Dear Sonoma County ACES Connection enthusiasts:
Thank you to all who participated in today’s ACES meeting. Sometimes the transition between work and a working meeting can be a bit rough. Thankfully, today, Allen provided a thoughtful reminder- in the form of warm, damp hand towels and he reminded us to reflect on our accomplishments and to become centered as we focused on our task at hand. Thank you, Allen for providing such a thoughtful reminder.
Several community members want to attend future ACES meetings and they will be added to our email distribution list. Please join us at any of our meetings! Our meetings are the 4th Wed of each month from 12:30 to 2:00!
Today, we welcomed an incredibly charming baby, Dani! And we welcome back, her mom, Jenni Silverstein! Jenni is a local Licensed Clinical Social Worker who had a significant role in establishing perinatal mental health services within a local health center which serves families with significant medical, emotional and psycho social challenges. Jenni is in the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship Program and she expertly weaves her learnings from this fellowship and new parenthood into her highly regarded blog: www.reflectivemothering.com
SAMPLE …Which is why the key to all learning lies in social interaction. “Social learning is the gate to all the cognition that follows” (Kuhl). The idea that we can distinguish cognitive from social-emotional development is a thing of the past. Brain imaging studies are proving what parents have always intuitively known – that it is the quality of our relationships that primes the baby’s brain for optimal development. All that we must learn to be fully human, comes to us within the context of securely attached primary relationships,
and the present moment awareness of attuned, attentive parents……. READ MORE!
At today’s meeting we carved out more time to discuss the Trauma Informed Organization self-assessment survey. After robust discussion the group agreed to use this “beta” version with the knowledge that it will likely be modified in the future. Each program or agency will decide who within their agency (e.g. each program lead vs each agency lead) will complete the survey. Please send all completed surveys to Allen for tabulation. Allen.Nishikawa@sonomacounty.org. The survey takes less than 10 minutes! There are no wrong answers!
Congratulations, DHS’s Public Health Field Nursing program is on Upstream Portfolio! This is a significant
accomplishment that was a direct result of the PHNs and PH staff all working in collaboration on a shared goal! This collaboration brought together data, nursing, administration and other experts together to work on a shared vision. Well done Field Nursing!
First 5 Sonoma County and leading experts gathered to learn about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The Changing Sonoma County’s Future Today conference featured speakers such as Brian Farragher, Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, Dr. Matt Sanders, & Alicia St. Andrews ACES are traumatic early experiences that
profoundly alter a child’s developing brain and body, and diminish individual success and community well-being. ACES are preventable, yet Nearly 65% of local residents have had at least one of these life-impacting experiences. “Friend” Dr. Navsaria on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/DrLibrarian
Our local Regional Liaison for the Student Mental Health Initiative, Kathy Carlson shared a conference titled Advancing Equity in Education & Health Care. Learn more here.
Learn about brain architecture and optimal brain development on these YouTube clips: Brain Architecture, Serve and Return .
New funding through a Justice Assistance Grant will fund the Keeping Kids in School initiative designed to
increase student attendance. Lead by a Truancy Court Judge, six case managers will have about 150 family contacts. The program is just getting up and running, staff still needs to be hired. We suggested Trauma Informed Care/ACES training for the staff.
David Rose, Director of Student Services Educational Services for Petaluma City Schools shared that he is interested in learning more about TIC/ACEs!
Bringing the ACES and Trauma Informed Care message to school nurses throughout the county!
The Science-Policy Gap: Strengthening the Foundations of Resilience. Our biological differences control the sensitivity of genes to environmental influences, affecting how individuals respond to stressful experiences.
Not to be missed: My ACEs and Me, by Edwin Ferran. Click the link for full blog …. Incredible…
When I first attended an ACES presentation by Dr. Felitti in the mid 2000-aughts, the data was not so much astounding as revelatory. As he ticked off the 10 adverse childhood experiences one-by-one, mental pictures of their existence in my life ran across my mind's eye like the fluttering images from one of those old 8mm projectors, complete with the clattering sound as the film shuddered over the sprockets.
This Is What Teen Depression Looks Like
I want you to picture a person with depression. Are you seeing the dark bedroom, filthy sweatpants,
empty eyes, poor health and general lack of prosperity? You know what I see when I picture depression? A blonde, blue-eyed teenage girl. She gets awesome grades, loves to paint, go to football games, drink Starbucks, Instagram and giggle with her friends. She can quote Harry Potter, obsesses over makeup tutorials and cannot wait for college. She looks back at me every morning in the mirror.
Sonoma County ACES Connection would like to develop a set of slides that can be used as we begin outreach into the community – to Rotary groups, church groups, PTAs, ELACs and others! Grace’s dream is 500 presentations! Shelley generously offered to collect slides from our members – please send any ACES slide sets to Shelley and she will begin to identify sets that might work in school settings, with health care providers, with community members and with parents. Shelley.Caviness@sonoma-county.org
This is from an ACEsTooHigh story about how the Children's Resilience Initiative in Walla Walla, WA, did this.
The Children’s Resilience Initiative (CRI) officially launched in February 2010. Its members developed a plan that helped identify the goals, vision and responsibilities of the 25-member team and its facilitators, Barila and Brown. The goals: to raise awareness of ACEs and brain development, foster resilience, and embed the principles in the community. Barila recalls that “a tremendous amount of effort” went into the document; it turned out to be an extremely useful navigation chart for the organization and its members, providing the
“elevator speech” and the confidence to speak to CRI’s goals.
And, as part of a small community grant from the Gates Foundation – the Lincoln High School ACEs and Resilience Program — a member of the Walla Walla community spoke to the health class at Lincoln High during the 2013- 2014 school year to tell her or his own story of trauma and resilience. Another part of the program for pregnant and parenting teens offered a daily class in resilience, basic parenting, and child development. Transportation and child care insured that te
ens were able to attend the classes.
The CRI team continues to re
ceive an increasing number of requests from the community: from Head Start, the local community college, and a call-in project for gang-affected parents and kids to learn about alternatives to gang violence and sex trafficking. Those alternatives were based on a framework of ACEs and included vocational training, education, counseling and housing.
The NEAR@home toolkit provides sensitive and transformational guidelines for home visitors and all early
childhood professionals to address ACES of young at-risk families. NEAR stands for:
• Neuroscience
• Epigenetics
• Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Resilience
Now schools can assess their policies and practice in terms of being trauma sensitive! Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative of Massachusetts Advocates for Children
Join us for the next Sonoma County ACES Connection meeting April 22nd 12:20 to 2:00. We meet at the Department of Health Services, Public Health located at 625 Fifth Street, Santa Rosa, CA.
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