Tagged With "Pathways Past and Present"
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The courageous fight to fix the NBA's mental health problem
Mental health in the NBA Our five-part series on mental health issues in the NBA: • The state of mental health in the NBA • Mental health in the NBA's black community • To medicate or not? A difficult decision • Behind the anxiety and anger of an NBA ref • The future of mental health in the NBA http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24382693/jackie-macmullan-kevin-love-paul-pierce-state-mental-health-nba ACE's HIGHLIGHT Parham, a psychologist and director of Loyola Marymount's School of...
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TIC Take Five: Navigating through Grief: Supports for Ourselves and Others
Here's another in a little series we're posting over on the Lancaster County (PA) ACES & Resilience Connection site to promote a regular practice to "take five" (minutes) for self-care. Sharing with the wider ACES Connection community in case it's helpful. Peace. Be well, everyone. In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of the...
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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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Treating Childhood Trauma Becoming a Public Policy Priority [governing.com]
There’s a lot that’s indisputable about childhood trauma. Emotional or physical abuse early in life impacts health outcomes as children grow up. Community- and family-based approaches to dealing with trauma are better than institutional settings. And children of color are more likely to face traumatizing childhood experiences. Those events can include something as common as divorce, but also encompass circumstances such as having an incarcerated parent, living with someone with a substance...
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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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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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"Faces of ACEs: The Lifelong Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences" Conference 2019
Friday, April 12, 2019 marked an exciting, auspicious, and perhaps pivotal day in the history of Monroe County, Indiana. That’s a lot of adjectives—and pressure—to pile onto just another glorious spring day in Bloomington. But I think many folks who virtually congregate on a site that supports communities implementing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices grounded in ACEs science would agree that a county’s first-ever ACEs conference deserves a little ballyhoo. But this ACEs...
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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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Hofmeister: Moving beyond trauma to hope
‘Our future can be brighter than our past.” These words of hope are critical for hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma children impacted by trauma and the public educators who serve them. Science tells us that childhood experiences of abuse and neglect linger in the brains of young people — causing them to relive their most agonizing experiences in an endless feedback loop and propelling them into a subconscious, and recurring, state of fight or flight that disrupts their ability to learn.
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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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Martinez-Keel: Oklahoma City Public Schools announces new administration, staff positions
Superintendent Sean McDaniel on Friday announced a plan to dedicate $600,000 toward additional administrative, leadership and mental health staff for Oklahoma City Public Schools. McDaniel said the reorganization plan included three more administrative positions and an unspecified number of new leadership directors, school counselors and nurses. “As I spent this year listening and learning about the many challenges faced by our students, families and staff, it was apparent that there were a...
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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: United Way hosts seminar on effects of childhood trauma
ENID, Okla. — The United Way Coach-A-Kid program hosted a lunch-and-learn session Wednesday at Stride Bank Center on the effects of childhood trauma. Garfield County Child Advocacy Council Director Carole Wade was speaker for the event, sharing perspectives from her time as an advocate for children and families. Wade discussed with the group the findings of a 1998 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of more than 17,000 adults into the long-term effects of Adverse...
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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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Pennington: TIME4K program expands to help students in Wayne, Cabell counties
HUNTINGTON — Through blowing bubbles, easy-to-follow activities and the occasional use of glitter, the West Virginia Trauma-Informed Mindfulness for Kids program is expanding to help youth struggling with trauma or toxic stress find positive coping strategies in Cabell and Wayne counties. The program, also known as TIME4K, is a three-year, grant-funded pilot initiative through Marshall University’s Social Work and Psychology departments that offers resources to teachers and behavioral...
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Portell: Understanding Trauma-Informed Education
ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) have made their way into the mainstream over the past couple of years, even showing up in a segment that Oprah did for 60 Minutes . And because ACEs have a profound effect on children, the concept has been taken up in the world of education. Approaching education with an understanding of the physiological, social, emotional, and academic impacts of trauma and adversity on our students is driving changes in our systems. However, these changes are not...
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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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ELEVATE: Enhancing Security for Schools
BETHANY (June 2019) – School security has a new face in Bethany – a full-time school resource officer the kids affectionately call Officer Z. Zack Zamudio left his beat with the Bethany Police Department to walk the halls of Bethany Public Schools at the beginning of the last school year as part of several new measures designed to increase safety at the school. “We’re not policing the school; we’re securing the school,” Zamudio said. “Shutting off the police mode and switching to security...
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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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Robert Block: We need to be building adult capabilities to improve child outcomes [tulsaworld.com]
You may have been hearing the phrase “trauma-informed care” a lot more recently and there are good reasons for that. As the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study from 1997 receives more and more attention, Oklahomans, from all walks of life and professions, are better understanding the social, emotional and cognitive damage already wrought on so many of our children. That damage, as the study reveals, manifests itself in challenging behavioral patterns in our children and poor...
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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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Advocacy Training and a Celebration for Students
Over the past year, OICA has redirected much of our direct service to supporting foster youth, with this party and OK Foster Wishes. We are very happy that we have been able to work with the many partners to see this endeavor be successful. If you would like to be a part of one of these programs, please reach out to us at (405) 236-5437 or info@oica.org for more information. We are a statewide program, so we are looking for Oklahomans from every part of the state to join with us for the...
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An imperative for those in "towers" to connect with the realities of trauma in schools
Boosting SEL in K-12's "Ivory Towers" Educational Leadership October 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 2 The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning Those of us in administration must lift our "social awareness" by getting closer to schools and the people inside them. The superintendent's leadership team for the district where I was working had just finished its Monday morning meeting. One member of that team stopped as he passed by my cubicle to view the large poster I'd recently hung up. It displayed...
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Anya Kamenetz: How The Science Of Learning Is Catching Up To Mr. Rogers
Editor's note on Aug. 8, 2018: This piece has been substantially updated from a version published in 2014. A solemn little boy with a bowl haircut is telling Mr. Rogers that his pet got hit by a car. More precisely, he's confiding this to Daniel Striped Tiger, the hand puppet that, Rogers' wife, Joanne, says, "pretty much was Fred." "That's scary," says Daniel/Fred. He asks for a hug. The boy hugs the tiger. Not a dry eye in the house. That scene is from Won't You Be My Neighbor , the hit...
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Berry: Virtue Center earns grant
As part of their newest social innovation initiative, United Way of Norman awarded $7,420 Thursday night to The Virtue Center for their Move Through Recovery program. The Virtue Center was one of four finalists chosen to present its program to a panel of seven judges. Norman's United Way President and CEO Daren Wilson said the goal of the "Launch" was to be creative in helping change the community in positive ways. Every community needs to be out-of-the-box thinkers, and the 'Launch' gives...
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Bitterman: Coronavirus in Oklahoma: Teacher parades let students, educators connect from a distance
Teachers from schools around the Oklahoma City metro area have been lining up their cars in caravans and parading through their students’ neighborhoods this week to show their students how much they care about them. The teachers have written on their windows with car paint and taped on hand-written signs with messages of how much they love and miss their students. “We miss y’all,” read a sign held by one teacher Wednesday in Reagan Elementary's parade in Norman. The caravans have snaked down...
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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 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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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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Embrace OKC seeks to prevent mental illness in OKCPS
A t the Oklahoma City Public School System working board meeting Sept. 24, Oklahoma Department of Mental Health Commissioner Terri White introduced a “historic” collaboration. She explained that the OKCPS has committed to Embrace OKC , a holistic process to study and systematically address the district’s mental health challenges. Other districts have joined with the Department of Mental Health and other service providers in the past, but no other leader has tackled these health problems in...
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2020 State of Babies & 2020 KIDS COUNT Databook
The State of Babies Yearbook is a national and state resource developed by ZERO TO THREE to tell the story of America’s babies through key indicators in the domains infants and toddlers need to thrive: Good Health , Strong Families , and Positive Early Learning Experiences . The State of Babies Yearbook , an initiative of Think Babies ™, provides policymakers and advocates with national and state-level data to help them advance policies to improve the lives of babies and families. Where...
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Ray: Translating Mindfulness to Distance Learning
The many challenges of this year have required people to cope with a range of external stressors. The United States is still navigating community response to George Floyd’s killing and racial inequities. Many are physically distancing and trying to survive economic fallout from the pandemic. As an adult, I find it hard to take things one day at a time, focus on my breath, and move forward with purpose and gratitude. Young people are looking for ways to cope and heal as well. At our middle...
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Offset trauma for students by promoting positive experiences [exclusive.multibriefs.com]
By Sheilamary Koch, Multibriefs: Exclusive, July 27, 2020 When Christina Bethell was little, she lived in a low-income housing complex in Los Angeles where her neighbor, a quiet lady the kids called Mrs. Raccoon, always had her door open for the neighborhood kids. Every Saturday she threw a little tea party with candy to celebrate any child with a birthday that week. Bethell fondly remembers the woman’s kindness as source of comfort during her challenging childhood. Dr. Bethell, now a...
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Re: Oklahoma Turning Point Conference - 8.25.20
We are so Excited about this Virtual conference and hosting Tonier Cain! Thank You Linda M for sharing with this group! Kim Whaley, CTTS Past Chair, OTPC
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Hope and Progress, No Matter What! — an ACEs Connection/Cambia Health Foundation “Better Normal”, Oct. 22, 2020
The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not.
What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.
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Enid News & Eagle: Online forum to tackle childhood trauma
Woodward Area Coalition, Evolution Foundation and the Potts Family Foundation will host a virtual screening and panel discussion, Nov. 11-14, of “Resilience,” a documentary that examines adverse childhood experiences and their long-lasting effects. The documentary “reveals how toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at risk for disease, homelessness, prison time and early death,” and “chronicles the dawn of a movement determined...
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Building Equitable Futures for Oklahoma’s Children: An Early Childhood Research and Policy Series
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...
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Lesley: These Commonsense Measures Can Lift up America’s Children
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...
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Day-Burget: Grandfamilies and COVID-19: Families of Unique Origins Face Unique Challenges
Raising a child can be hard at any age. Doing so in one’s golden years during a global pandemic introduces an array of unique challenges. Mel Hannah spent most of his life in service to others. He was the first African American member of the Flagstaff City Council and vice chairman of the NAACP Arizona State Conference. And, in service to his beloved family, Mel and his wife Shirley, now in their 80s, have been helping their daughter Ashley raise her three children these past years. Sadly,...
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Zeedyk: Casting long shadows: Children, young people and trust in a Covid world
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...
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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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Resilience: The Foundation of Hope
I respect and appreciate the research and science of Hope and think people should learn about Chan Hellman's work. I do not believe you can replace resilience with Hope. They are two distinct concepts that work together to bring about trauma integration. I believe, and science research supports the idea, that children or adults living in adversity and toxic stress must first achieve some aspects of resilience before we can ask them to strengthen their decision-making and goal setting skills...
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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.