can often do what humans can’t. They’ve got this special power.’ ” “ "Through its Sesame Street in Communities...
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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...
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The Healing Place Podcast - Joyelle Brandt: Parenting with PTSD
I am grateful to have had the chance to sit down with Joyelle Brandt to discuss her mission of helping those who are parenting with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Thank you, Joyelle, for sharing your personal story and the beautiful work you are doing helping others along their parenting and healing journey. What a gift for those families and the children who will benefit from the steps their parents are taking to heal.
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Toxic Stress: Issue Brief on Family Separation and Child Detention [immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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We Have to Better Understand What Foster Parents Need [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Ross Hunter, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 11, 2019 As a new leader in the child welfare space, I thought it would be worth my while to do some listening before I made any big changes. So I went on a tour all over the state of Washington. I talked to caseworkers, foster parents, birth families, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and anyone else I could find who had an opinion. I got an earful. “Everything is broken.” “I had a great experience.” “The caseworker never called...
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We Have to Better Understand What Foster Parents Need [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Ross Hunter, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 11, 2019 As a new leader in the child welfare space, I thought it would be worth my while to do some listening before I made any big changes. So I went on a tour all over the state of Washington. I talked to caseworkers, foster parents, birth families, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and anyone else I could find who had an opinion. I got an earful. “Everything is broken.” “I had a great experience.” “The caseworker never called...
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Young Parents Speak Out: Barriers, Bias, and Broken Systems [aecf.org]
By National Crittenton and Katcher Consulting, Annie E. Casey Foundation, March 2020 Founded in 1883 as a social justice advocacy organization, National Crittenton has been dedicated to the needs and potential of girls, young women and women facing violence, poverty and injustice across the country for more than a century. Additionally, National Crittenton convenes the 26 Yet, systems have turned a blind eye to the ways in which the “safety net” designed for adults is a “trap” for young...
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White Parents, It's Your Turn to Carry This Burden [newamerica.org]
By Autumn McDonald, New America, June 4, 2020 I date myself with a reference to Rodney King, and I do so intentionally. I was fourteen when he was brutally beaten by LAPD officers; I had no thoughts of kids, or how a parent protects them. But in households around the country, Black parents were having “ the Talk ” with their children— an intense, high-stakes training on the realities of racism— in the hopes of inoculating them against disproportionate police targeting and brutality. My...
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Community Resilience Series Part 1: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty [Peace & Justice Institute at Valencia College]
The Peace and Justice Institute (PJI) at Valencia College is excited to offer 3 free, online workshops with Dr. Ken Ginsburg , as part of a Community Resilience Series. The first workshop in this FREE series will be specifically for parents: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty , July 7th from 5:30 - 7:00 pm EST (zoom). REGISTER HERE “As parents, we want to protect our children from witnessing the fear and uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We wish we could take away the disruption...
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Do Affirmations Work for Children? Building Brainpower for Resiliency
When an affirmation works, we gather real-life examples our brain can use as evidence that success IS possible, which changes the way we think. In my work with children, I find that this tool can work magic at home and in school! When we challenge our thoughts with evidence that a positive result is possible, it can stop negative thinking in its tracks.
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Parents Need Help with Trauma Too: A Bottom-Up Approach
Psych Central published my latest article on trauma and it's one you don't want to miss! Through my work with children coping with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) the historical trajectory became very clear to me. Often childhood trauma doesn't start with the child who was traumatized, but it starts with the parents and grandparents of that child who were overwhelmed by adversity and never had help. Unprocessed emotional trauma is likely to be passed on in some capacity to at least the...
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Re-Opening Workshop: Helping Children Contextualize Change
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6 Skills You Need to Master Before Becoming a Foster Parent (verywellfamily.com)
Thousands of kids out there are in need of a safe home. Sadly, there are not nearly enough foster families available for all these children. You can help by stepping up to become a foster parent. Opening your home and your heart to a child is exactly what these kids need. But before you decide to take in a foster child, be sure you're up for the challenges (and joys) ahead. To help you prepare, we've compiled a checklist of key considerations and skills needed to be a successful foster...
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Cultivating Resilience in New Foster Parents Through Mentoring
A recent article in Children and Youth Services Reviews discusses a study that explores the relationship between mentoring and resilience in new foster parents and how mentors can help new foster parents. Mentorship between experienced and inexperienced foster parents has shown to improve retention and increase the mentee's ability to manage the behavioral problems of children in their care. It also provides new foster parents with additional supportive contacts and encourages greater...
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‘How’s Our Girl?’: On Loving a Foster Child and Letting Go (NY Times)
Every time we choose to love other mortal beings, someday, we will have to give them back. “Cute baby,” strangers said when they saw her. “Your first?” they asked. And when we told them she was our foster daughter, that we might have to return her to her biological mother, I watched them step back. “I couldn’t do that,” they said. “I’ll pray for you,” they said. I didn’t know if I could do it, either. But I also knew it’s what we do every time we choose to love another mortal being. Someday,...
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How to Advocate for Child Abuse Prevention in Your Community?
The foster care system is designed to temporarily shelter children who have been removed from their homes due to maltreatment. Each year, the United States has more than 400,000 children living in foster care (1) . Placing children in foster homes can help to provide them a safe environment. Foster parents are dedicated to giving the best care for children living in their homes. Their care can provide children with a safe and stable environment to thrive and survive (2) . Effective child...
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Join Us for Standing Strong Conference- Mon, Sept. 13- Wed, Sept. 15
In less than a week, parents and caregivers for children impacted by early childhood trauma will be learning and supported at the Standing Strong Virtual Conference - Sept 13-15, 2021, hosted by the Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc. (ATN) . This 3-day event is focused on helping those caring for children with developmental trauma, complex PTSD and attachment challenges learn advocacy strategies and focus on their own care/burnout needs now that their children are back in school. Speakers...
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An Unavoidable System: The Harms of Family Policing and Parents' Vision for Investing in Community Care
This new report shares the results of a participatory action research (PAR) project that Rise conducted in winter 2021 in partnership with TakeRoot Justice . Our research documents parents’ experiences with the family policing system and explores a collective vision to transform our society’s structures, policies and practices related to family and community support. Imaginative and sometimes painful community conversations with 48 people impacted by ACS provide the foundation of this...
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What Foster Parents Need To Know About Adopting and Affirming a Queer Child (parents.com)
The key is and will continue to be for foster parents to listen, learn, and practice empathy for kids in the LGBTQ+ community. By Danielle Broadway, Parents, June 03, 2021 Every year, thousands of children in the foster care system struggle to find safe and stable homes with loving adult figures to help them thrive. Many of the children in the system have traumatic experiences that can range from physical and emotional abuse to being forced into criminal activity . They often need foster...
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‘On My Own’: I had to rebuild with my son without support (risemagazine.org)
By Zoraida Ramirez, Rise Magazine, December 08, 2021 A Hard Decision I left my son with a family friend in 2007 when I was 20 years old and he was one and a half. I had run away from foster care and had nowhere to live and no money for food. I was also dealing with depression and trauma—and an abusive partner. I didn’t have support from my family and felt uncared for and alone. The family friend lived in a cozy, nice home. She suggested that I leave my son with her and write a statement...
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