Tagged With "Children"

Usually when you read about childhood traumas in the United States, you read about extreme cases. Although these extreme cases are substantial and should be reported on, a lot of Americans miss the point when it comes to what an overwhelming amount of kids are actually dealing with when it comes to neglect. According to the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth , the number of child abuse and/or neglect reports in 2017 in Oklahoma was 79,310. Of those reports, 62,828 were investigated...

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The law regarding child abuse, including discipline taken to extreme, is considered outdated and open to interpretation. It hasn't been updated since the 1960s. Help In Crisis Forensic Interviewer Leah Moore operates the Cherokee County Children's Advocacy Center and the Multi-Disciplinary Team. There were 156 children, ages 3-17, served by the free-standing multidisciplinary child abuse team during fiscal year 2018 for Cherokee County. The Child Task Force works to...

There is hope for the future. That may seem like a broad statement, but it is true. If the future is our children and our children have potential, the future is in good hands. Let’s start with the bad news first. Toxic stress physically damages a child’s developing brain, according to neuroscientists and pediatricians. The good news - science has proven that through neuroplasticity, the brain has the capacity for resilience. One way to find out the risks for a child or community is through...

The preacher speaking at the pulpit almost paused as a man walked into the church. The Rev. Darrell L. Armstrong was delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral in 1998, and he was startled, then angered, to see his mother's longtime companion — a man who had abused her, as well as Armstrong and all three of his brothers, a man who had been with her when she fatally overdosed. Armstrong wanted to leap out of the pulpit and chase the villain out of the church. Only his grandmother's audible...

The small city of Hudson is nestled in Upstate New York and home to fewer than 7,000 people. The city was hit hard by deindustrialization in the late 20th century, facing economic decline as factories closed and industry jobs left. In recent years development has surged, with the opening of antique stores, restaurants and art galleries. The city has become a popular destination for tourists and second-home owners. While our town is often celebrated as a story of revival, development has not...

I’m not here to tell you what the “good thing” is about the coronavirus situation, because there is no good thing about a pandemic, not ever. That doesn’t mean there won’t be acts of heroism, because there will be, and heartwarming stories, because we’ll have those too, and even — if we’re lucky — moments of scientific brilliance. But we still have to get through the bad stuff. And getting through the bad stuff with your kids may be your act of heroism, your heartwarming story, and even your...

As the knowledge of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma resilience begins to flow through Oklahoma and our nation, multiple programs, interventions and entire agencies are popping up to address the negative impact of trauma. As the river of knowledge flows faster and rises, the words of Desmond Tutu should inspire agencies and schools to take action. Desmond Tutu so brilliantly stated: There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go...

Poor mental health among young people is on the rise in the UK, while access to support and treatment remains patchy . There is now a pressing need to build resilience in young people to minimise their risk of poor mental health later on, as our latest report argues . There are 12.5m young people in England, and one in ten will experience poor mental health. Half of all lifelong mental health problems start before the age of 14 , but only one in four young people uses mental health services.

N umerous national surveys, cohort studies, and meta-analyses have documented the etiologic and experiential connections between childhood abuse, physical illness, and mental health disorders 1 , 2 spanning from childhood to adulthood. Yet pediatric training and practice typically focus primarily on the identification and treatment of physical health conditions. The recent advent of enthusiasm for integrated care is a welcome nod to the marked comorbidities that have been amply reported.

Back when it first started, 17% of young pregnant women in the Children of the 90s study reported symptoms severe enough to indicate clinical levels of depression. This figure was already worryingly high in the 1990s, but in their daughters’ generation it is even more common: 25% of the second generation of the study – women under the age of 24 who are becoming pregnant now – are reporting signs of depression and anxiety. Children of the 90s started following the mental and physical health...

What’s the best way to improve the well-being of young children and their families in Oklahoma? The OK25by25 Early Childhood Coalition has focused its efforts on two major programs: Resilience and Family Positive Workplace. Both of these programs support the goal of improving the well-being of children, pre-birth to 5, and their families. The goal of OK25by25, a 10-year initiative managed by the Potts Family Foundation (PFF), is to move Oklahoma to the Top 25 states, by 2025, in selected...

Oklahoma City school officials and police have teamed up to help students who are exposed to trauma through a new initiative called Handle with Care. It's a simple idea, but one that they hope will have a big impact on the lives of local students. When police officers encounter a child who has experienced a traumatic situation, such as domestic violence, a car wreck or the arrest of a parent, they send an email to the school district with the child's name and age or school so school...

By Joe Dorman, The Duncan Banner, January 15, 2020 The latest report from America’s Health Rankings shows a slight improvement in Oklahoma on a critical child wellbeing area, Adverse Childhood Experiences also called ACEs. Sadly, Oklahoma is still the worst in the nation in the frequency of Adverse Childhood Experiences among our children, but awareness is making a difference. The study examined the percentage of children ages 0-17 who endured two or more of the following ACEs: economic...

By Joe Dorman, The Duncan Banner, February 15, 2020 Now that the 2020 session of the Oklahoma Legislature is underway, we have a better idea of measures we as child advocates must support and those about which we must be cautious. Normally there are 149 lawmakers, 101 state representatives and 48 state senators. There are currently two vacancies, one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate. The 147 left were busy, filing 2,243 new bills for this year. Combined with the those...

There is no doubt that the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences study by Anda and Felitti has shifted the landscape of how we think about childhood. The ACEs study established the link between early adverse experiences and later negative outcomes. A brief overview of the key areas of early adversity included in the ACEs study are: (1) physical abuse, (2) sexual abuse, (4) physical neglect, (5) emotional neglect, (6) having a parent with a mental illness, (7) having a parent with substance...

The first few years of life are crucial in establishing a child’s path toward—or away from—health and well-being across the entire lifespan. A report, produced in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, examines some of the barriers to health equity that begin early in life, and promising strategies for overcoming them. Key Findings Poverty limits childrens’ and families’ options for healthy living conditions. Poverty can limit where children live, and can lead to...

The global health pandemic has been stressful on everyone, including our children. As we look towards resuming life amidst evolving changes, it will take time as children and adults alike adjust. Our new normal may still include varying degrees of uncertainty, stress, change and exposure to trauma. As you support children in your care during this transition, the following may be helpful to keep in mind: You might notice changes in behavior, emotions, and social interactions. These behaviors...

I have been following the work of Katherine Ortega Courtney and Dominic Cappello since they wrote the book Anna, Age Eight in late 2017. They are honest in their assessment of the systemic problems in most of our state agency networks and too frequent failures to protect children and families as a result of those breakdowns. What I love most is they are solution oriented and offer fairly simple solutions. The caveat to that is these solutions require a huge paradigm shift - bigger for some...

If we learn only one lesson from the pandemic, it must be that family is essential. Not just our own family or families that look like ours do, but all families. We should not need a public health crisis to remind us of this simple and very human truth. Most of us realize, although perhaps may not always fully appreciate, just how vital family is in our lives. Relationships can be complicated, and we might not always get along with all our family members, but at the end of the day family is...

A University of Cambridge study found that children who played with their fathers from an early age were more skilled at regulating their emotions and behaviors later in life. The University of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation teamed up together for this study and analyzed close to 40 years of data. The goal of the research was to determine if there were significant differences between the ways that mothers and fathers play with their children. The results and findings were most likely a...

Each year the United States spends approximately $20 Billion to provide rental assistance to low-income families through Housing Choice Vouchers . What? You’ve never heard of Housing Choice Vouchers? Perhaps you know them by the more common name, Section 8 Housing. Under the law, this money can be spent in any neighborhood within a Housing Authority's jurisdiction. But most of the 2.2 million families using vouchers continue to live in high-poverty, low-opportunity neighborhoods. The...

Oklahoma’s top early childhood advocacy group and the state’s only early childhood research institute are partnering to offer a new, multi-session conference to highlight early childhood research, initiatives, and policy. “Building Equitable Futures for Oklahoma’s Children: An Early Childhood Research and Policy Series,” presented by Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness (OPSR) and the Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI), is Dec. 9, 2020, Jan. 13, 2021 and Feb 10, 2021 . Each of...

Public discourse in this election year has largely ignored the plight of our nation’s children. Debates and position platforms have glossed over what the COVID-19 pandemic has meant for their stability and well-being. And despite a new study released last week finding that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children, candidates and elected officials have remained largely silent. Even as the virus has...

In a new book, Scotland After The Virus, edited by Gerry Hassan and Simon Barrow, some of Scotland’s leading thinkers, writers and commentators contemplate the Covid pandemic and what it means for our future IN the winter of 1944, Nazi forces cut off food supplies to the Netherlands. Famine ensued, with people reduced to eating tulip bulbs, including mothers-to-be carrying babies yet unborn. Luckily, the famine was short-lived, although not before 20,000 people died. It ended when Allied...

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2020 Kids Count report, released Tuesday, states that “schools have been disrupted so profoundly (by the COVID-19 pandemic) that the effects could damage the prospects of an entire generation of young people.” The COVID-19 pandemic is having an “outsized” impact on children and communities of color, with a new report indicating that roughly 1 in 3 Oklahoma households with children expressed some belief in October that they would experience an eviction or...

Child welfare services could be more effective — and less expensive — if they were more proactive than reactive, an Oklahoma House of Representatives subcommittee was told Tuesday. “Sixty percent of child protective services responses nationally are for neglect only, … but our interventions have been predominantly focused on addressing … physical abuse,” said Clare Anderson, a senior policy advisor with the Chapin Hall child welfare research center at the University of Chicago. The result,...