Get Ready to Recognize Parent Leaders 2018 Parent Recognition Month Nomination Form Each year, Minnesota Communities Caring for Children recognize parents, caretakers, and professionals across Minnesota for building on the strengths of families. The voices of parents help shape the lives of communities, and can direct programs and policies that impact them, so this is our way of honoring these voices. We are pleased to host a recognition event on Thursday, February 22, 2018 in the Vault Room...

When someone acts out or becomes violent, the first question often asked by parents, teachers, friends, family and others is: “Why did you do this?” Winona State University social work professor Ruth Charles and several other community leaders are working to change the framing of the question, asking instead: “What happened to you that would make you behave this way?” First defined in a study that began in 1995, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), established a link between childhood...

According to a coalition of adoption advocates, broader acceptance of an emerging mental health diagnosis has the potential to help traumatized children access the help they need. That’s the goal of the End Childhood Trauma Tour , which stops in five cities this week in the name of promoting awareness of the disruptive effects of trauma on children. The tour started in Minneapolis on Friday before stopping in Chicago. It heads to Boston tonight before moving on to Philadelphia and...

The impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)— childhood experiences of abuse, neglect and family dysfunction—on the health and wellbeing of college students nationwide is relatively unknown. And yet, approximately two-thirds of University of Minnesota students experience at least one adverse childhood experience before entering college. On Friday, Dec. 2, the U of M will host a one-day conference that brings together college administrators, educators, students, public health...

Dunia holds a Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health Sciences. Before starting at MCCC, Dunia has had two years of experience working on professional development projects and developing algorithms and protocols around intimate partner violence screening and response for home visiting professionals. Dunia will support communication...

“Calo Programs partners with three non-profits, on a five-city, childhood trauma awareness bus tour, ending on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Calo Programs , innovators in healing the effects of early life trauma in young people, is partnering with three of the nation's leading authorities on attachment, trauma and adoption: the American Adoption Congress (AAC), the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) and the Association for Training on Trauma and Attachment in Children (ATTACh). Together...

Linsey McMurrin is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She is an organizer of the Bemidji Area Truth and Reconciliation Initiative, a grassroots effort to promote truth-seeking, healing, and change through increasing understanding and building relationships among area indigenous and non-indigenous communities. She is a strong advocate of social justice and community driven work, and believes that the development of cultural, social, and emotional competencies is integral to...

By PERRI KLASS, M.D. "In pediatrics, attachment is the emotional connection that develops between a young child and a parent or other caregiver. Attachment theory was developed in the mid-20th century by a British psychiatrist, John Bowlby , whose own upper-class British upbringing included the loss of a beloved nanny, and an early trip to boarding school. Mary Ainsworth, his student and later collaborator, devised what is known as the strange situation procedure , in which a 1-year-old is...

By Aaron E. Carroll "Of all the possible tragedies of childhood, losing a sister or brother to early death is almost too awful to contemplate. Yet it is startlingly common. In the United States, 5 to 8 percent of children with siblings experience such a loss. The immediate effects of a sibling’s death, and the grief that follows, are obvious to all. But the consequences are more than emotional and can last for decades. They are even associated with an increased risk of death in those who...

Here in California, many people think that it’s only liberal Democrats who have a corner on championing the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and putting it into practice. That might be because people who use ACEs science don’t expel or suspend students, even if they’re throwing chairs and hurling expletives at the teacher. They ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" as a frame when they create juvenile detention centers where kids don’t fight, reduce...

It was the sort of incident that happens at facilities that care for people with dementia . At a residence for older adults in San Francisco last summer, Carol King momentarily left a common sitting area. When Ms. King returned, she found that another resident had taken her chair, a nurse who witnessed the episode later reported. She grabbed the usurper’s wrist. Though staff members intervened promptly and nobody appeared injured, the other resident (who also had dementia) called 911 to say...

Dear Sugars, I made a mistake. My daughter is 10 and has been a raging ball of hormones lately. During one of her daily “Y ou don’t understand me and how hard my life is!” tantrums, I yelled, out of sheer exhaustion: “You don’t know a hard life! When I was your age, my stepdad used to hit me and touch me inappropriately.” I regretted it immediately and left the room. I told my husband what I had said, and he thought I should talk to her about it. I didn’t. I chose to do what people always...