Tagged With "Criminal Justice System"
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Focusing on "Creating Nurturing Systems"
In just six weeks, stakeholders from across North Carolina will get together to learn about system integration work with youth involved with child welfare. This is the third annual Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Conference and this year, we have decided to really focus on "Creating Nurturing Systems". While the daily work of PFE can be hard and challenges us to think of new ways to meet the needs of the family, the annual conference offers us a way to celebrate our successes and...
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Georgia ACEs Data Released
We have data! In 2016, the Georgia Department of Public Health, with funding provided by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services' Prevention and Community Support Section, added the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) module to their annual Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS). The preliminary summary of the results of that data collection have been released in the Georgia Data Summary report. An additional full-length report is still in development, but the...
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Got time for a little brainstorming with ACEsConnection?
On Friday, March 20, 2020, you're invited to join me to talk about how we, as a community, can continue to guide and educate ourselves about to deal with the effects of the spread of Covid-19, and how to continue those efforts with people who don't yet know about ACEs science. And, given this last week, how we can provide more support to stay in the front of our brains instead of feeding our amygdala.
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Governor Declares November 1, 2019 as Florida's Trauma Informed Care Day
Thank you Governor DeSantis (and Zack Gibson in the Governor’s Office) for declaring today as Florida’s Trauma Informed Care Day . Many of Florida’s most costly, intractable social problems including our opioid and substance dependency crisis, our sky-rocketing public health costs, tragic school failures, and the multigenerational cycle of families into our criminal justice and child welfare systems, can be decreased by addressing early trauma. Initiatives are taking shape at both the state...
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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How Homelessness, Mental Illness, Substance Use and the Criminal Justice System Collided in Little Five Points [jjie.org]
By Ray Glier, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, September 4, 2019 Torch has been on the street 11 years, he says. With no fixed address, he is a permanent resident of Little Five Points, a robust business district of mom and pop entrepreneurs in east Atlanta. Born Kyle Latrell, he was a homeless 17-year-old from Illinois. Now he is a homeless 28-year-old. He takes amphetamines, eight a day, he says. He has been arrested for marijuana possession and it is not certain what other drugs he...
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Hurricane Florence first responders receive free trauma/resilience training
In a webinar offered this morning by Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, leaders from several North Carolina ACEs Connection communities affected by flooding and other damage by Hurricane Florence learned more about trauma response and how to better help their communities find resilience. Karas, who was delivering her Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training at Duke University in Durham, NC, offered the free training and provided...
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In Rural Tennessee, a Big ICE Raid Makes Some Conservative Voters Rethink Trump’s Immigration Agenda [newyorker.com]
April 5th began in the usual way at the Southeastern Provision meat-processing plant, in Bean Station, Tennessee—some workers were breaking down carcasses on the production line, while others cleaned the floors—until, around 9 a.m., a helicopter began circling above the plant. Moments later, a fleet of cars pulled up outside. Agents from the I.R.S., Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice), and the Tennessee Highway Patrol emerged, and proceeded to arrest ninety-seven people, most of them...
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In the Arena with NOW Podcast Episode, "Letting Communities Lead" (30 min)
The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is excited to share the second episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. In our second episode, we speak with members of the Young Child Wellness Council (YCWC) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama ,...
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It took 3 years, 6 versions to develop ACEs screener that works for parents & providers
It’s irrefutable: Widespread research shows that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common. That’s why researchers in a recent study insist: “It behooves pediatric providers to take an active role in preventing and identifying childhood adversity in order to reduce the health consequences of toxic stress.” In other words, if you want your kids to have a good shot at a healthy life, make sure they — and you — are educated about and screened for ACEs and resilience. In a recent study —...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Meet Florida's Johnny Appleseed. She plants seeds of ACEs science!
Dr. Mimi Graham is Florida’s Johnny Appleseed, but instead of planting apple trees, she’s been seeding hundreds of ACEs-science-informed schools, courts, juvenile detention centers, hospitals, childcare centers, home visiting programs, mental health agencies, law enforcement agencies, and drug treatment centers. Graham, who has served as director of the Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy in Tallahassee since 1993, focuses on early childhood,...
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"Moving From Trauma Understanding to Trauma Responsive" - SAMHSA Forum
Johnson City to co-host forum on community-wide systems of care On Sept. 5, the City of Johnson City will co-host a forum entitled Moving from Understanding to Implementing Trauma-Responsive Services in conjunction with the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The forum will address SAMHSA recommendations for communities to treat trauma as a component of effective behavioral health service delivery. Statistics recently released from the Tennessee Department of...
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New CDC Resource: Preventing ACEs
CDC Toolkit: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Leveraging the Best Available Evidence Access other technical packages for violence prevention at: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/communicationresources/pub/technical-packages.html?deliveryName=USCDC_2023-DM9684
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 7, 2020 — Tian Dayton
Therapist and author Dr. Tian Dayton, who first started writing about ACEs science more than 20 years ago, will address grief and maintaining emotional sobriety during COVID-19. Carey Sipp, Southeast community facilitator for ACEs Connection, will host this community conversation, and Alison Cebula, Northeastern regional community facilitator, will moderate.
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Nurturing relationships in childhood boost adult mental health, relationships
We're proud to announce major research that suggests that positive childhood experiences — such as supportive family interactions, caring relationships with friends, and connections in the community — are associated with reductions in chances of adult depression and poor mental health, and increases in the chances of having healthy relationships in adulthood. This association was true even among those with a history of adverse childhood experiences.
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One state. One year. (Partial) Cost of ACEs = $5.2 billion.
In looking at the impact of childhood trauma, you can’t get much clearer than this: In 2017, ACEs among Tennessee adults led to an estimated $5.2 billion in direct medical costs and lost productivity from employees missing work. That’s just one year, according to the new report, “ The Economic Cost of ACEs in Tennessee ," released on Feb. 1, 2019 by The Sycamore Institute in Nashville, Tenn. And to provide some perspective, $5.2 billion is one-seventh of the state’s annual budget . This $5.2...
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Overview of the Community Resiliency Model, used worldwide to help trauma survivors re-regulate their central nervous system, offered in two, free 90-minute webinars.
Elaine Miller Karas , key creator of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM), will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC, Allison Wine , behavioral specialist, and Kelly Purcell , instructional coach and multi-tiered support specialist for this free, two-part training. Register now for two, FREE 90-minute sessions May 7 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST and May 14 from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST (The complete overview requires attendance at both sessions. Registration link below registers you...
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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...
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Personal stories the set tone of hearing in U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Opioid Crisis Response Act
Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry to her right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee but it was the personal stories that...
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Sheltering in Place: ACEs-Informed Tips for Self-Care During a Pandemic
Millions of lives have been affected in unprecedented ways by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We are all grappling with uncertainty—our daily routines interrupted, not knowing what is to come. For those of us who have Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), these times can be particularly distressing. At the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), we know that childhood trauma can have a significant impact on an individual’s health and well-being – both physiologically and psychologically. Since the...
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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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Systems Are Not People-Shaped
A few weeks ago I was at a big kickoff event for a new county-wide project to address what our communities feel are the biggest concerns we face. It definitely had its moments and I was all eyes and ears ready to absorb new info and be inspired by the power of coming together for a purpose. One of the last things that I heard that morning was to show the promise of next steps – the speaker said that basically in order to do anything meaningful – you, of course, need a building which – good...
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THE BUILD HEALTH CHALLENGE 2019 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
To read the announcement and all details, click HERE and see below key dates. BUILD is looking to support dynamic collaboratives driving sustainable improvements in community health. Are you ready to BUILD with us? For this new third cohort, BUILD is looking to support up to 17 innovative collaboratives across the US t hat include a community-based organization, hospital or health system, and public health department working together in dynamic ways to address upstream challenges and drive...
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Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff and David R. Williams, Center on the Developing Child, April 27, 2020 The COVID-19 virus is ruthlessly contagious and, at the same time, highly selective. Its capacity to infect is universal, but the consequences of becoming infected are not. While there are exceptions, children are less likely to show symptoms, older adults and those with pre-existing medical conditions are the most susceptible, and communities of color in the United States are experiencing dramatically...
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To Build a Healthier City, Atlanta is Opening Its Schoolyards to Everyone [nationswell.com]
By Monica Humphries, Nation Swell, July 19, 2019. It’s known as the “City in a Forest,” thanks to 100-year-old oaks, maples and magnolias that create a tree canopy covering nearly half the city. But what may come as a surprise is that many of Atlanta’s residents don’t have easy access to a public park. One-third of Atlanta’s population lives more than a 10-minute walk from a green space, and the city ranks 42nd for park access based on an evaluation of America’s 100 largest cities by the...
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Tools and how to use them is focus of second webinar on Community Resiliency Model, May 14, 2020
The second of two free Community Resiliency (CRM) webinars with Elaine Miller-Karas , key creator of the CRM, will be held Thursday, May 14, from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. ET, (10 a.m. CT; 9 a.m. MT, and 8 a.m. PT) and will include the practical application of tools of the model. CRM is an ACEs science-based biological model for helping individuals become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. Miller-Karas will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC:...
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Webinar: Cultivating Our Best Selves in Response to COVID-19 | Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT
How to use the skills of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for self and others to be the calm in the storm as we face the unknown. Free Webinar Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT Speakers: Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW Linda Grabbe, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC Zoom Webinar Registration Link: https://zoom.us/j/715837300 Additional ways to join are listed at the bottom of this post. About the webinar leaders: Elaine Miller-Karas is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and...
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A Kaiser pediatrician, wise to ACEs science for years, finally gets to use it
Dr. Suzanne Frank has known about the impact of childhood adversity on young lives for decades. She’s seen the fallout in the faces of young people huddled in beds at a children’s shelter where she worked years ago. She’s seen it as the regional child abuse services and champion for the Permanente Medical Group. And she’s seen it in hospital examination rooms where, as a member of the Santa Clara County’s Sexual Assault Response Team, she’s been called in to examine shell-shocked children...
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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ACEs science can prevent school shootings, but first people have to learn about ACEs science
The shooting in Florida isn’t only a gun regulation issue. It’s a systems change issue. All of our systems have to change their approach to changing behavior — whether it’s criminal, unhealthy or unwanted behavior — from a blame, shame and punishment approach, to one that is based in understanding, nurturing and healing….in other words, ACEs science.
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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...
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Be the Spark: Igniting trauma-informed change within our communities
Authors note: This piece is co-authored by @Lara Kain and @Christine Cissy White. Though we had never worked together or met, we were asked to co-present on creating t rauma-informed changes in communities by the Attachment Trauma Network for the first national (now annual) Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Summit in Washington, DC. This article is an expanded essay version of that presentation). Be the Spark Oprah Winfrey helped mainstream discussion about...
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Dalai Lama Presides Over Global Launch of Emory’s SEE Learning Program in New Delhi [Buddhistdoor Global]
His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the SEE Learning launch. Photo from businessworld.in His Holiness the Dalai Lama last week presided over a three-day event in New Delhi marking the global launch of the landmark Social, Emotional and Ethical (SEE) Learning program developed by Emory University in collaboration with the Dalai Lama Trust and the Vana Foundation. The 4–6 April gathering in the Indian capital, featuring a host of educational experts and policy leaders from around the world,...
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What Do We Do? What Do We Do Now?
People’s response to the great chasms of structural inequities glaringly laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic have been further inflamed by the murder of George Floyd and deaths of other African Americans in recent weeks. The acute emergency of the pandemic has eased, but the violence inflicted on racial minorities and now those who are protesting the inequities in our society has compounded the outrage. Right after the pandemic began running riot across the US, I often heard people ask: When...
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You're Invited: “A Call To Action, A Call To Heal: Understanding the Impact of Complex Trauma in Communities" June 17 and 18.
Register Now for This Free Trauma Awareness and Trauma Responsive Care Symposium The Collaboration As neighboring Healthy Start partners providing maternal and child health services for Metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Healthy Start Initiative (AHSI) of the Center for Black Women’s Wellness, Inc. and the Healthier Generations Project (HGP) of the Clayton County Health District collaborate on several initiatives to improve perinatal outcomes in the region. The “A Call to Action, A Call to Heal:...
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A Better Normal Tuesday, June 30th at Noon PDT: Reinterpreting American Identity, a Community Discussion
"I think that all of us, regardless of our racial or ethnic background, feel relieved that we no longer have to deal with the racism and the sexism associated with the system of slavery. But we treat the history of enslavement like we treat the genocidal colonization of indigenous people in North America, as if it was not that important, or worse, as if it never happened." —Angela Davis, "The Meaning of Freedom" Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our...
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Help Navigating the Road to Community Resiliency
The first time I ever heard the words trauma-informed care and the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study was in the summer of 2014. At the time, I was working for the local Police Department as the Director of a grant-funded Crime Reduction Project aimed at reducing drug-related and violent crime. Of the many program goals, one was to develop a rehabilitative corrections program for felony offenders with addictions in order to reduce recidivism. Though I’ve lived in this region for...
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Greater Richmond Trauma Informed Community Network, first to join ACEs Cooperative of Communities, shows what it means to ROCK!
In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.
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Trauma-informed policing: Learn how three highly experienced community leaders strengthen ties between police and community
ACEs initiative participants in communities where there is tension between the community and law enforcement will want to join Becky Haas in a compelling conversation on law enforcement, ACEs science, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Haas is a nationally recognized adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) science initiative builder and trainer. She and colleagues Renee Wilson-Simmons, the head of the ACE Awareness Foundation of Memphis, Tennessee, and Maggi Duncan,...
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Baby courts: A proven approach to stop the multigenerational transmission of ACES in child welfare; new efforts to establish courts nationwide
The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...
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Georgia ACEs Data Release
Data shows that 3 in 5 Georgians have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). Why Should you Care? ACEs are linked to a variety of negative health and social outcomes in adults, can be generational, and are costly to all society. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH), the Georgia Division of Family and Children’s Services’ Prevention and Community Support Section, and Georgia Essentials for Childhood would like to share a fact sheet summarizing the 2016 and 2018 Adverse...
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Does VP Candidate Kamala Harris know about ACEs? You bet!
Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, has a lot in common with the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris—Jamaican heritage, surname, home state—and a commitment to addressing ACEs and toxic stress. As reported in the New Yorker article by Paul Tough, “The Poverty Clinic,” Dr. Harris told Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, about ACEs in 2008 and in response, she offered to help. District Attorney Harris then introduced her to professor of child and...
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Georgia Essentials for Childhood Annual Meeting Recap
Thank you to those who attended our first Annual Georgia Essentials for Childhood meeting! Attached below are the meeting notes and presentation slides from the meeting on Monday, August 17. You will also find attached below the initiative’s one-pager (also available at https://abuse.publichealth.gsu.edu/files/2020/07/Essentials-One-Pager7.23.2020-citation.pdf ) if you would like to learn more about the initiative. We have also attached below the just-announced ACE Fact Sheet from Georgia...
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FSU launches new level of professional certification on trauma and resilience (Florida State University News)
By Anna Printess, August 31, 2020, Florida State University News. Florida State University’s College of Social Work recently launched a new level in its successful Professional Certification in Trauma and Resilience online series. The curriculum series, developed by the Clearinghouse on Trauma and Resilience within the college’s Institute for Family Violence Studies in conjunction with the FSU Center for Academic and Professional Development , enables professionals to develop the knowledge...
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New ACEs initiatives learn about strategic plan development from from New Hanover (NC) Resiliency Task Force executive director Mebane Boyd
The desire to see other ACEs initiatives grow and flourish was evident at a recent meeting of the Resilient Columbus County (North Carolina) ACEs initiative when Mebane Boyd, executive director of the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (also in North Carolina), shared with the Columbus County and neighboring Pender County groups how New Hanover created and works on its strategic plan. In the spirit of sharing, Boyd agreed to let ACEs Connection post the strategic plan and the video of the...
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Georgia Essentials for Childhood Releases “A Vision for Child and Family Well-being in Georgia” – Our State’s Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Plan
Beginning in early 2019, leaders representing family-serving state agencies, community organizations, and stakeholder groups came together to address Georgia’s high rate of child abuse and neglect. It was determined that in order to truly impact this pervasive problem in our state, we would need a unified, collective impact approach and they decided that the state’s Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Plan, originally developed in 1993, should be updated. Over the course of the next year,...