Tagged With "Time to Change Your Parenting Playbook"
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Building trust is now a critical part of health care
In a video clip , a hospital patient turns away in protest as a physician enters the room. “Why do you all keep coming in my room!” she asks in frustration. The physician moves a chair out of the way and sits down at eye level with the patient. “You’ve had to see so many people,” he acknowledges. “And I’m tired of it!” she yells. “I already know I have to get both of my legs cut off. That’s what they keep saying. I don’t have a choice!” “You don’t feel like you have a choice,” he repeats...
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"Building Violence Free Schools & Communities " ONE DAY CONFERENCE!
Tulare County CAPC is proud to provide this ONE DAY conference on "Building Violence Free Schools & Communities" featuring 3 nationally know speakers with first hand experience and expertise in the field of violence prevention. Dr. Melissa Reeves (Columbine, CO shooting) Scarlett Lewis (Parent of a child lost in Sandy Hook shooting) and Clayton Douglas (former student who planned a shooting) will provide us with critical knowledge and skills in violence prevention. **** FLYER AND...
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California 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for California. 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,...
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California issues update on state residents' ACE scores from 2011 & 2013 surveys
The latest adverse childhood experiences survey from the California Department of Public Health shows that 42% of the population has an ACE score of 3 or higher; 16% have an ACE score of 4 or higher. Those with an ACE score of 4 or higher are: 3x more likely to be current smokers 4x more likely to have a depressive disorder 2x more likely to have asthma 2x more likely to be obese 4x more likely to have COPD 3x more likely to have a stroke Here are a few other highlights from the six-page...
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DULCE helps pediatricians in Oakland, CA, prevent toxic stress in newborns
On a recent day in early March, Laura Lopez met a former patient of hers in the waiting room of Highland Hospital’s pediatric clinic in Oakland, CA. The patient had forgotten her Medi-Cal card and called Lopez asking for help. But in the brief conversation, Lopez, a family specialist with the DULCE program, learned about some dire changes in the patient’s life. Laura Lopez “Without me even asking, she shared with me that she had separated from her partner, that she needs to apply for food...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
All photos courtesy of Antioch Middle School staff Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up...
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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First health-related cost of ACEs study shows $113 billion price tag for California; just one ACE costs $28 billion
Researchers who have been looking for a way to quantify the health toll of ACEs in dollar terms, now have an example in a newly-released study of California. ACEs exacted a toll costing an estimated $113 billion annually, according to the study in the journal PLOS One that was commissioned by the Center for Youth Wellness. ACEs-associated cardiovascular disease was the condition that lead author Ted Miller dubbed “the giant in the room.” It accounted for $29.6 billion in spending, more than...
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Have you heard about the film Wrestling Ghosts? On September 29, it's coming to Oakland! And to Santa Cruz on 9/30.
This Wrestling Ghosts screening promises to be a healing event for all who gather. And our hope is that it will catalyze the formation of a lasting local network of support around parents and care providers of children in the Bay Area. As things speed up all across the Bay, we need supportive infrastructure now more than ever.
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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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Immigrant teens, parents explore ACEs, resilience in 5-week course with family doc
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family doctor in San Jose, Calif., was determined to find a way to teach ACEs science to her patients. Teens would come to the Washington Neighborhood Clinic clearly depressed by a range of problems at home that were contributing to risky sexual behavior and marijuana use, as well as preventable health problems like extreme obesity.
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In ACEs Connection webinar, physicians talk trauma, offer tips for helping pediatric immigrant patients
Dr. Raul Gutierrez, a pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he and his fellow clinicians see constant fear and its health consequences every single day among the largely immigrant and Latino population they serve. It’s all the result of anti-immigrant policies and the news cycle that feeds the fear. Dr. Raul Gutierrez “It is almost inescapable with the repercussions of immigration policy on the radio, television, social media and from friends and family,” Gutierrez told the 69...
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Just one year of child abuse costs San Francisco, CA, $300 million….but it doesn’t have to
In 2015, 5,545 children in San Francisco, CA, were reported to have experienced abuse. Of those, the reports of 753 children were substantiated. The expense to San Francisco for not preventing that abuse will cost $400,533 per child over his or her lifetime. That adds up to $301.6 million for just that one year, according to “ The Economics of Child Abuse: A Study of San Francisco.” And, because child abuse is profoundly underreported, the costs are likely to be as much as $5.6 billion/year,...
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Marin Community Clinics in California screen babies for ACEs, provide support in effort to prevent trauma
When Marin Community Clinics (MCC) first considered screening their patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) they already had decided that if they were going to prevent children from acquiring ACEs, they had to take a radical approach.
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
Sixth grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister (photo: Laurie Udesky) ________________________________ During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people...
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National collaborative provides roadmap for doctors to ask about adult patients' ACEs, current trauma
How do you ask patients about current and past trauma? And how do you respond to their disclosures? Those are two key questions that members of a national collaborative who are among the early adopters of trauma-informed care practices have answered in a recent article in the journal Women’s Health Issues. Dr. Edward Machtinger To Dr. Edward Machtinger, the lead author of the paper entitled, “ From treatment to Healing: Inquiry and response to recent and past trauma in adult health care” ,...
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New organization calls all pediatricians to end crisis that's "hiding in plain sight"
When the question of screening patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) was first raised a couple of years ago, Santa Barbara pediatrician Andria Ruth had mixed feelings about it.
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Parent With ACEs: Is it Time to Change Your Parenting Playbook? [sfbayview.com]
By Diana Hembree, San Francisco Bay View, February 1, 2020 If you experienced severe hardship as a child, are you more likely to have children with behavior or mental health problems? The short answer is yes. A recent UCLA study shows that the children of parents with four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse or neglect, are twice as likely to develop ADHD, which makes it more likely children will become hyperactive and unable to pay attention or control their...
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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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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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ACEs Science Champion Series: Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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"Resilience" Comes to Santa Clara
In the first of a series of planned screenings of the film Resilience , the Santa Clara ACEs Connection community offered a panel led discussion about how to bring trauma informed practice and resilience building to the entire county. Rhoda Blankenship, Director of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health for County Public Health Department, emceed the event, along with Andrew Cain, both of whom sit on the Santa Clara community collaborative steering committee. Following opening remarks by...
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Resilient Berkeley rolls up its sleeves and gets to work
Angela Jernigan (left), Donielle Prince (center), Nicole Powell (right) Photo by Laurie Udesky Angela Jernigan and Nicole Powell of Resilient Berkeley met with ACEs Connection’s Donielle Prince on Monday, April 23 to discuss an event that they’re organizing, which incorporates ACEs science into parenting education. They plan to hold a gathering at one of Berkeley’s public libraries. (Stay tuned for details as they emerge!) Jernigan and Powell bring to their work an appreciation for ACEs...
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Safe & Sound: Integrating protective factors and ACEs science to end child abuse in San Francisco in 50 years
It was almost a ritual, but one that regularly disrupted the parenting class at a San Francisco-based child abuse prevention organization. Every time a siren blared in the streets below, a female participant bolted out of the room to seek safety in the windowless interior rooms of the multilevel labyrinthine white Victorian that houses Safe & Sound . Molly Jardiniano And it didn’t just happen in the parenting class. “When she heard the fire trucks, she said she would become paralyzed,...
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San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center hosts private Paper Tigers screening and panel of county trauma-informed systems leaders
On the evening of March 2, 2016, the SF Child Abuse Prevention Center hosted a private screening of Paper Tigers with an accompanying panel of SF county systems leaders for about 80 community members. Paper Tigers is an intimate look into the lives of selected students at Lincoln High School, an alternative school that specializes in educating traumatized youth. Set amidst the rural community of Walla Walla, WA, the film examines the inspiring promise of Trauma Informed Communities — a...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Study unearths patterns in San Jose homeless population's ACE scores
Photo by Terabass/ CC-SA-3.0 It was around 2010 that Dr. Angela Bymaster was seeing a disturbing pattern in the histories of her adult patients. She already knew that patients who saw her at the Valley Homeless Health Care Program in San Jose, CA, where she worked at the time, were homeless or recently homeless. What was most troubling to Bymaster was knowing that their current precarious existence could have been prevented. Dr. Angela Bymaster “Over and over and over again I was hearing the...
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Suisun Elementary (CA) makes ACEs science intrinsic to everyday life
Students start each day with meditation During her first year as principal of Suisun Elementary in Suisun City, Calif., in 2014 Ann Marie Neubert suspended 102 students — out of a student population of 550 —for disrupting their classes. It was a serious problem, but the school’s teachers didn’t know what to do. “[Teachers] felt like they were using all the tools in their toolbox and it wasn’t changing behavior,” she recalls. Ann Marie Neubert Too many students were spending too much time out...
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Survey: Healthcare providers, community organizations weigh in on California's ACEs screening program
In January, California took a historic leap forward to promote universal ACEs screening of the state’s 13 million adults and children in the Medi-Cal program. The eventual goal is to promote ACEs screening for all patients, but this is a first step in dealing with a major issue that ACEs science has identified: that many children will develop serious health problems later in life because the healthcare system is not currently set up to detect the roots of those problems. The term ACEs, which...
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Trauma Transformed launches regional effort in San Francisco Bay Area
Nearly 300 impassioned and committed people crowded into the Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center last week to launch Trauma Transformed. Known as T2, the regional effort representing the San Francisco...
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Undoing the Harm of Childhood Trauma and Adversity (www.ucsf.edu) + Commentary
Isn't that the most encouraging headline? Isn't that a wonderful photo? Too few articles about ACEs offer any hope about what can help. For so long, researchers, writers and activists have been trying to make the point and "prove" that ACEs matter, ACEs matter and oh yeah, ACEs really really do matter! There has been too little focus (and funding) on what can be done to counter the impact of ACEs, in general, as well as for parents, in particular. That's starting to change, in no small part,...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Why this financial coach integrates ACEs-based training
In foreground, Dr. Donielle Prince (l) and Saundra Davis (r) ____________________________ Saundra Davis, a financial coach and consultant who trains other coaches on building resilience among the working poor, knew she had met her partner in helping people deal with their “money disorders” when she first met Dr. Donielle Prince in Sacramento at a black women’s gathering in 2015. Dr. Prince works with ACEs Connection as its San Francisco Bay Area regional community facilitator. She also...
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Youth court banishes blame; leads with ACEs science
YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...
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Youth-led community organizing as a tool for building resilience
It started as an answer to a youth-led campaign. Young people in arts programs in San Francisco Bay Area schools had produced spoken word videos about inequities in their communities that helped put them at risk for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Jean Junior The response by their peers was enormous, according to Dr. Jean Junior, who volunteered for the project as a pediatric resident at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). “Young people would say ‘You’ve actually gotten me interested.
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"Addiction begins with solving a problem, the problem of human pain, emotional pain"
In his groundbreaking book , In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction , trauma and addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté writes, “There are almost as many addictions as there are people.” ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens read that quote as a springboard to asking Maté to define addiction and explain whether or not it is always rooted in adverse childhood experiences. Maté, along with filmmaker Michelle Esrick and Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond,...
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Trauma to Trust uses ACEs science to heal wounds between community members, police
photo courtesy of EJUSA/Ron Holtz Studio Forty-seven-year-old Al-Tariq Best, founder and executive director of the HUBB , an arts and healing organization for youth, recalls the rage, humiliation and fear he felt as a 17-year-old when he and three other Black friends were pulled over by police in Newark, N.J. Al-Tariq Best “[There were] all these people around us. They search the car. They strip the car down. They make us pull our pants down in broad daylight. And I'm, I'm upset. And I'm...
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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.
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Child Life specialists empower kids in hospitals, disasters and now the pandemic
In late May, Betsy Andersen’s 7-year-old son, Ezra, had a serious meltdown. He and his six-year-old sister Abby had been enjoying an online Zoom interaction with “Miss Eileen,” “Miss Savannah,” a couple of their colleagues, and a puppet. Betsy Andersen “I could see him trailing off and then he started crying,” says Andersen, who lives in Mundelein, Illinois. But before she swooped in, she heard Miss Eileen talking to him: “She was saying ‘Hey, I see you’re having some big emotions.” Speaking...
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Greater Richmond Trauma Informed Community Network, first to join ACEs Cooperative of Communities, shows what it means to ROCK!
In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.
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Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
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Youth Detention Facility finds culture of kindness more effective than punishment
A corner of the Multi-Sensory De-escalation Room, All MSDR photos courtesy of Valerie Clark When a young person enters the de-escalation room in the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility , they’ll find dimmed lights, bottles of lavender, orange and other essential oils, an audio menu featuring the rush of ocean waves and other calming sounds, along with squeeze balls, TheraPutty, jigsaw puzzles, and an exercise ball to bounce on. TheraPutty, squeeze balls and more Sometimes, with a...
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