Recent federal legislation put forward by senators Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) proposes to address the issue of childhood trauma through the creation of a federal trauma task force. The Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act would gather federal officials and members of tribal agencies to create a set of best practices and training to help create a better way to identify and support children and families that have experienced trauma. In...

FROM BRIEF: We all benefit when a child receives a strong start in life. Policymakers now recognize that investments in a child’s first years will pay dividends for society throughout the rest of the child’s life. Waiting until a child reaches preschool age at 3 or 4 may well be too late to provide the support parents and caregivers need to give children a fair start in life, especially children starting with economic disadvantage and facing racial bias. BRIEF LOCATED HERE: ...

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network released a brief entitled: Complex Trauma: In Urban African-American Children, Youth, and Families The brief can be found here: http://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/assets/pdfs/complex_trauma_facts_urban_african_american_children.pdf Excerpts from brief: "African-American children and youth, who are among the most likely members of our society to be exposed to trauma, are also among the least likely to receive the services that could prevent...

Please register for Investing in Treating Trauma and Reducing Poverty to Address Illinois’s Violence Crisis: A Data and Policy Discussion on Apr 18, 2017 1:00 PM CDT at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.c.../2936992752167809027 The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative is excited to bring you its next webinar to expand our understanding of the far-reaching impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences. Heartland Alliance's Social Impact Center 2017 Poverty Report explores the relationship between...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-ptsd-black-women-met-20170322-story.html

Presenter: Sarah Hess, Staff Attorney @ Legal Council for Health Justice and Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative Member Date: Tuesday, March 28 Time: 5-6:30pm Location: 1919 W. Taylor. Room 710 Sarah is a staff attorney with the Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Children. She focuses on place-based legal interventions for youth with chronic health conditions. She provides legal services to mitigate the causes and consequences of trauma, toxic stress, and the social determinants of...

"Medicine should join our community organizations and agencies and experts to work towards creating healthier families and children."- Dr. Robert Shapiro, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center The Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center spearheads the Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative that now spans over 40 organizations and sectors in the greater Cincinnati region. The Mayerson Center, the child abuse...

From the article: Brick and mortar. Create a place. Call it anything. Fund it with federal, state, or philanthropic funds, or some combination. But do not continue this madness of annualized state or federal grant funding to where all these not-for-profits have time to do is fight for those peanuts, compete with each other and hope to survive. That serves no one. There is plenty of money and good will in this town. And there are millions of federal dollars spent across this town every year.

You’re invited to join U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and U.S. Representative Danny Davis at a news conference announcing the introduction of the Trauma Informed Care for Children and Families Act which addresses the lack of identification, referral, and immediate support for children who experience trauma in the Chicago metropolitan area and throughout the nation. The bill aims to provide the tools parents, teachers, doctors, service providers, and first responders need to identify and understand...

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Diana Rauner, President of Ounce of Prevention Fund _____________________________________________ Consistent with being the first state to adopt standards for social emotional learning (SEL) in the country, Illinois recently passed legislation (SB 565, Public Act 99-0927 ) to require social and emotional screenings for children as part of the their school entry examinations. Governor Rauner (R) signed the bill on January 20. It goes into effect June 1 of...

In, Cycle of Risk: The Intersection of Poverty, Violence, and Trauma, our latest annual report on Illinois poverty, IMPACT has taken a comprehensive look at how a lack of resources, dwindling opportunities, historical oppression, and more fuel the violence crisis within our state. They create a cycle of poverty, violence, and trauma that has gone unaddressed and underfunded. (report attached)

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT CASEL A New Report—and a Landmark for the SEL Field Working in close collaboration with the faculty of education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in February 2017 CASEL announced the publication of a new report titled To Reach the Students, Teach the Teachers: A National Scan of Teacher Preparation and Social & Emotional Learning . CASEL funded the research for the report, the first-ever scan of teacher preparation related to SEL, as part of a grant from...