Tagged With "Communities Meeting"
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Trauma-Informed Social Justice: Q&A with Dr. Bukuloa Ogunkua
Cissy's Note: I work with people who challenge systems and policies, who reform or start non-profits, and who see hope and promise where others see despair or destruction. While some folks shake their heads or shrug indifferently in the face of injustice and suffering, others organize, mobilize, and channel their time and energy towards making a change. Maybe a physician hosts an annual conference bringing trauma-informed approaches to medical practice. Perhaps a woman shares ACEs 101...
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Wickham: The kids are ‘silent mourners’ of the drug crisis
Organizations that serve needy kids are seeing a spike in the number of children affected by the state’s drug epidemic. And they’re responding with special programs to support and nurture these youngsters. Monica Gallant is director of prevention services for the Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley and director of the club’s Community Action for Safe Teens (CAST) committee. A few years ago, her program began hearing from school principals and counselors that they were seeing more...
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Fogleman: Documentary, panel focuses on trauma, stress
The documentary Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope was shown to community members at High Plains Technology Center on Monday. The one hour video focused on the impact of trauma on children’s health and ways to help them and their families become resilient. After the film, a panel of local community leaders answered questions about how this research can be applied in the community. “This film is about the impact of trauma on development on your health and well being...
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Go Slow To Go Fast
As agencies, schools and communities move toward becoming Trauma Informed, we should all remember in order “to go faster we should slow down”. I often tell leadership that becoming trauma informed is similar to how great Redwood trees grow. I heard a story once that a person visited the great Redwood forest and part of the tour led the group through an area that had previously suffered from a forest fire. As the crowd looked at the small trees growing, the guide explained that the...
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Harvard Infographic on ACEs and Toxic Stress
This was just posted by Harvard. I thought all of us could use access to it, for use in our schools and the settings we work in. The full image is on the attached PDF.
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Hinton: Conference offers clergy training in child trauma
Several faith organizations and other agencies are joining forces to offer a special clergy training conference. The "Faith Communities Protecting Children: Recognizing and Responding to Adverse Childhood Experiences Conference" is set for 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. April 2, 2019, at Metro Tech Business Conference Center, 1900 Springlake Drive. "We strongly believe that faith-based organizations can and do play an important role in the prevention and healing of children who have experienced trauma.
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Hope Matters More Than Anything Else by Casey Gwinn, J.D. & Chan Hellman, P.HD.
(Emeka Nnaka was just featured on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. His story of courage begins Chapter 3 of Hope Rising: How the Science of HOPE Can Change Your Life by Casey Gwinn, J.D. & Chan Hellman, P.HD. Emeka Emeka Nnaka watched the ball fly as the kick-off began the game. Emeka zeroed in on the returner as he caught the ball. The returner shed the first tackle, then ran through a block. He headed toward Emeka, coming full speed. Emeka wrapped him up. The sound of the collision...
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Hunt & Kendall: Healthier Communities Start With Kids
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...
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In Oklahoma City, a School Designed for Homeless Children [citylab.com]
How do you incorporate the specific needs of homeless children into the design of a school? That’s the question the Oklahoma City-based nonprofit organization Positive Tomorrows asked itself when it was daydreaming about a new building that could meet the many needs of its students. Positive Tomorrows has been educating homeless kids and providing social services to families since 1989. “There is no model for this type of school,” said Gary Armbruster, principal architect and partner at MA+...
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Leading an Organization Through the COVID-19 Crisis [blog.boardsource.org]
By Phil Buchanan, BoardSource, March 26, 2020 Editor’s note: Running an organization is a huge responsibility on its own, but doing so in today’s environment is truly a different beast. We are in uncharted waters. This post, originally published as a series of tweets by Phil Buchanan — president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) and author of "Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count" — touches on 15 things to keep in mind as you adjust to the many...
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Limited Dollars, Significant Influence: How We Advocate, Convene & Catalyze
So Your Grant $ Don’t Go Far? Then be little but loud! Using your voice with people of influence can move others to action. Be they business, foundation or policy makers; you have credibility (earned or not) just by virtue of being a foundation. You can provide a stronger voice for the cause represented by the nonprofits that do the work you care about. That voice can be through social media, through newspaper editorials, through presentations to civic groups, etc. You can involve volunteer...
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Lisa Speckhard Pasque: Arts Program Gives Kids with Incarcerated Parents a Stigma-Free Place to Create and Learn
Damien Smith Jr. wasn’t always embarrassed that his father is in prison. Just this winter, when playing with a giant checker set at the Monona Public Library, he readily told a little girl that he played the game with his dad in prison and beat him all the time. But Damien's grandmother, Pat Dillon, saw the look on the little girl’s face. At 6, Damien doesn’t want to talk about his dad’s incarceration anymore. He gets teased or talked about. This summer, he was bullied. “I knew that there...
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New Community!!! Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative
I'm excited to announce the newest ACEs Connection geographic community for my region, the Midwest & TN: Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative . This community is a partnership of local organizations taking a trauma-informed stance on behavioral health in Carter County, OK. Their goal is to build a healthy, connected and resilient community. The community manager is Ashley Godwin . Ashley Godwin joined Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative in March 2017 as the Director where she...
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Now that we know, how do we help?
As I travel across communities, I find a range of different reactions to discussions surrounding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Some people are completely confused and look at me with deer-in-the-headlights expressions having never heard this term before. However, those who are familiar with ACEs (and most likely have seen the movie Resilience ), ask me, “Now that we know about trauma, how do we help?” As knowledge about the impact of trauma on mental and physical health is spreading,...
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OK Trauma-Informed Care Task Force to launch
(l to r) Joe Dorman, CEO, OK Institute for Child Advocacy, OK State Rep. Mark Lepak _______________________________________________________________ Joe Dorman, CEO of Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) , and former Oklahoma state representative and challenger to Republican Governor Mary Fallin in 2014, conveyed surprise and satisfaction when he told me that Fallin gave him the pen she used to sign a bill to create a Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care ( SB 1517 ) in April. This...
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Perrin: Promotion of Mental Health as a Key Element of Pediatric Care
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.
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Public health strategies, ACEs, and much more to learn [ClaremoreProgress.com]
What does a legislator do when not in session? Last month, I was asked by the Speaker to attend a regional meeting of key state policymakers with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It seems the committee chairmen of our health-related committees couldn’t attend, so I was afforded the opportunity to learn about something not exactly in my wheelhouse. The meeting was sponsored by the National Conference of State Legislatures, and is the third such specialized session they’ve...
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Reilly: An Initiative to Improve Health in Schools Puts Trauma Front and Center
A recent initiative from America’s Promise Alliance—an organization best known for its efforts to boost high school graduation rates—supports work with communities to improve health in schools. Addressing trauma will be a major focus of that work, which is backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and reflects growing interest among funders and nonprofits in this area. The organization is working on six community-led projects to make schools more healthy. Communities identified their own...
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Settling In While Feeling Unsettled
How quickly the outside world has influenced our inner world and changed our thoughts, patterns, and triggers. Life is definitely coming in waves. We feel a sense of safety if we can be in a healthy home, fear and worry if we have to venture out for food, calm returns after we practice something that soothes and regulates us, and anxiety builds when we hear news and the impact the virus has on the whole world. We are beginning to expect and accept many unpredictable and unknown...
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Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Series Overview [Video]
The first session of the Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & IRL (In Real Life) was a success. Over 100 ACEs Connection members tuned in despite some issues with registration. I have embedded the video in this post. You have also find the video on the ACEs Connection site here . If you have any questions about the series, please contact Ingrid Cockhren , TN & Midwest Community Facilitator.
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...
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Armstrong: Building a Supportive Classroom Community in Early Childhood
As an educator and researcher who specializes in early childhood and also works with older grade levels, I’ve used National Bullying Prevention Month to reflect on ways bullying progresses as children age. I’ve been wondering what can be done in early childhood to prevent bullying in later grades. I’ve reviewed the literature on bullying, including sites that provide suggestions on how to prevent and address bullying , but figuring out how to get started can be overwhelming as it involves...
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Balancing Gravity and Grace
Since we are all caught in the unpredictable, uncontrollable environment of Covid 19 right now, we are all experiencing trauma at one level or another. Some are experiencing much more fear, grief, anxiety, helplessness and overwhelming sense of vulnerability and loss of control. Others are just experiencing the creation of a work space at home, meeting co-workers virtually, and remaining at home as much as possible from obligation more than fear. Regardless of what level of stress you are...
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Brene Brown: Why Experiencing Joy and Pain in a Group Is So Powerful
Today, our culture is in crisis. Many people have retreated to their ideological bunkers to hate from afar, dehumanizing others rather than risk having real, meaningful conversations across their differences. How will we find our way back to each other? It’s not by staying in our factions and echo chambers, pressured to conform to whatever viewpoints and ways of being are acceptable to our political and social groups. Instead, it will take a willingness to share our authentic stories,...
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Building Resilient, Self-Healing Communities
An exciting and somewhat logical outgrowth that has followed the Resilience documentary screenings sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation has been the creation of multidisciplinary teams formed to think about and take next steps within their communities. Led by Resilient Payne County, formed over two years ago, other communities are following a similar path in bringing key leaders together to assess their community’s strengths and define community needs around mitigating and preventing the...
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D. D. Kirkland School features innovation, partnerships
A t the invitation of an early education expert with the Potts Family Foundation , I attended the Aug. 14 D.D. Kirkland Early Childhood Center Screening Day and Meet the Teacher event. I should add that this retired high school teacher did not grasp the importance of high-quality pre-K until I was schooled by Ray Potts (as well as John Rex) during MAPS for Kids. Back then, there were still some doubts as to the benefits of pre-K and full-service community schools like D.D. Kirkland. I should...
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Re: New Community!!! Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative
Welcome Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative and Ashley! As fellow Oklahomans, we're excited that you now have a presence on ACEsConnection. We look forward to working together in the effort to raise Oklahoma from the bottom 25 to the top 25 of states with positive childhood well-being indicators.
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Re: Limited Dollars, Significant Influence: How We Advocate, Convene & Catalyze
Dear Ms. Pat Potts: I hope you will also be able to secure a position on the State's Adverse Childhood Experiences Task Force. You would be a mighty voice for action with on that team! I think everything you are doing is life-changing and life-saving work. You are making an impact and generational shift in our State that is launching us into a new direction of hope-centeredness with overall improved health, wellness and nurturing outcomes as we all partner to overcome trauma in Oklahoma.
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COVID-19 - Even More Reason To
Covid-19 – Even more reason to. We know the most important thing we can do is be connected to ourselves and others, and out of that connection do the best we can to care for ourselves and each other. And with so many needs in our world, maybe even our personal one, that internal and external connection is more necessary than ever. With Covid-19, we have seen an increase in both intensity and need across the spectrum. Those that needed us to be connected and involved before, need us even more...
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100% Community - Let’s Do It!
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...
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Creating Equity and Acceptance in Schools
Becoming Trauma Informed is about changing ourselves and the environment to foster trauma resilience in those we come in contact with. If schools are using Social Emotional Learning curriculum (SEL) only as an add-on program to implement, then it isn’t about the teachers and environment changing, it is merely about changing the behavior of students. If we are solely trying to change others to make them conform to pre-set standards, it is continuing the oppressive cycle. Command and control...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...
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Cultivating the Growth of Resilience
Trauma impacts lives on the individual, familial, community and societal level. Historically, we have addressed the resulting symptoms of trauma with treatments of therapy, education, and all too often imprisonment. However, putting preventative factors in place can avert the symptoms, outcome and resulting negative impacts. Prevention begins with understanding how trauma impacts lives and why it impacts our brains and bodies before we can fully understand what we can do to mitigate its...
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What I Learned From Presenting a Trauma-informed Class to Police Chiefs by Christopher Freeze
I'm pretty sure I learned as much or more about trauma-informed policing while presenting the class as did the police chiefs who attended. After not presenting at all during 2020, I was excited to be invited to present a block of instruction on Trauma-Informed Leadership for Police Chiefs at the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police 2021 Winter Conference. There were about 50 chiefs in attendance on January 14, 2021, and while we all had to deal with the COVID precautions, it was good...
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Ardmore Hosts Successful Documentary Screening & Discussion
The Potts Family Foundation through its Raising Resilient Oklahomans initiative partnered this past week with the Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative and Ardmore Literacy Leadership to host a very successful virtual screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary Resilience: The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope. As we always do, the weekend screening period was followed by a moderated panel discussion of professionals, mostly local, who frequently work with children...
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Successful Logic Modeling Training for Raising Resilient Oklahomans Self-Healing Community Teams
On Thursday, January 28, at the first monthly meeting of 2021 for the Oklahoma Self-Healing Community (SHC) teams, members participated in a workshop on Logic Modeling. The workshop was led by Dr. Mike Stout, Associate Professor with the OSU-Tulsa Center for Public Life , with assistance from graduate research assistants Patrick Grayshaw and Carly Dunn. Participants included team members from several of the 20 SHCs teams who participated in the October 2019 workshop led by Laura Porter...
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Hope and Resilience Are Distinct Contributors to Survivor Well-Being
The purpose of this post is to provide a direct response to Cheryl Step’s “ Resilience: The Foundation of Hope .” First, we do not object to the term resilience in everyday conversation. However, in the research and practice literature, resilience (or resiliency) has suffered from a myriad of inconsistent definitions and conceptualizations that leave researchers and professionals with uncertainty about what it means to guide practice. We notice Cheryl considers resilience using several other...
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NEAR Science is Coming to Oklahoma!
By the end of March, Oklahoma will have 30 certified Master Trainers prepared to canvass our state and engage and motivate individuals and communities to prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and improve well-being. The Master Trainer program is facilitated by Dr. Robert Anda and Laura Porter of ACE Interface , a company that provides education, analysis, process design, facilitation, and products designed to increase networks of trainers to disseminate education across communities.
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Heal the Forest for the Tree
“ Trauma always happens within a context, and so does healing. To understand the impact of trauma means being acutely sensitive to the environment—to the conditions under which people grew up, to how they live today, and to the journeys they have taken along the way .” (Andrea Blanch, Beth Filson, and Darby Penney National Center for Trauma Informed Care guidebook) Creating an environment that exudes calm, safety, and compassion is a goal of trauma-informed systems. It is a profound paradigm...
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Why We Need to Build Trust in Our Neighborhoods by Christopher Freeze
At the heart of any healthy relationship is trust. We instinctively understand this fact. Yet, we sometimes allow our own insecurities, weaknesses, and selfishness to rob us of trust which, in turn, robs us of the joy and peace we could be experiencing with other people. There are resources available designed to help us strengthen personal relationships and to deal with broken relationships. In both instances, almost all of those resources place an emphasis on building or rebuilding trust.