By Natalia Orozco, National Crittenton, December 5, 2019 National Crittenton is a 136-year-old national advocacy organization with a singular focus on the needs, potential, and power of girls and young people across the gender spectrum, centering those of color. The public education system has always been our best chance at having an early warning system that recognizes the complex context of students’ lives – ideally offering safety, support and opportunities for students to heal, learn and...

In a mid-April conference call led by the Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), participants from around the country—many of them active in ACEs, trauma and resilience networks—discussed the wave of trauma that is certain to slam communities in the wake of COVID-19. They also cheered a bit of hopeful news: the announcement of $3 billion in federal funding, the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, a portion of the CARES Act. The funds are flexible block grants for...

By Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report, December 16, 2019 A bipartisan deal on a government spending bill would for the first time in two decades provide money for federal research on gun safety. A law adopted in the 1990's has effectively blocked such research and prohibits federal agencies from engaging in advocacy on gun-related issues. The spending bill, set for a House vote as soon as Tuesday, would provide $25 million for gun violence research, divided evenly between the...

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) (above) delivered a strong and passionate call to address childhood adversity to reap a “huge payback” in combating addiction, family violence, and poor education -- the “challenges that confront American families.” [For a video of the briefing, click here . It begins at 17:13 minutes with the first presentation by Andrea Blanch. The sound improves at 23:11 minutes when Sen. Heitkamp's remarks begin.] The July 14th event was the second of three...

With just four months remaining in the Obama presidency, the White House assembled leaders from 14 states and the District of Columbia and key administration officials for a day-long conference, “ Trauma Informed Approaches in Schools: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline.” Last summer’s White House meeting, titled “Rethink School Discipline,” covered issues related to the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study and trauma, but transforming schools through trauma-informed approaches...

NOVEMBER 2015 A Healthy Early Childhood Action Plan: Policies for a Lifetime of Well-being highlights more than 40 policy target areas that are key to achieving national goals of reducing toxic stress and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)...

Senator Heidi Heitkamp at lectern—(l to r) Kana Enomoto, Zach Kaminsky, Judge Dan Michael, Dr. Joe Wright, and Wendy Ellis ___________________________________________________________ The first congressional briefing on trauma held during the 115 th Congress and the new administration was held May 11 before a rapt audience of Hill staff amidst a swirl of controversy around the firing of FBI Director Comey and the speculation that the fallout will derail progress on the domestic policy agenda.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris (l) and Karina Chicote, Churchill Fellow from western Australia meet after congressional hearing After watching the hearing on a monitor in the overflow room, Karina Chicote, a Churchill Fellow from western Australia, and I hustled to the hearing room in hopes of speaking to the lead witness, Nadine Burke Harris, MD, the first Surgeon General of the State of California. She was deep in conversation with others, including a young woman who wanted to tell her how...

Thank you to all who joined our incredible CTIPP CAN call on Wednesday. We are grateful for all who participated, but want to especially thank Jen Curt for the overview of the STRONG Support for Children Act, and Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz and Sanghoon Yoo for their wonderful presentations about their work. You can find the recording from the July CTIPP CAN call here . There were so many valuable resources shared. Attached to this email are both powerpoints from Rebecca and Sanghoon, and they...

As Congress heads toward the August recess, President Biden’s major domestic priorities are included in the framework announced on July 14 along with Democratic congressional leaders. Biden and party leaders agreed on a top-level number of $3.5 trillion for major programs including an extension of the child tax credit, universal pre-K, two years of free community college, child care support, climate provisions, expansion of the Affordable Care Act, and more. The path to enactment is far from...

PACES Connection and CTIPP invite you to join us on a Zoom call for statewide coordinators and community managers rom around the country on Wednesday July 28th from 1:00-2:00pm ET/10-11am PT The call will cover several important and urgent issues coming out of Washington. First, a bipartisan group of four Senators has introduced the RISE from Trauma Act ( one-page summary attached ). This is the most powerful bill that Congress has ever introduced to address childhood and familial trauma in...

Over the last dozen years (2009-2020), every state and the District of Columbia have included the ACEs module in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Survey at least once—many multiple times—achieving a significant milestone in the PACEs (ACEs/trauma/resilience) movement. In 2009, the first year that the ACEs module was available for inclusion in the BRFSS, only Arkansas, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Washington participated. Since 2009, the US...