Tagged With "Mental Health"
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Training future counselors to integrate ACEs science in the classroom
Nemia with peacock used in therapy with children. Talking with an animal is often easier than talking with an adult for a child who's experienced abuse. _________________________________________ Toni Nemia, program and clinical director for the University of San Francisco Child and Family Center's School-Based Family Counseling, says that her graduate students are often surprised to hear that ACEs science (adverse childhood experiences) has an international reach. In fact, Scotland is an...
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Unbroken: Accepting who you are and what you need (SDSU Student Health 101)
Different kinds of minds come with different kinds of strengths (as well as challenges). Many unusual thinkers and innovators - people who may have been considered mentally ill, disabled, or eccentric - have made critical leaps in the sciences, arts, and technology. The concept of neurodiversity acknowledges and helps us accept these natural human differences. "Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general," wrote journalist Harvey...
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What Success Looks Like: On-Campus Resources and Support for Foster Youth (socialjusticesolutions.org)
After identifying a statewide need for support services for foster youth, the Foster Youth Success Initiative (FYSI) was created in 2006 through a collaboration between the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), the Foundation for California Community Colleges and numerous partners and stakeholders. According to Jessica Smith, the statewide liaison for FYSI, the “network of support” provided by FYSI includes assistance with academic needs, financial aid, physical and...
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What Success Looks Like: On-Campus Resources and Support for Foster Youth (socialjusticesolutions.org)
After identifying a statewide need for support services for foster youth, the Foster Youth Success Initiative (FYSI) was created in 2006 through a collaboration between the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), the Foundation for California Community Colleges and numerous partners and stakeholders. According to Jessica Smith, the statewide liaison for FYSI, the “network of support” provided by FYSI includes assistance with academic needs, financial aid, physical and...
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Who Helps Our Helpers? "Portraits of Professional Caregivers" Documents in Film Their Passion and Pain.
Director and producer Vic Compher’s documentary film, Portraits of Professional Caregivers: Their Passion. Their Pain , takes a deeper look at the causes of and treatments for what’s called secondary traumatic stress, a condition commonly...
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Gender Odyssey 2020 Conference (San Diego, CA)
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Informative Health Fair
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Nurse to Nurse Bullying: A Sepsis in Healthcare (Webinar)
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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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5 Tips for Supporting College Age Students' Mental Health [blogs.psychcentral.com]
By Andrea Schneider, PsychCentral, February 7, 2020 Did you know that the second leading cause of death in people ages 15-22 is suicide (ACHA, 2020)? Those are some sobering statistics. After a recent move from S CA to N Ca, I am currently serving in a new role in which I am the Lead Counselor on a college campus for this age range. Unfortunately, those statistics don’t lie. I am deeply involved in creating new programs, strategies, and direct clinical support for the students my campus...
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ACEs Research Corner, December 2017
Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info - - that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs . Every month, she posts the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address ACEs on the main ACEs Connection site. If you missed December's summary review it HERE . Scott Webb from WIsconsin Dept of Health Services catalogs research and news about ACEs and trauma-informed care . His summary from December...
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Anxiety Overtakes Depression as No. 1 Mental Health Problem (wakeup-world.com)
Anxiety is the new depression, with more than half of all American college students reporting anxiety . Recent research shows anxiety "characterized by constant and overwhelming worry and fear” is now 800 percent more prevalent than all forms of cancer. A 2016 report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State confirmed the trend, finding anxiety and depression are the most common concerns among college students who seek counseling. Data from the National Institute of Mental...
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Balancing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) With HOPE*
New Insights into the Role of Positive Experience on Child and Family Development *Health Outcomes of Positive Experience Abstract This report presents evidence for HOPE (Health Outcomes of Positive Experiences) based on newly released, compelling data that reinforce the need to promote positive experiences for children and families in order to foster healthy childhood development despite the adversity common in so many families. These data: Establish a spirit of hope and optimism and make...
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Behavioral Medicine journal seeking manuscripts on resilience
An exciting opportunity for the ACEs community to submit a manuscript on resilience for a special issue of the journal Behavioral Medicine.
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Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG) Blogging Tips and Talking about Trauma
Berkeley Media Studies Group facilitated a southern and northern California Strategic Communications Workshop in October 2015. Attached, please find their powerpoint, created by co-facilitators Julieta Kusnir and Pamela Mejia, titled "Talking about Trauma: Tips & Tools for Communicating Effectively" and "Blogging Tips for Media Advocates" articulating tips on content, headlines, length and tone of blogs.
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Big Data Hackathon Creates Solutions for Public Health (livewellsd.org)
The second Big Data Hackathon for San Diego organized at San Diego State University provided the platform and resources needed for students and collaborators from varied disciplines to come together and develop projects that will benefit the San Diego community. On February 18, 25 and 26, collaborators from SDSU, University of California San Diego, Texas A&M University, Oregon State University and local high schools joined together to help develop solutions for local public health issues...
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Broadening Your Network and Identifying Partners for More Resilient, Healthier Communities
Who should you partner with to create lasting change through resilience in your community? The Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative aims to address, prevent, and reduce the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adverse community environments (ACEs) on children’s health and wellbeing ( The “Pair of ACEs” ). An essential element of the successes of BCR’s five test sites around the country has been strategic collaborations. In your work to build resilience, identifying...
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Bystander intervention goes professional: 4 tips for stepping in on the job (SDSU Student Health 101)
Here’s something most of us know, and the research backs up: Small actions make a big difference, especially when it comes to preventing sexual harassment and assault. If we see something that doesn’t feel right, we can act. This is bystander intervention: stepping in to reinforce our community values and prevent harm when we see something that looks like disrespect or pressure. Many of us already do this, like when we disrupt a conversation that seems uncomfortable or speak up when people...
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California colleges get funding to expand services to undocumented college students [edsource.org]
As the federal government increases immigrant detention and attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, many California colleges are finding new ways to help undocumented students succeed and get assistance to their families as well. The latest effort is the California Campus Catalyst Fund , established by a group of educators, funders and advocates, and administered by the nonprofit organization Immigrants Rising, which announced last week that it has awarded...
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California colleges get funding to expand services to undocumented college students [edsource.org]
As the federal government increases immigrant detention and attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, many California colleges are finding new ways to help undocumented students succeed and get assistance to their families as well. The latest effort is the California Campus Catalyst Fund , established by a group of educators, funders and advocates, and administered by the nonprofit organization Immigrants Rising, which announced last week that it has awarded...
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California is failing our kids [SactoBee.com]
California’s economy is the seventh-largest in the world, and home to global industries that have revolutionized our way of life. Yet when it comes to caring for our children, we are failing to provide the essential services they need to thrive and succeed. The facts are disturbing and unacceptable. California ranks 49th among the states for standard of living for kids; roughly half of children are in families in or near poverty; nearly three-fourths of our youngest kids don’t receive health...
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CDC ACEs Research & Evaluation Fellowship application due April 24
This is a reminder that applications for the CDC Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) Research & Evaluation Fellowship ( announced last month on ACEs Connection ) are due April 24. The new fellowship position reflects a growing ACEs capacity within the CDC. The announcement states “The selected candidate will assist with research related to evaluating comprehensive community-based prevention strategies for primary prevention of ACEs (i.e., potentially traumatic experiences, such as child...
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Communities Come Together to ‘Change Minds’ About Child Trauma [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
Projected on the enormous screen at the front of the room was a blue-tinged image of a brain scan with a seemingly simple phrase next to it: Changing Minds. The striking image and accompanying messages are still being developed by national nonprofit Futures Without Violence (Futures) for a public outreach campaign about the complex issue of childhood trauma. Participants at the Changing Minds and Creating Trauma-Informed Communities convening, hosted by Futures in early February, got a...
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Consideration of Personal Adverse Childhood Experiences during Implementation of Trauma-Informed Care Curriculum in Graduate Health Programs (thepermanentejournal.org)
We designed a curriculum to help students become comfortable addressing typically uncomfortable topics, practice listening and collaborating skills, and ultimately form confidence to implement their knowledge of ACEs and TIC in clinical practice. Using a model of teamwork and collaboration, we sought to better understand future health care practitioners’ consideration of the lifelong effects of trauma and violence, and ways to combat resistance to such understanding. We hypothesized that...
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Count your way to calm: A simple breathing technique to help you stay present (SDSU Student Health 101)
One of my favorite things about meditation is how uncomplicated the practice is. When my life gets hectic or my mind feels overrun with racing thoughts, the simplicity of meditation can be a huge relief. There’s a scientific basis for this feeling: Meditation reduces activity in parts of the brain associated with mind-wandering and unhappiness, according to a 2011 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . When I teach meditation, I try to keep my instructions concise so as...
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Mental Health of Undocumented Students
Echo's conference this year is packed with great workshops for teachers, parents and anyone who works with children and their families. In addition to the not-to-be-missed keynotes (such as Susan Craig ), we are proud to present: Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres Workshop Spotlight: Holistic Healing for Immigrant & Undocumented Youth In this important workshop, Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres will talk about an often overlooked aspect of student mental health - the mental and emotional...
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Helping College Kids With Depression (childmind.org)
Dr. Roy Boorady , a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute, says he gets “lots of calls first semester” about college kids who are having a hard time. “Usually what they end up doing is calling their parents in the middle of the night. Then their parents call me and say, ‘I’m getting two and three o’clock in the morning calls from my child who is crying and depressed and unhappy. What do we do?’ Detecting depression in kids college students who are away from home can...
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How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain (mindful.org)
Recent evidence suggests that a promising approach is to complement psychological counseling with additional activities that are not too taxing for clients but yield high results. In our own research, we have zeroed in on one such activity: the practice of gratitude . Indeed, many studies over the past decade have found that people who consciously count their blessings tend to be happier and less depressed. We set out to address these questions in a recent research study involving nearly 300...
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Just breathe: Mindfulness may help freshman stress less and smile more (scienceblog.com)
Mindfulness training may be one way to help students successfully transition to college life, according to Penn State researchers. To help ease this transition, researchers offered an eight-session mindfulness training program to first-year students at Penn State, according to Kamila Dvorakova, a doctoral Compassion and Caring fellow in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and lead author of the study. In mindfulness meditation, practitioners learn how to develop an accepting,...
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Legislation Signals Growing Support for Significance of Trauma Indicators [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
As a college student, Rob Bonta had a summer job working as a counselor for troubled kids. Now, two decades later he is bringing legislation to address some of the needs he saw then. “I worked with some of these kids as a counselor out of college, and I’d walk them home and hear some of these stories,” Assembly member Bonta (D-Oakland) said. “Shootings they heard. Or shootings they witnessed the night before.” It was the summer of his junior year at Yale, when...
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Meeting the Growing Need for Behavioral Health Services on Campus [Blog.SAMHSA.gov]
Our nation’s college campuses are experiencing a surge in demand for mental health services. About 1 in 10 incoming freshmen reports feeling depressed frequently . The 2015 Annual Report for the Center for Collegiate Mental Health states that the use of college counseling centers grew by 30 percent , even though enrollment only increased by 5 percent. In addition, students’ concerns are increasingly complex. The percentage of students visiting college counseling centers who have a serious...
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Minority college students might not get mental health help despite needs, study finds (nbcnews.com)
Asian American, Pacific Islander and multiracial college students are more likely than white students to have considered or attempted suicide despite reporting lower rates of psychiatric diagnosis, a new analysis has found. The research, published last month in the journal Psychiatric Services , analyzed survey responses from more than 60,000 college students at 108 schools. It found that while minority students generally reported lower rates of psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms of mental...
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Number of university dropouts due to mental health problems trebles [TheGuardian.com]
The number of students to drop out of university with mental health problems has more than trebled in recent years, official figures show. Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) revealed that a record 1,180 students who experienced mental health problems left university early in 2014-15, the most recent year in which data was available. It represents a 210% increase from 380 in 2009-10. The figures have prompted charities, counsellors and health experts to urge higher...
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Parent and Youth Leaders Educate Policymakers on ACEs in Sacramento on July 11th
Twelve parent and youth leaders, reentry and educational leaders, and community organizers represented the region of San Diego in Sacramento on July 11th. Aligning with about 80 other community members and professionals statewide, everyone met with and educated legislative staff on the impact of ACEs, community trauma, community healing and resilience building. Organized by the 4CA steering group led by Center for Youth Wellness, Children Now, and ACEs Connection Network, the ACEs science...
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People say I shouldn't teach a class called 'White Racism.' Here's why they're wrong. (upworthy.com)
I chose to title my course "White Racism" because I thought it was scholarly and succinct, precise and powerful. White racism isn't an opinion. It's a historical and contemporary truth, supported by evidence, that's been taught for decades. Evidence shows that race still matters in the labor market and workplace , education , and even in access to clean water . Race matters in health care , the criminal justice system , and even everyday retail and dining experiences. The most common...
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Ph.D. Students Face Mental Health Challenges
Science By Elisabeth Pain Approximately one-third of Ph.D. students are at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder like depression, a recent study reports. Although these results come from a small sample—3659 students at universities in Flanders, Belgium, 90% of whom were studying the sciences and social sciences—they are nonetheless an important addition to the growing literature about the prevalence of mental health issues in academia . One key message for scientific...
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Peer mentor uses her own ACEs story to teach med residents how to help traumatized patients
When O’Nesha Cochran teaches medical residents about adverse childhood experiences in patients, she doesn’t use a textbook. Instead, the Oregon Health & Science University peer mentor walks in the room, dressed in what she describes as the “nerdiest-looking outfit” she can find. And then she tells them her story. “My mom sold me to her tricks and her pimps from the age of three to the age of six,” she begins. “I could remember these grown men molesting me and my sisters. I have three...
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Project FORECAST - Becoming a Trauma-Informed Workforce
TRAINING THE WORKFORCE BY INCREASING KNOWLEDGE AND BUILDING SKILLS Project FORECAST uses simulation-based learning experiences to develop trauma-informed critical thinking skills. Take advantage of this free opportunity to become a FORECAST facilitator and join us in developing a trauma-informed workforce. If you train students or child-serving professionals in the fields of: � Child protection � Law enforcement � Juvenile justice � Mental or behavioral health � Healthcare Join Project...
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RESILIENCE - Special Educational Edition Now Available
It's been one year since the premiere of RESILIENCE at Sundance, and since then we've screened at festival around the world and in hundreds of communities across the nation. RESILIENCE dives into the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the birth of a new movement to treat and prevent Toxic Stress. Now understood to be one of the leading causes of everything from heart disease and cancer to substance abuse and depression, extremely stressful experiences in childhood can alter...
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Save the Date: July 11, 4CA Policymaker Education Day in Sacramento
Save the Date: Tuesday, July 11 4CA Policymaker Education Day on Childhood Adversity, Sacramento The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) invites you to Sacramento for Policymaker Education Day. Our lawmakers need to hear from you about how adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma affect your community and what they can do to help. Join with allies from across California to engage your elected officials on this important issue. Who: 4CA Policymaker Education Day...
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Self-Healing Communities [RWJF.org]
A comprehensive model of building community capacity in Washington helped make dramatic reductions in rates of health issues and social problems. The Issue In the early 1990’s, Washington state set up a program to tackle issues like domestic violence, school dropouts, youth substance abuse, and others that impact families and children. These are issues that typically had been addressed separately, but the team in Washington focused on addressing them collectively. Key Findings Over 10 to 15...
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Social support: The most overlooked self-care routine (SDSU Student Health 101)
I began feeling pretty out of it when I was 18. I had just started college after moving away from a tight-knit friend group in my hometown and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I’d come back from class, stuff my face with junk while binge-watching Netflix, and consciously try to shut out the world. It felt like I was slogging through mud just trying to get through each day. Despite how I was feeling, when family and friends would call to ask how I was doing, I always responded...
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Students Fill A Gap In Mental Health Care For Immigrants (npr.org)
(Image Credit: Gary Waters/Ikon Images/Getty Images ) Patricia Becerril comes to Bethesda Health Center in Charlotte, N.C., every other week . Becerril initially came to this free clinic for diabetes treatment. Director Wendy Pascual says primary care is often the starting point for patients here, most of whom are immigrants. "One thing we have been seeing year after year is that many patients came here with physical problems that really are mental health problems," Pascual says. Meanwhile,...
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Suffering from a setback? How to take advantage of failure (SDSU Student Health 101)
Failure and setbacks are painful, whether you flunked a paper or course, didn’t exactly excel at an internship, or missed some other goal. You’ve probably been there. In a survey by Student Health 101 , 67 percent of student respondents said that they had experienced a failure that seriously rocked their self-belief. Yet, as counterintuitive as it is, we all need failure and setbacks. Some of the world’s most creative and notable people (think empire builders such as the late Steve Jobs)...
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Taking ACEs to School: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Higher Education
“What happened to you?” isn’t just a question for therapists to ask their troubled clients. It’s a question that should inform the work of physicians, nurses, lawyers, educators, social workers and public health advocates from the time they are learning their professions to each real-world encounter. That’s the hope of the Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) , whose workforce development group released a toolkit to help faculty across a range of disciplines weave content on adverse childhood...
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Talk it out: The science behind therapy and how it can help you (SDSU Student Health 101)
New class expectations, new living situations, and navigating newfound independence can give us all the feels—from super psyched to super stressed. Even if you’re loving your student life, dealing with all the stressors that come with college can be a lot to handle. According to experts, the best time to handle that stress is now. “If we don’t take care of our mental health, we may not be able to reach our goals, maintain good relationships, and function well in day-to-day situations,” says...