Tagged With "adolescent brain"
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Summit: Oklahoma’s youngest, most vulnerable children suffer more trauma than those in any other state in the nation [tulsaworld.com]
State leaders in education, criminal justice and health came together Tuesday to begin to confront an alarming, new statistic: Oklahoma’s youngest, most vulnerable children suffer more trauma than those in any other state in the nation. A summit titled, “It Starts Here: Trauma-Informed Instruction,” brought thousands of educators from across the state to hear from national experts on childhood trauma and what brain science reveals about what teachers can do to help students both learn more...
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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The Impact of Covid 19 Stress; Let’s Flatten This Curve!
There have been several recent projections about the dramatic impact the spread and devastation of the corona virus, shelter at home, social distancing and economic hardships will have on many, many people of all ages across our globe. Experts are warning of huge increases in depression, suicide, anxiety, substance abuse and other emotional and physical adversities from the virus’s impact on society. Many want to urge legislatures to fund treatment for this future spike. True, the...
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The Students and Teachers Upending Traditional Approaches to Discipline
What happens when you don’t blame kids for bad behavior? An elementary school in Columbus, Ohio is trying to find out. Click on the link below to read an article from The Atlantic about innovative approaches - based on brain science - to student discipline by teaching self-regulation and impulse control techniques. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/05/ohio-ave-elementary-school-discipline/559952/
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Trauma-Informed Care is Not a Program For Your Clients
Understanding the long-term impact of developmental trauma, how trauma impacts the brain, and the science of resiliency is a powerful first step toward change. It is exciting to watch people begin to let this knowledge soak in… and even more exciting when they begin to ask “Now what?” As I have worked with organizations across the state, I have found that often what they are really looking for is the curriculum or recipe book that they can follow for their clients or students. Even those...
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Trauma-Informed is Messy Business…
Words like trauma-informed and resiliency get thrown around a lot these days. And for many, the visions they call up are a bit too glossy. You see resiliency and trauma-informed aren’t always pretty. Resiliency can look like closing the bathroom door and collapsing in tears… but then washing your face and going back into the world, carrying the belief that you can survive and the hope that things will get better. It looks like begrudgingly going on that walk with a friend, when the little...
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Trauma Informed Response During Uncertain Times
As we begin to navigate and find a new normal over the next few days with both our families and co-workers, we need to remember to be trauma responsive. The definition of trauma often includes the words “overwhelming sense of loss of control.” With the uncertainty the next few days or weeks may hold, we all may feel a loss of control. So, it is important to remember a few things to help us all respond rather than react to what is going on around us and inside us. If you haven’t heard of the...
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What If I Told You?
What if I told you that I was a victim of child sex abuse? As a survivor of child sexual abuse , I have a clear understanding of the importance of addressing stigma and shame as it pertains to sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Victims, especially young children, often do not disclose sexual abuse. Those who are witnesses of child sexual abuse, or who are trusted by survivors enough that they confide in them, are often ill-equipped to handle the responsibility. And, many times, parents...
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What Policymakers Should Know About Early Childhood Mental Health
Jordana Ash, Early Childhood Mental Health Director in the Office of Early Childhood, part of the Colorado Department of Human Services, talks about brain development, resilience, and what she wishes health care providers and policymakers knew about early childhood mental health. The Checkup is a podcast hosted by the Colorado Health Institute. Click here to listen to the podcast.
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Whole People Series & Study Guide (www.pbs.org)
There's a fantastic five-part series, Whole People , done by PBS, " spotlighting the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) through personal and community stories. It explores the long-term costs to personal well-being and our society. While much work needs to be done, there are many innovative developments to prevent and treat ACES. We all play a role in becoming a whole people." It's amazing. The five topics covered are as follows: Childhood Trauma Healing Communities A New...
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Fogelman: ACEs test key part of Project AWARE
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...
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Grassroots resilience: Rural communities tackle ACEs
Rt to left—Adrienne Coopey, DO, Billings Clinic, MT, Lorenzo Lewis, The Confess Project, Little Rock, Ark, and Mendy Spohn, MPH, public health administrator in several counties in Oklahoma ________________________________________________ The three presenters for the “Grassroots Resilience: Rural Communities Tackle ACEs” workshop brought to life the unique challenges of addressing ACEs and trauma in rural communities and shared some valuable lessons for communities of any size. Mendy Spohn, a...
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Guide - Creating Trauma-Informed Policies: A Practice Guide for School and Mental Health Leadership
Author, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health lead for SAMHSA's Mental Health Technology Center Pacific Southwest http://mhttcnetwork.org/mhttc/mhttc-psw.html Creating compassionate policies is a cornerstone strategy of educational leadership. This guide provides a deep dive into developing, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed and compassionate school policies. It highlights four "choice points" for education and mental health leadership: Choice Point 1: Names &...
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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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Helping Students Overcome Toxic Stress through Science-Based Teaching Practices (stresshealth.org)
“What our students really crave the most is predictability from the adults interacting with them,” says Roger Sapp, a student success teacher at KIPP. For that reason, the one-on-one session is not a reward for being “good” or withheld if something bad happens. The kids who need it can count on it – every day. The scene is from a video by Edutopia (aka the George Lucas Educational Foundation), which has produced a series of more than 20 powerful, engaging shorts on how children learn in...
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Here's how educators are learning to empathetically foster resilience in children affected by trauma
By ESTELLE SLOOTMAKER | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019, Published in Second Wave Michigan This article is part of State of Health, a series examining integrated care and its potential to improve Michiganders' health. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. Divorce, a parent's death or imprisonment, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and the daily experience of racism. They're all sadly common events, known as adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. But the...
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Herner: The Weight of Adverse Childhood Experiences
Adverse childhood experiences are incredibly common, and a local organization is looking to spread the word about what are commonly referred to as ACEs. According to a Centers for Disease Control study conducted from 1995 to 1997, ACEs can affect not only a person’s behavior and physical health later in life, but also how their offspring are wired. The study looked at more than 17,000 Californians’ childhood experiences as compared to their health and behavior as adults, and it focused on 10...
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Honea: Why fathers must talk about their mental health
In recent months, notable pillars of traditional masculinity, including NBA players DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love, and muscular action heroes Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, have publicly addressed their experiences with anxiety and depression. While I would never wish either on anyone, I was glad to see them talk about it, and use their platforms to show that men’s mental health is a serious issue that needs to be discussed, especially by those we perceive as too tough to do so. The impact...
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Insight Into Trauma Informed
The awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the impact of developmental trauma on both children and adults has begun to spread across Oklahoma. Since Oklahoma’s statistics rank this state as one of the nation’s highest in need of trauma training, this awareness is a vital initial step. As the awareness spreads and many people begin to talk about trauma and how we as people, agencies, and a state respond, our communication and understanding must be consistent with other states...
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Ives: Resilience exerts a protective role against negative effects of stress during pregnancy
Resilience—understood as the set of personal resources that help individuals deal effectively with adversity, protecting them from the negative health effects of stress—is receiving increasing attention from researchers. However, it remains understudied in such a sensitive time of life as pregnancy. Previous studies have found that pregnancy is a crucial period during which exposure to stress can negatively affect the health of both mother and baby. Stress has been linked to a range of...
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Jones: Day 2: Soda, cigarettes and trauma: How Adverse Childhood Experiences alter brain chemistry, cultivate unhealthy habits and prompt premature death
Patients would carry soda into Dr. Gerard Clancy’s office, with cigarettes tucked away for after therapy. Often victims of abuse or violent crime, they would seek soothing but risky behaviors to cope. Overweight. Chronic pain. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Type II diabetes. His former patients will die younger than they should, he said. Clancy conducted therapy sessions until he became president of the University of Tulsa in 2016. At his psychiatry clinic, he saw firsthand how a...
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Let's Go Upstream
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...
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Looking at childhood experiences related to stress
April is Stress Awareness Month and Child Abuse Awareness Month. In recognition of both of themes of awareness, I want to raise cognizance of toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences (ACES). Both lifelong physical and mental health problems arise when children experience extreme stress (toxic stress) caused by ACEs. Daily many children in our community experience toxic stress related to adverse childhood experiences (ACE). ...
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Martinez-Keel: 'A source of hope': Oklahoma teachers learn impact of child trauma at state summit
Thousands of educators gathered in the Cox Convention Center on Monday and eagerly stared at a model of a brain. With 86 billion neurons firing, the brain is a “miracle of complexity,” Dr. Bruce Perry said as he showed the image on a screen. The impact of childhood trauma is similarly intricate. The renowned psychiatrist and child trauma expert spoke to an arena full of teachers, school counselors and nonprofit workers for the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s third-annual trauma...
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‘Mindful People’ Feel Less Pain; MRI Imaging Pinpoints Supporting Brain Activity (scienceblog.com)
Ever wonder why some people seem to feel less pain than others? A study conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine may have found one of the answers – mindfulness. “Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment,” said the study’s lead author, Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the medical school, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “We now know that some people are more mindful than...
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Neal: Trying to Break Cycle
A near-capacity crowd gathered in the lecture hall at Autry Technology Center on Monday morning for the showing of a documentary and public discussion of how childhood trauma is negatively impacting the community. It was one of two showings Monday of “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope,” which drew educators, mental health professionals, clergy, social workers, nonprofit and civic leaders together to discuss ways to improve social and health outcomes for community...
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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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Oklahoma 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for Oklahoma. To review the entire profile, open the PDF that is attached to this post. If you have corrections or additions, please leave them in the comments section of this post. We’ll be reviewing the comments regularly and doing fact-checks. The information you give us will also help us determine how to organize and expand the information in the state profiles. We will be turning this post into a living profile that, with your help and input, we’ll...
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Oklahoma First Lady Stitt to provide resilience workshop at Northwestern
Alva and Northwestern Oklahoma State University will host Oklahoma's First Lady Sarah Stitt on Feb. 13 at an event designed to educate community members about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). Stitt and her office have joined forces with the Potts Family Foundation, Northwestern and Northwest Family Services to present a film screening and panel discussion on this important topic. The documentary film "Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope" will be shown at 11 a.m. in...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Rains: Ardmore community seeking ways to address childhood trauma amid low state rankings in well-being, high drug-related arrests
Most parents would never look at their child and say, ‘I can’t wait to mess you up.’ Instead, it’s often ‘I want better for you than I ever had,’ said Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative Director Ashely Godwin. However, within the last couple of years, Oklahoma has ranked in the bottom 10 states in the nation for child well-being and has been among the states with the highest recorded juvenile drug-related arrests. A report conducted by Greenhouse Treatment, a rehabilitation facility,...
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Resources from the 2018 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Conference
In October, I attended the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Conference in San Francisco. It was really inspiring. Below please find share some of the books, videos, and resources that I learned about. All the best, Natalie BOOKS 1) The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, MD https://centerforyouthwellness.org/the-deepest-well/ 2) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, MD...
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Roach: OK25by25 promotes resilience and family positive workplace
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...
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Simmons: Mental health scientists offer hope after sobering report on state's infants and toddlers
Data is being collected to support the theory that where a child grows up can have a large impact on the developing brain. Friday at the Stillwater Public Library, childhood development experts weighed in on the 2019 State of Babies report (stateofbabies.org) that graded each state, and showed a lot of room to grow for Oklahoma’s rural communities. Room to grow was a euphemism the program used to mean that things could be a lot better for infants and toddlers in Oklahoma. Resilient Payne...
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12 Myths of the Science of ACEs
The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...
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'A Source of Hope': Oklahoma Teachers Learn Impact of Childhood Trauma at State Summit [oklahoman.com]
By Nuria Martinez-Keel, The Oklahoman, February 17, 2020 Thousands of educators gathered in the Cox Convention Center on Monday and eagerly stared at a model of a brain. With 86 billion neurons firing, the brain is a “miracle of complexity,” Dr. Bruce Perry said as he showed the image on a screen. The impact of childhood trauma is similarly intricate. The renowned psychiatrist and child trauma expert spoke to an arena full of teachers, school counselors and nonprofit workers for the Oklahoma...
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Belew: Oklahoma First Lady stops in Duncan, focuses on preventing adverse childhood experiences through tour and film screening
“The child may not remember but the body remembers.” That was the key saying behind the “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope” film screening Thursday, Jan. 16 when First Lady Sarah Stitt brought the Hope Rising Tour to Duncan in an effort to educate and help prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) plaguing youth in the state. “Resilience” focuses on the concept of ACEs, which is now understood to be a leading cause of “everything from heart disease and cancer to...
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Better ACEs research, terms lead to better solutions by John Thompson
T here is a consistent pattern in the conferences sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation , such as its Raising Resilient Oklahomans! summit March 7 in Edmond. First, they update the cutting-edge scientific research on early education and on cognitive concerns, like the effects of adverse childhood experiences ( ACEs ). Then, national and local experts pioneer new ways of articulating these challenges in ways that advance a constructive search for solutions. The summit used new research and...
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Brannon: Tulane psychiatrist wins national award for research that shows how trauma seeps across generations
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) has selected Tulane child psychiatry professor Dr. Stacy Drury to receive the 2018 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement. The award recognizes the most significant paper published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by a child and adolescent psychiatrist within the last year. It’s a record fourth time a Tulane child psychiatrist has won the prestigious...
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Building Organizational Resilience in the Face of a Ubiquitous Challenge
As organizations begin to make plans and re-focus during the virus outbreak, leaders should strive to respond using SAMHSA’s Trauma Informed Care principles. Below is a blog by Karen Johnson that was posted on acessonnection.com a few days ago. It concisely and effectively demonstrates how leaders can use Trauma Informed Care principles as they move their organizations forward. Read the article copied below or click here to go to the original blog post. Ubiquitous: present, appearing, found...
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Child Mind Institute: Not All Attention Problems Are ADHD
Trouble paying attention is often first identified by a teacher who notices that a student seems more easily distracted than most other kids his age. Maybe the child takes an unusually long time to finish schoolwork in class. Maybe when the teacher calls on him, he doesn’t seem to have been following the lesson. Maybe he seems to tune out when instructions are given, or forget what he’s supposed to be doing. Maybe homework assignments often go missing. While all children, especially those...
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Connecting Childhood Trauma, attachment, home-based services
Connecting childhood trauma, attachment, home-based services A nurturing bonding between infants and the primary caregivers (typically parents) or early attachment has a tremendous impact on the health and well-being of children. The most important stage for development of an infant’s brain is at the beginning of life in utero and first couple years of life. In the first three years of life, the growth of the brain is amazingly rapid with an estimated rate of 700-1000 synapse connections per...
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DR. ROBERT BLOCK: A pediatrician’s perspective on ACEs, resilience
As an academic and clinical pediatrician with over 40 years of experience, I was impressed and amazed when I first heard Dr. Vince Felitti speak about his ground-breaking work on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), first published in 1998. For the last several years a multitude of professionals have been working on the clinical (practical) application of his work, and more have been learning about the genetics, brain chemistry, and other scientific explanations for his findings. The core...
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Eger: Day 5: ACES: Breaking the cycle: 'Waking up was miserable'
The kids at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore changed Kristin Atchley as an education professional. Tragedy there changed her as a person. Today, Atchley uses what she learned and lived through to teach others about the impact of chronic stressors on growing kids and how trauma rewires our brains. “I had a fully-developed brain as a 30-year-old. I knew I could get help and get through. Kids don’t always understand that,” she said. Atchley didn’t have the personal or professional...
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ACEs Connection reaches 200 participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau!
ACEs Connection is proud to announce we have reached 200 Speakers & Trainers participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau! What is the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau? The ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau is a service that provides subscribers of ACEsConnection a Database of ACEs speakers and trainers for hire. The development of the Speakers & Trainers Bureau was in response to a great need expressed by our communities. ACEs...
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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...