Tagged With "Obesity Rates"
Blog Post
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic trauma leaders share successes to make big change at May 1 convening
Leaders in ACEs/trauma/resilience movement from nine states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and the District of Columbia gathered for a networking call on May 1 to learn about flexible funding opportunities for states under the CARES Act, ways to get involved in advocacy, and share their successes and challenges in building statewide coalitions. The meeting of leaders was organized by ACEs Connection and the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) in response to COVID-19...
Blog Post
Obesity Rates: WIC Participants Ages 2-4 [stateofchildhoodobesity.org]
By State of Childhood Obesity, January 2020 The rate of obesity has declined among 2- to 4-year-olds enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). From 2010 to 2016, the national rate of obesity dropped from 15.9% to 13.9%. The decline was statistically significant among all racial and ethnic groups studied: American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, black, Hispanic, and white. The map below highlights the most recent state-level...
Blog Post
Opioid legislation with significant trauma provisions clears the Congress, awaits President Trump’s signature
On October 3, the U.S. Senate voted 98-1 (only Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT voted nay) to approve The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (H.R. 6 or previously titled the Opioid Crisis Response Act) , a final step before the President’s signature. The House approved the measure by a vote of 393-8 on September 28. The Senate approved an earlier version of this legislation on September 17 and as reported on ACEs Connection , it includes significant provisions taken from or aligned with the goals...
Blog Post
Personal stories the set tone of hearing in U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Opioid Crisis Response Act
Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry to her right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee but it was the personal stories that...
Blog Post
Pittsburgh's Resilience City Strategy (100resilientcities.org)
Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto and Chief Resilience Officer Grant Ervin celebrated an important milestone: the release of ONEPGH , Pittsburgh’s first-ever City Resilience Strategy. Pittsburgh’s story is a familiar one for post-industrial cities across the United States – and around the world. This city lost 40 percent of its population between 1970 and 2006, and faces a range of day-to-day stresses and potential shocks as it recovers from its past and experiences the known and unknown...
Blog Post
Providers Hope Trauma Legislation Will Help Native Children in Foster Care [ChornicleOfSocialChange.org]
Recent federal legislation put forward by senators Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) proposes to address the issue of childhood trauma through the creation of a federal trauma task force. The Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act would gather federal officials and members of tribal agencies to create a set of best practices and training to help create a better way to identify and support children and families that have experienced trauma. In...
Blog Post
Senate HELP Committee schedules hearing on April 11 on draft opioid bill with key provisions addressing trauma and seeks stakeholder comments
Key provisions that are closely aligned with sections the Heitkamp-Durbin “Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act (S. 774)” are included in opioid legislation that is advancing in the U.S. Senate. A draft bill, “The Opioid Crisis Response Act,” is the subject of a hearing on Wednesday, April 11 in the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee and a mark-up of the legislation is expected over the next several weeks. Senator Heitkamp’s office highlighted three...
Blog Post
Study: Community Trauma from Gun Violence Results in Negative Health and Behavioral Outcomes (Violence Policy Center)
Research on trauma is frequently featured in mainstream news outlets, pointing to its connection to a range of behavioral and health outcomes. While trauma can have multiple interpretations, for the purposes of this report, it is the result of experiencing or witnessing chronic and sustained violence, or specific events that can have lasting effects on individuals. Researchers have identified 13 distinct types of trauma, including community violence. Community violence is an umbrella term...
Blog Post
Suicides in Teen Girls Hit 40-Year High (nbcnews.com)
The suicide rate among teenage girls continues to rise and hit a 40-year high in 2015, according to a new analysis released Thursday. Suicide rates doubled among girls and rose by more than 30 percent among teen boys and young men between 2007 and 2015, the updated breakdown from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds. It's all part of a growing national trend for more suicides, said CDC suicide expert Thomas Simon. Simon said suicide is preventable and parents, friends, teachers...
Blog Post
Top Trends in State Criminal Justice Reform, 2019 [sentencingproject.org]
From The Sentencing Project, January 2020 The United States is a world leader in incarceration and keeps nearly 7 million persons under criminal justice supervision. More than 2.2 million are in prison or jail, while 4.6 million are monitored in the community on probation or parole. More punitive sentencing laws and policies, not increases in crime rates, have produced this high rate of incarceration. Ending mass incarceration will require changing sentencing policies and practices, scaling...
Blog Post
Traumatic Experiences Widespread Among U.S. Youth, New Data Show
[This is a media release from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.] New national data show that at least 38 percent of children in every state have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience or ACE, such as the death or incarceration of a parent, witnessing or being a victim of violence, or living with someone who has been suicidal or had a drug or alcohol problem. In 16 states, at least 25 percent of children have had two or more ACEs. Findings come from data in the 2016 National Survey...
Blog Post
Two studies shed light on state legislators’ views on ACEs science and trauma policy
New and returning lawmakers take the oath of office on day one of Washington state's 2017 legislative session. — Jeanie Lindsay/Northwest News Network As advocates prepare to see how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) science, trauma, and resilience play out in the 2020 state legislative sessions — many beginning in January — they are undoubtedly asking: “What does a legislator want?" It may be a stretch to play on Freud’s question: “What does a women want?", but the query captures how...
Blog Post
U.S. Senate begins debate on bipartisan addiction and recovery legislation
Starting today, the U.S. Senate takes up the bipartisan Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA, S. 524) to address the national crisis of opioid drug addiction. The legislation—authored by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rob Portman (R-OH)—gives states tools to “prevent drug abuse, treat addiction, and reduce overdose deaths.” The prevention section of the bill calls for a “federal inter-agency task force to review, modify, and update best practices for pain management and...
Blog Post
Wisconsin state agencies end year one of trauma-informed learning community; goal is to be first trauma-informed state
Here in California, many people think that it’s only liberal Democrats who have a corner on championing the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and putting it into practice. That might be because people who use ACEs science don’t expel or suspend students, even if they’re throwing chairs and hurling expletives at the teacher. They ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" as a frame when they create juvenile detention centers where kids don’t fight, reduce...
Blog Post
WV Democrats Unveil Plan to Help Kids Having Adverse Childhood Experiences [wvnews.com]
By WV News Staff, West Virginia's News, February 3, 2020 Democratic members of both chambers of the West Virginia Legislature on Monday held a press conference to unveil their plan to help children in the state suffering from a variety of negative circumstances. The plan involves prioritizing children who are coping with poverty, drug abuse, parental separation and neglect — collectively referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, according to a press release issued following the...
Blog Post
5 Takeaways on America’s Increasing Suicide Rate (nytimes.com)
In a week when two celebrities, first the designer Kate Spade and then the chef and television host Anthony Bourdain , took their own lives, new federal data was released showing that suicide rates have been increasing for years in almost every state and across demographic lines. The escalating crisis has affected nearly every group and place , but the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that some parts of the country have been hit especially hard. Here’s a...
Blog Post
A comprehensive Trauma-Informed Care bill quietly introduced in the final days of the 114th Congress
In the final weeks of the 114 th Congress, Senators Heitkamp, Durbin, and Franken introduced The Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act (S. 3519)—a wide ranging bill that proposes new strategies to expand trauma-informed best practices and models, train clinicians, law enforcement officials, teachers and health care providers in trauma-informed approaches, and improve the understanding of trauma’s impact and prevalence. Despite the lack of fanfare around the bill’s introduction,...
Blog Post
A Healthy Early Childhood Action Plan: Policies for a Lifetime of Well-being[TFAH]
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)...
Blog Post
Alive and Well: Moving Missouri Toward Grass-Roots and System-Wide Change
On the eastern edge of Missouri, leaders of the Alive and Well network had generated a robust media campaign to help people understand the impact of trauma and toxic stress on health and well-being. There was a monthly column in an African-American newspaper, spots about toxic stress and resilience on urban radio stations and weekly public service features on the NBC affiliate, with physicians, clergy and teachers advocating ways to “be alive and well.” Two hundred and fifty miles to the...
Blog Post
Bad news-good news: Each additional ACE increases opioid relapse rate by 17%; each ACE-informed treatment visit reduces it by 2%
Each additional type of adverse childhood experience increases a person’s risk of relapse during medication-assisted opioid treatment by a whopping 17 percent. And each visit to a clinic that integrates trauma-informed practices based on ACEs science reduced the relapse rate by two percent, which can carry a person perhaps not to zero, but to a minimal risk of relapse.
Blog Post
BPC Releases First Comprehensive, Transparent Study of Federal Funding to Fight Opioid Epidemic [Bipartisan Policy Center]
Editor's note: In addition to an overview of how states are spending federal opioid dollars, the Bipartisan Policy Center report also includes 5 state in-depth briefs—Arizona, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Ohio and Tennessee. News release Tuesday, March 26, 2019 Washington, D.C. – In 2017, more than 70,000 people in the United States died from a drug overdose, with almost 50,000 of these deaths involving an opioid. Americans are now at greater risk of dying from an opioid overdose than a car...
Blog Post
CARES Act Funding: Opportunity for Trauma-Informed Programs in Indian Country [natlawreview.com]
By Daniel S Press, The National Law Review, May 11, 2020 There will be many demands on the funds that Tribes and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) receive from the $2.2 trillion U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, but allocating funds to implement trauma-informed programs to address the surge in mental health problems caused by COVID-19 should not be overlooked. As quarantines end, the trauma caused by COVID-19 will become apparent and tribal communities will be...
Blog Post
Comprehensive legislation introduced in U.S. Senate and House to address trauma
Senators Heidi Heitkamp and Dick Durbin at the Dec. 1, 2016 Congressional Briefing on addressing childhood trauma ________________________________________________________ The “Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families Act” ( S. 774 , H.R. 1757 ) was introduced on March 29 in the Senate by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) with co-sponsors Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and, for the first time in the House of Representatives by Chicago Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL7).
Blog Post
Congressional Briefing Addresses Public Policy to Improve Response to ACEs
In the final weeks of the 114 th Congress, Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) welcomed her colleague Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) as a new host in the third and final briefing on addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The December 1 briefing focused on public policies to improve coordination, prevention and response to childhood trauma. In addition to joining forces to raise awareness of the impact of ACEs, Senators Heitkamp and Durbin are drafting legislation based on a framework they...
Blog Post
Defying Prevention Efforts, Suicide Rates Are Climbing Across the Nation (nytimes.com)
Suicide rates rose steadily in nearly every state from 1999 to 2016 , increasing 25 percent nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. In 2016, there were more than twice as many suicides as homicides. The figures were released two days after the death of celebrity designer Kate Spade . The New York City medical examiner’s office has ruled her death a suicide . The new analysis found that nearly 45,000 Americans aged 10 or older died by their own hand in...
Blog Post
Developing Community Resilience During the COVID-19 Outbreak
I have been fielding requests about community resilience development and want to share with all of you a document that others are finding helpful. I initially created the document (below and pdf attached) for our host entities to distribute to the cohorts (1500-plus people) of N.E.A.R. Master Trainers embedded in 25 states and a province. Dr. Rob Anda, Laura Porter and I train Master Trainers in N euroscience, E pigenetics, the A CE Study, and R esilience; additional information can be found...
Blog Post
Durbin, Capito, colleagues introduce bipartisan, bicameral legislation to address childhood trauma [Office of Senator Durbin of IL]
The following is a press release issued by the office of U.S. Senator Durbin (D-IL) on Monday, June 10, announcing the introduction of bipartisan bicameral legislation that builds on last year’s opioid legislation SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act and recommendations from a recent GAO report. A link to the bill and other information will be provided as soon as possible. In the meantime, an earlier draft of the bill and a section by section are attached to this post. For Immediate...
Blog Post
First comprehensive briefing on trauma held in the U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), Wendy Ellis, Olga Acosta Price (obscured), Monica Battle, Kathryn Larin, and Whitney Gilliard ______________________________________________________ The first comprehensive trauma briefing in the U.S. House of Representatives was held on July 26 to an audience of Hill staff, interns, and advocates. The briefing included substantive content from a variety of perspectives—academia, government, education—and unexpected moments of moving personal testimony. Rep. Danny...
Blog Post
Hearing in U.S. House Education and Labor Early Childhood Subcommittee addresses intersection of trauma and education
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...
Blog Post
Heitkamp Leads Bipartisan Group of 12 U.S. Senators in Calling for Comprehensive Support to Combat Trauma Impacting Native Children
The following press release—with new links to a video and audio recording of a statement by Senator Heitkamp (D-ND)—about the need for federal support to reduce trauma in children was the subject of a post by Dan Press on the Native Americans group on ACEs Connection . Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Independent Senator Angus King of Maine joined Senator Heitkamp and nine other Democrats in sending a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human...
Blog Post
Humbled by Trauma - Childhood and Medical
The hospital where I was recently treated for a blood clot, showing the facade as it was when I was a four-year old child being treated for burns _____________________________________________________ For over a decade I was a family therapist. Before that, an educator. In the past 20 years have dedicated myself to writing curriculum and designing trainings for Lakeside Global Institute primarily around the subject of trauma. I was honored when Bruce Perry invited me to be a fellow with the...
Comment
Re: Policy Statement on Meeting the Needs of Families with Young Children Experiencing and At Risk of Homelessness (Oct. 2016)
Hi Gail: Thank you for posting this. The two-generation approach, when it comes to children, is so important. I didn't know that the rate of homelessness was so high for infants. Wow. Cissy
Blog Post
Bill introduced in US House of Representatives to substantially increase "Safe Babies" courts
Rep. Rosa DeLauro speaks to students at John Lyman Elementary School, Middlefield, CT A bipartisan bill ( H.R. 7868 )—Strengthening America’s Families Act (SAFA)— was introduced Friday, July 30 by lead sponsors Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL). The bill provides seed money to states to develop and enhance infant-toddler court teams (ITCTs, aka Safe Babies Court Teams) and authorizes a national resource center to guide state and local programs to develop their...
Blog Post
Does VP Candidate Kamala Harris know about ACEs? You bet!
Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, has a lot in common with the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris—Jamaican heritage, surname, home state—and a commitment to addressing ACEs and toxic stress. As reported in the New Yorker article by Paul Tough, “The Poverty Clinic,” Dr. Harris told Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, about ACEs in 2008 and in response, she offered to help. District Attorney Harris then introduced her to professor of child and...
Blog Post
Highlights from Michigan—one of four states to receive CDC funding for preventing ACEs
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just launched a three-year, four-state, $6-million project, “Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences: Data to Action (PACE-D2A)” with the potential to energize an already blossoming movement of statewide community-based initiatives to address ACEs. The CDC awards of $500,000 annually for three years, announced on August 25 , were given to the Department of Public Health in Georgia and Massachusetts, the Office of Early Childhood in...
Blog Post
Congress approves $1.9 trillion stimulus package, with “revolutionary” child poverty reduction provisions
The House of Representatives passed the Senate-amended version of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package—the American Rescue Plan ( H.R. 1319 )—on March 10, giving President Biden his first major legislative achievement. The phased-in increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 was dropped prior to Senate consideration because the parliamentarian ruled it was not consistent with budget reconciliation rules. President Biden will address the nation on Thursday evening (8:00 ET) to mark the...
Blog Post
ASTHO provides significant support to state and territorial health agencies to prevent ACEs
When the Association of State and Territorial Health Organizations (ASTHO) fielded the ACEs capacity assessment tool (ACECAT) in 2019, it prompted a 75% response rate, reflecting the states’ growing awareness of the impact of ACEs on health and eagerness to add to the body of knowledge about states’ activities and capacities around ACEs. After participating in the ACECAT, Nicole Daley, Director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Division of Violence and Injury Prevention,...
Blog Post
American Rescue Plan down payment on an equitable America
By Richard E. Besser, The Hill, March 16, 2021 For much of the past year, most every American has been looking forward to the day when optimism can replace dread. With vaccination numbers climbing , COVID cases and deaths declining , the economy showing signs of healing and winter ending, many might feel that day has come. And while I am truly optimistic, my optimism is for the vision of what our nation could be, not for what it was before the pandemic or what it is now. A large swath of the...
Blog Post
April 2021 CTIPP CAN Call Follow Up
Thank you to everyone who was able to join this month's CTIPP CAN call, and a special thank you to Dan Jurman, Dave Ellis, Commissioner Christine Beyer, and Angela Medrano Sanchez for their wonderful and informative presentations about the work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We learned about strategies that have proven effective for launching statewide trauma-informed initiatives. If you were unable to join, would like to watch again, or want to share with others, you can find the call...
Blog Post
NJ spends $445K a year to lock a kid up. We’ve got a better idea. | Opinion By Charles Loflin | Star Ledger Guest Columnist
New Jersey plans to spend a staggering $445,504 per incarcerated youth in 2022 to house them in facilities that are almost 80% empty. The time is now for New Jersey to close its youth prisons and invest in community-based alternatives. The current system, with its focus wholly on punishment rather than rehabilitation, the current system leaves whole communities — as well as the families of both victims and offenders — with unresolved trauma that continues to reverberate long after the...
Blog Post
What’s in the Build Back Better bill to address ACEs and adverse community environments
PHOTO OF AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEMBER 3, 2021 RULES COMMITTEE PRINT 117–18 TEXT OF H.R. 5376, BUILD BACK BETTER ACT [Showing the text of H.R. 5376, as reported by the Committee on the Budget, with modifications.] With President Biden signing the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ( bridges, roads, internet access, etc.) November 15, it’s a good time to focus on the substance—not the legislative sausage-making—of the Build Back Better bill. The House of Representatives could...
Blog Post
In new report, governors reveal rich variety of approaches to address ACEs
“There is no way that Delaware would have built the connections and gained the understanding that we have without participating in the National Governors Association (NGA) Addressing ACEs Learning Collaborative ,” says Alonna Berry. Berry, Delaware’s statewide trauma-informed care coordinator, said that the impact (of the Collaborative) was “really immeasurable to the progress being made in Delaware.” The 12-page NGA report , released December 9, captures the essence of a variety of...