Tagged With "Head Start"
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ACEs, biomarkers and the cost of adversity
How useful and necessary are biomarkers in telling the story of how toxic stress from adverse childhood experiences and resilience can impact a child’s long-term health? In the introduction to an article in the journal BioEssays , Dr. Kathryn Ridout, a Kaiser Permanente San Jose psychiatrist, and her co-authors examine what is known about two biomarkers and quote data on child maltreatment and its economic burden over time that says it all. “When totaling the costs of health care, child...
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ACEs Champion Julie Kurtz Gives Every Child (and Adult) a Voice
Julie Kurtz hasn’t stopped creating ways to build and promote resilience in herself and others who have experienced trauma since she left her family home for college at age 18. Although she experienced four types of adversity during her childhood, the CEO of the Center for Optimal Brain Integration has traveled a complex journey to mitigate those adversities by recognizing her own internal resilience, building skills to buffer her toxic and traumatic stress, uncovering her voice through...
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Parents’ emotional trauma may change their children’s biology. Studies in mice show how [ScienceMag.org]
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND— The children living in SOS Children's Villages orphanages in Pakistan have had a rough start in life. Many have lost their fathers, which in conservative Pakistani society can effectively mean losing their mothers, too: Destitute widows often struggle to find enough work to support their families and may have to give up their children. The orphanages, in Multan, Lahore, and Islamabad, provide shelter and health care and send kids to local schools, trying to provide "the...
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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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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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San Jose, Ca physician to talk ACEs science at community gathering
When Dr. Angela Bymaster thinks about ACEs exposure, her thoughts often turn to the adolescents who are her patients now. “It’s the teenagers who keep me up at night,” says Bymaster, a family medicine doctor who works at the Washington Neighborhood Health Clinic in San Jose. The clinic serves low-income families in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Dr. Angela Bymaster “They’re so often starting with the behaviors themselves. The teenagers are the intersection of adverse childhood events...
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School by school, Berkeley Healthy Schools Collaborative is forging ahead on building resilience
What began as a presentation by ACEs Connection's Donielle Prince about ACEs science for members of the Berkeley Healthy Schools Collaborative morphed into a lively discussion about how the 11 members who attended the meeting were involved in shepherding trauma-informed practices into their organizations and schools. Prince, who is ACEs Connection’s San Francisco Bay Area community facilitator, talked about the evolution of ACEs Connection into a network of more than 22,000 members in...
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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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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 education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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Update on bills re: childhood adversity in California Legislature
Below is an updated table of bills that address childhood adversity in the Legislature in 2019. The list is not exhaustive, so please email Kelly Hardy with Children Now if you think a bill is missing and/or if you have any questions. Email: khardy @childrennow.org . Here are key dates for the remainder of the legislative session: July 10 = last day for bills to pass out of policy committees July 12 – August 12 = Summer recess August 30 = last day for fiscal bills to pass out of committee...
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We Must Address the Surge in Adverse Childhood Experiences [medium.com]
From the National Head Start Association, February 19, 2020 Day in and day out, in nearly every U.S. community, the nation’s 1,600 Head Start programs tirelessly serve children from at-risk backgrounds ages birth to five and their families with a comprehensive model specifically designed to strengthen families, promote school readiness, and improve child health. Head Start programs are heralded for their outcomes by researchers, praised by families, and widely-supported in their communities.
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When Schools Cause Trauma [tolerance.org]
Trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools are spreading around the country. But if they don’t start with how schools themselves can induce trauma, they won’t work. By CARRIE GAFFNEY ; ISSUE 62, SUMMER 2019 Increasingly, we are seeing pushes for trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools. We know that traumatic stress can have long-term health effects on developing brains and, in response, districts across the United States are acknowledging the role that trauma plays in students’...
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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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Bystander Intervention to stop anti-Asian/American and xenophobic harassment
As you know, anti-Asian and Asian American and xenophobic harassment are on the rise across the U.S. Unfortunately, anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia is not a new phenomenon. It has been part of our histories for a long time, and we have seen it manifested against different communities in many ways over the years. As the coronavirus pandemic escalates, we have seen more harassment, discrimination, and even violence directed at our communities. The Asian Americans Advancing...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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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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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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How Traumatized Children See the World, According to Their Drawings [Time.com]
In May, now-ousted U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the start of the Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to separate migrant families at the Mexican border. “If you are smuggling a child” into the country, he said , “then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.” In just six weeks, more than 2,600 children were taken from their parents or other adults. Although a federal judge ordered the government to reunite all children...
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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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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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NPPC shares lessons learned and results from ACEs screening pilot sites
For Dr. Mercie Digangi, a pediatrician at Kaiser Southern California in Downey, CA, ACEs screening provided a crystal clear before-and-after in how she changed treatment plans for her pediatric patients, she explained to attendees of a December 2 webinar organized by the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) and cosponsored by ACEs Connection. Dr. Mercie Digangi One case that turned ACEs screening into a never-go-back moment for her was a three-year-old who was speech-delayed.
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Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby is giving families a Resilient Start
Program Provider Sadie Williams works with financial coach Judit Trinidad as they practice family engagement for Oakland Promise Brilliant Baby Program enrollees.
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You and White Supremacy: A Challenge to Educators [tolerance.org]
It started as a series of Instagram posts; then it became a downloadable workbook. Now, the “Me and White Supremacy” challenge is reaching the mainstream—and creator Layla F. Saad hopes all teachers with white privilege will find the courage to take it. ADRIENNE VAN DER VALK ISSUE 62, SUMMER 2019 The night of June 26, 2018, Layla Saad was unable to sleep. The previous year had been a taxing one for the writer, life and business coach, and spiritual advisor. The deadly Unite the Right rally...
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5 ways to approach racial equity at work [pbs.org]
Courtney Vinopal , Jun 5, 2020 11:33 AM EDT The death of George Floyd and the protests that have followed sparked a national dialogue about race in America. For many, discussions about race and the reality of living in America as a black person happen daily. But many households, communities and workplaces are having these conversations for the first time. How can employers and colleagues better support employees of color? What is the most productive way to talk about race in the workplace?
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Confronting Racism at Work: A Reading List [hbr.org]
June 15, 2020 Companies must confront racism at a systemic level — addressing everything from the structural and social mechanics of their own organizations to the role they play in the economy at large. We know that diversity programs have historically failed , but there are proven ways to improve hiring programs, interrupt bias at the team level, interrogate supposedly “color-blind” analytics, and support employees of color — especially Black employees. There’s much work to do on a...
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Family Therapy is now a Medi-Cal Benefit
Medi-Cal has just published new policy making family therapy a covered benefit for children and adults with mental health disorders and for children who are at risk for mental health disorders. This will be especially relevant for children with ACEs. Under the guidance of the California Department of Health Care Services, the Medi-Cal fee-for-service program aims to provide health care services to about 13 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries. The Medi-Cal fee-for-service program adjudicates both...
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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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Racial Equity in Your PTO or PTA: What Are You Doing? [ptotoday.com]
Leaders and experts weigh in on involvement and communication strategies that can bring people together effectively. by Elizabeth S. Leaver 07/08/2020 What is your PTO doing to be more racially equitable? How are you reaching out to parents who don’t speak English? How do people of different cultures and backgrounds know you want them to have an equal voice? School parent groups are asking these questions, but the answers aren’t simple. While the ethnic backgrounds of Americans and their...
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ACEs Aware in Action July Newsletter [acesaware.org]
Have You Completed the ACEs Aware Training? Eligible Medi-Cal providers : It’s not too late to self-attest to completing the ACEs Aware training. As a reminder, eligible Medi-Cal providers must self-attest to completing the certified ACE training to receive payment for ACE screenings conducted after July 1, 2020. Don't Forget to Self-Attest ACEs Aware has answers to your attestation questions at ACEsAware.org/FAQ . After finishing your training at Training.ACEsAware.org , you can find the...
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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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How Can Local Government Address Systemic Racism? [governing.com]
Peniel Joseph, one of the nation’s leading civil rights scholars, has studied and written about the history of race and democracy. He has some ideas on how cities and urban areas can begin to dismantle racism. CARL SMITH, SENIOR STAFF WRITER | JULY 23, 2020 Peniel E. Joseph, Ph.D ., is the founder of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a joint professorship in the LBJ School of Public Affairs, as the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and...
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Embedding Equity into Emergency Operations: Strategies for Local Health Departments During COVID-19 and Beyond [barhii.org]
We are excited to announce our new brief jointly released by BARHII and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California titled “ Embedding Equity into Emergency Operations: Strategies for Local Health Departments During COVID-19 & Beyond. ” The brief outlines case studies, resources, and priority recommendations that counties and cities can take to explicitly and intentionally embed equity staff and practices into their emergency operations structures and throughout the public health...
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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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The Resilient Beginnings Network Is Taking Grant Applications!
Interested SF Bay Area safety net organizations can apply for funding to participate in this three-year program on resilience and trauma-informed care.
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Let’s talk to our kids about suicide prevention [medium.com]
Narges Zohoury Dillon Sep 2 Parents’ role in suicide prevention is on my mind a lot this year with parents taking on the added responsibility of educator as many schools start remotely. Remote education means reduced access to the professional support resources schools offer which is particularly hard at this time of increased stress and mental health challenges for students and families alike. I have pictured talking to my own daughter about the topic of suicide more times than I can count.
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How Health Departments Can Address Police Violence As a Public Health Issue [humanimpact.org]
September 2020 The health impacts of policing and incarceration are well documented. On average, 1,000 people are killed by police in the US each year, with Black and Indigenous people being 2 to 3 times more likely to be killed by police than White people. Even in the absence of physical violence, stops by police — or the constant threat of stops by police — are associated with adverse mental health outcomes , including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially for...
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Think beyond ACEs screening, advises California funders workgroup in new report
Californians have experienced an alarming epidemic of adverse childhood experiences. Between 2011 and 2017, 60 percent of Californians reported experiencing at least one type of childhood adversity; about 16 percent experienced four or more. People who experience four or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease, 1.9 times as likely to have a stroke, and 3.2 times as likely to have asthma as people who have experienced no ACEs. (For more information about ACEs and ACEs science,...
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Med students write version of Hippocratic oath that addresses systemic racism and coronavirus [usatoday.com]
N'dea Yancey-Bragg USA TODAY Nov. 5, 2020 A group of medical students at the University of Pittsburgh wrote their own version of the Hippocratic oath which acknowledges system racism in medicine, the coronavirus pandemic and several high profile police killings of African Americans. During their orientation, a group of first-year medical students created a new class oath that the class recited ahead of the symbolic white coat ceremony in August which marked the beginning of their medical...
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Bay Area Program Offers Free Mental Healthcare for Essential Workers [kqed.org]
Forum , hosted by Michael Krasny Dec 8 at 9:00 AM As the Bay Area heads again into shutdown and Covid-19 cases surge, essential workers continue to struggle with the mental health toll of being on the front line. This is where the Frontline Workers Counseling Project comes in. The project, which was founded in the Bay Area at the start of the pandemic, offers free mental health counseling to essential workers, from doctors and nurses to firefighters and postal delivery workers, and more.
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Webinar: Trauma-Informed Support via Text Message
We're excited to share this behind-the-scenes story of how the Ready4K team collaborated with First 5 Del Norte to create the country's first trauma-informed text message support program! Hear directly from Angela Glore, executive director of First 5 Del Norte, about how she and her partner organizations worked together to connect the dots between community health goals and early learning opportunities. It's a fascinating story of how this rural community set out a big, hairy, audacious goal...
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Road Map for Ending Domestic Violence in California: A Life Course Approach to Prevention
Futures Without Violence (FUTURES) is excited to share A Road Map for Ending Domestic Violence in California: A Life Course Approach to Prevention with the ACEs Connection community. The Road Map , a policy paper supported by Blue Shield of California Foundation, draws upon our work at FUTURES as well as research and study on best practices for preventing violence. It presents four evidenced-based prevention and intervention strategies to prevent and end domestic violence in California:...
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Resources for Teaching About Race and Racism With The New York Times [nytimes.com]
A curated collection of over 75 lesson plans, writing prompts, short films and graphs relating to racism and racial justice. By Nicole Daniels , Michael Gonchar and Natalie Proulx March 4, 2021 The summer of 2020 was not the first time that urgent conversations about race and racism were happening in homes, classrooms and workplaces. But the energy of the Black Lives Matter protests, believed by many to be the largest in U.S. history , was unparalleled. Though the demands and chants may have...