Tagged With "Pandemic Killing So Many Black Americans"
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Cultivating Deliberate Resilience During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic [jamanetwork.com]
By Abby R. Rosenberg, JAMA Pediatrics, April 14, 2020 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is affecting our health care community in unprecedented ways. As a pediatric oncologist who studies resilience in the context of illness, I started thinking about what this pandemic means for our professional resilience a few weeks ago, when the first US patient with fatal COVID-19 died in my home city of Seattle, Washington. Promoting resilience among health care workers and organizations starts with...
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Efforts to Reduce Black Maternal Mortality Complicated by COVID-19 [chcf.org]
By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, April 20, 2020 Latoyha Young had a birth plan. She was going to have the baby in Sacramento with community doula Joy Dean by her side. Dean was funded by the county’s Black Child Legacy Campaign , which works to reduce the disproportional number of Black infant and child deaths in Sacramento. But in mid-March, when Young went into labor just as Governor Gavin Newsom ordered Californians to stay at home to avoid spreading the novel...
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Fearing Coronavirus, Many Rural Black Women Avoid Hospitals to Give Birth at Home (PEW TRUST)
By April Simpson, April 18, 2020, PEW Trust Black women are two to three times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy than white women, regardless of income or education. Black midwives could be part of the solution, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, but restrictions on midwifery make it difficult to practice in many states. Pregnant women in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi have been calling nonstop to CHOICES Midwifery Practice in Memphis, but the center is...
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Incarcerating Youth Should Be 'Last Resort' During Pandemic [thecrimereport.org]
By Andrea Cipriano, The Crime Report, May 7, 2020 On any given day, approximately 43,600 people younger than 18 years of age are held in youth detention facilities across America. Even under normal circumstances, many detention facilities are unable to provide a clean and safe environment for these young individuals, and the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the trauma these children experience in detention, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Incarcerating young people...
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Sheltering in Place: ACEs-Informed Tips for Self-Care During a Pandemic
Millions of lives have been affected in unprecedented ways by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). We are all grappling with uncertainty—our daily routines interrupted, not knowing what is to come. For those of us who have Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), these times can be particularly distressing. At the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), we know that childhood trauma can have a significant impact on an individual’s health and well-being – both physiologically and psychologically. Since the...
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The Black Community, COVID-19 & Trauma [sdvoice.com]
By Latanya West, San Diego Voice, May 15, 2020 In January 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as California’s first-ever Surgeon General. An award-winning physician, researcher and advocate, Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. Her work is equally dedicated to changing the way our society responds to one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of...
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Tools and how to use them is focus of second webinar on Community Resiliency Model, May 14, 2020
The second of two free Community Resiliency (CRM) webinars with Elaine Miller-Karas , key creator of the CRM, will be held Thursday, May 14, from 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. ET, (10 a.m. CT; 9 a.m. MT, and 8 a.m. PT) and will include the practical application of tools of the model. CRM is an ACEs science-based biological model for helping individuals become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. Miller-Karas will be joined by CRM trainers from Wilmington, NC:...
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We Are Living in the Age of the Black-Panic Defense [newyorker.com]
By Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker Magazine, May 9, 2020 The most basic conception of racial profiling holds that it is a form of institutionalized bias practiced by police departments in which the color of a person’s skin is considered a barometer of criminality. This idea is problematic enough on its face, but our experience in the eight years since Trayvon Martin ’s death has complicated this issue greatly. Martin was killed by a civilian—a self-appointed neighborhood watchman—who had no...
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Why Is the Pandemic Killing So Many Black Americans [podcasts.apple.com]
By The Daily, The New York Times, May 20, 2020 Some have called the pandemic “the great equalizer.” But the coronavirus is killing black Americans at staggeringly higher rates than white Americans. Today, we explore why. Guest: Linda Villarosa, a writer for The New York Times Magazine covering racial health disparities, who spoke to Nicole Charles in New Orleans, La. about the death of her husband, Cornell Charles, known as Dickey. He was 51. For more information on today’s episode, visit...
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What Do Coronavirus Racial Disparities Look Like State by State [npr.org]
By Maria Godoy and Daniel Wood, National Public Radio, May 30, 2020 In April, New Orleans health officials realized their drive-through testing strategy for the coronavirus wasn't working. The reason? Census tract data revealed hot spots for the virus were located in predominantly low-income African-American neighborhoods where many residents lacked cars. In response, officials have changed their strategy, sending mobile testing vans to some of those areas, says Thomas LaVeist , dean of...
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Self-Care Tips for Black People Who Are Struggling With This Very Painful Week [VICE]
by Rachel Miller , VICE.com, May 28 2020, 7:25pm. Friends, I don’t need to tell you that it’s been an especially hard few weeks for Black people in the United States. Breonna Taylor . Ahmaud Arbery . Chris Cooper . George Floyd . Tear-gassing the protesters who had the gall to be upset about a racist murder . All of this, during a time when Black people are disproportionately dying from the COVID-19 pandemic . It’s exhausting. Amid all this suffering, it can be hard to believe Audre Lorde...
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What Do We Do? What Do We Do Now?
People’s response to the great chasms of structural inequities glaringly laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic have been further inflamed by the murder of George Floyd and deaths of other African Americans in recent weeks. The acute emergency of the pandemic has eased, but the violence inflicted on racial minorities and now those who are protesting the inequities in our society has compounded the outrage. Right after the pandemic began running riot across the US, I often heard people ask: When...
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ACEs Champion Danette Glass says COVID-19 increases the need for trauma-informed communities
Glass’s mission has always been to protect and foster the practice of nurturing children. That’s because she herself experienced at least five types of adverse childhood experiences, as measured in the original CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study). If the scale could account for childhood adversity such as structural racism and community violence that’s more likely to occur in communities of color, her burden of ACEs is higher.
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North American Libraries Send Strong Message of Inclusion, Commitment to Racial and Social Equity, to Their Communities (Urban Library Council)
June 1, 2020, Urban Libraries Council Newsroom Blog. In a strong act of commitment to a more equitable society, 164 public libraries across North America signed the Urban Libraries Council’s Statement on Race and Social Equity . This statement serves as a baseline upon which libraries can build policies and actions that make their communities more inclusive and just. [ Please click here to read more. ]
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Advancing Racial Equity Webinar Series [apha.org]
By Tia Taylor Williams, American Public Health Association, May 2020 Alarming disparities within the COVID-19 pandemic — such as higher hospitalizations and death rates among African Americans — are sadly predictable and highlight the urgent need to address the root causes of health inequities. APHA is hosting this four-part webinar series to give an in-depth look at racism as a driving force of the social determinants of health and equity. The series will explore efforts to address systems,...
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You're Invited: “A Call To Action, A Call To Heal: Understanding the Impact of Complex Trauma in Communities" June 17 and 18.
Register Now for This Free Trauma Awareness and Trauma Responsive Care Symposium The Collaboration As neighboring Healthy Start partners providing maternal and child health services for Metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Healthy Start Initiative (AHSI) of the Center for Black Women’s Wellness, Inc. and the Healthier Generations Project (HGP) of the Clayton County Health District collaborate on several initiatives to improve perinatal outcomes in the region. The “A Call to Action, A Call to Heal:...
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Racism's Effect on Health, and the Heartbreak of Being a Black Parent Right Now: California's Surgeon General Speaks [kqed.org]
By KQED Science, KQED, June 14, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic and the recent killing of George Floyd have brought longstanding racial inequities into sharp focus. One of those disparities concerns the high rate of coronavirus transmission among people of color. To talk about the intersection of race and health, KQED's Brian Watt spoke last week with California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who is known for her pioneering work on the role that childhood stress and trauma play on...
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Linda Grabbe: Helping her communities develop resilience through the Community Resilience Model
Grabbe searched for models that would help her homeless and addicted patients. “There are good body-based models for psychotherapy, which may be the most effective approach for trauma,” she says, “but hardly any of my patients were receiving any kind of therapy. There are thousands of people in our communities who have high ACE scores who will never get the years of psychotherapy they deserve. CRM is a self-mental wellness care tool and is exquisitely trauma-sensitive—so it can help enormously.”
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A Better Normal Tuesday, June 30th at Noon PDT: Reinterpreting American Identity, a Community Discussion
"I think that all of us, regardless of our racial or ethnic background, feel relieved that we no longer have to deal with the racism and the sexism associated with the system of slavery. But we treat the history of enslavement like we treat the genocidal colonization of indigenous people in North America, as if it was not that important, or worse, as if it never happened." —Angela Davis, "The Meaning of Freedom" Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our...
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Resilience for Children & Families: Being Brave When Things are Hard
Building Resilience with Children During Racial Discrimination & Violence: This attached Resilience Brief for Children has been the hardest one I have written yet. I have been an active advocate for the equal treatment of people from all backgrounds, religions, ethnic heritages, orientations, and families my entire life. It is hard to see the pain present today, not only due to COVID19 but also due to the harm and anger we see daily in the news. I want to share a story about the person...
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Resilient Georgia and Georgia Public Broadcasting present "Mental Fitness for Resilience" Second Panel - The Trauma of Racism
Resilient Georgia recently presented a roundtable discussion, featuring a distinguished panel of professionals, on the trauma associated with racism and racial discrimination, as part of the Mental Fitness for Resilience Campaign. The distinguished panel for this Georgia Public Broadcasting production included Dr. Patrice Harris, MD, MA, psychiatrist and the first African-American woman to be elected president of the American Medical Association; Dr. Terri McFadden, a General Pediatrician...
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"A Different Distribution of Power": ACEs, Trauma and Resilience Networks Sharpen Focus on Racial Justice and Equity
For the leaders of Sarasota Strong (or "SRQ Strong") Florida, anti-racism work isn’t about inviting people of color to tables long-occupied by white professionals fluent in academic jargon and theories of change. It’s about venturing, with humility and openness, into spaces where Black people worship, work and live.
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Do safe, stable, and nurturing relationships work? New research has important findings for responding to ACEs
While we know that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can cause risk behaviors, research has told us that the presence of protective factors can help mitigate the effects of ACEs. Common risk behaviors such as smoking tobacco and alcohol misuse can be a result from the trauma of childhood disadvantage. In responding to ACEs, public health research proposes that protective factors such as safe, stable, nurturing relationships (SSNRs) with a caring adult can mitigate the long-term effects of...
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In historic move, North Carolina city approves reparations for Black residents (USA Today)
By Joel Burgess, July 15, 2020, ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES. ASHEVILLE, N.C. – In an extraordinary move, the Asheville City Council has apologized for the North Carolina city's historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants. The 7-0 vote came the night of July 14. "Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today," said Councilman Keith Young, one of...
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Structural Racism and its Impact on Black Maternal Health (New Security Beat)
By Deekshita Ramanarayan, July 21, 2020, New Security Beat. “The past months have been profoundly difficult for our nation, and for Black communities in particular,” said Representative Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14) at a recent March of Dimes event on the impact of structural racism on maternal health. COVID-19 has highlighted health outcome inequity caused by race and racism. Though Black people constitute 13 percent of the U.S. population, the CDC estimates they represent over 30 percent of...
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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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Trauma-informed policing: Learn how three highly experienced community leaders strengthen ties between police and community
ACEs initiative participants in communities where there is tension between the community and law enforcement will want to join Becky Haas in a compelling conversation on law enforcement, ACEs science, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Haas is a nationally recognized adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) science initiative builder and trainer. She and colleagues Renee Wilson-Simmons, the head of the ACE Awareness Foundation of Memphis, Tennessee, and Maggi Duncan,...
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‘Death by structural poverty’: US south struggles against Covid-19 [theguardian.com]
Monica McCasklill, left, and her daughter Kena Johnson, at their home in Greenwood, Missisppi. They respectively lost their grandmother and great grandmother, Ethel Huntley, to Covid-19. Huntley lived in a nearby nursing home and the family allege failings in her primary care. Photograph: Rory Doyle/The Guardian. By Oliver Laughland, The Guardian, August 5, 2020 Poor access to healthcare, failed political leadership and the endurance of segregation and racism have contributed to a surge in...
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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...
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Does racism make us sick? Amid a national reckoning, the question gains new importance [sfchronicle.com]
By Tatiana Sanchez, San Francisco Chronicle, August 24, 2020 Elaine Shelly has lived with multiple sclerosis for 30 years. But she said she still panics whenever she has to see a new neurologist because of racial discrimination she’s experienced in the past. Even getting a proper diagnosis for her illness was a battle. “I’d go to these neurologists who would tell me that Black people don’t get M.S. and that I must be mentally ill,” said Shelly, 63, of San Leandro. A former print journalist,...
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NIHB Launches Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) Hub
The National Indian Health Board, in collaboration with CDC, has launched a new resource hub! Many Tribal individuals, families, and communities have been impacted by childhood experiences causing physical and mental health adversities throughout the lifespan. However, with understanding and effort, individuals and communities can confront Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) for positive health outcomes. This information hub, launched by the National Indian Health Board includes a "resource...
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Data-Driven, Cross-Sector: Bounce Coalition Boosts Trauma-Informed Change in Kentucky
Student suspension rates dropped. Teacher retention rose. Membership in the PTA swelled from zero to more than 200. More kids said in a survey that there was at least one adult at school whom they could talk to if they had a problem. The data—a comparison of the Bounce Coalition’s pilot school and one with similar demographics—told the Kentucky resilience-boosting group that they were on the right track. The Bounce Coalition formed in 2014; the catalyst was a grant from the Foundation for a...
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The Best for our Children: Considering ACEs in Voter Engagement.
The presidential race is a big-ticket item, but hundreds of other state and local races will impact critical issues like school funding, childcare and early education, nutrition programs, and health care. Every seat in the NC General Assembly is on the ballot, along with the Governor’s race, a US Senate seat, congressional races, and more. When it comes to elevating the importance of racial equity, voting is vital to make marginalized voices heard. Policies and systems can be changed by our...
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The Intersection of Systematic Racism, the Pandemic, and SDoMH: Reality Mandates Change
Systematic racism is at the core of mental health disparities and social determinants of mental health (SDoMH).Upstream factors obstruct patient access to needed and appropriate assessment, timely intervention, with treatment for these populations often reflecting poorer quality, and ending prior to completion of treatment. COVID-19 and the recent pandemic have only amplified meso and micro-level gaps in care. considered, provided, and reimbursed.
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"A Better Normal" Community Discussion Series- Our Reckoning with Race and Equity at ACEs Connection
Register for A Better Normal- Our reckoning with race and equity at ACEs Connection
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"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise Proudfoot RN, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be...
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A New Hippocratic Oath Asks Doctors To Fight Racial Injustice And Misinformation [NPR]
First-year medical student Sean Sweat "didn't want to tiptoe around" issues of race when she sat down with 11 of her classmates to write a new version of the medical profession's venerable Hippocratic oath. "We start our medical journey amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and a national civil rights movement reinvigorated by the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery," begins the alternate version of the oath, rewritten for the class of 2024 at the University of Pittsburgh...
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Resilient Georgia Brief: The Case for ACEs Prevention
In their latest brief, Resilient Georgia makes a compelling evidence-based 'Case for ACEs Prevention' and an urgent call to action to invest in building resilience now – early intervention is more effective, less expensive, and imperative to averting the next pandemic: mental and behavioral health.
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Opportunity to sign on to “A Trauma-Informed Agenda for the First 100 Days of the Biden-Harris Administration”—Deadline Dec. 8th
The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice ( CTIPP ) is inviting individuals and organizations to express their support for a set of executive actions for the Biden-Harris Administration to take “to address trauma and build resilience throughout the country.” Most of these actions could be taken early in the Administration and would not require congressional action with the exception of some recommendations that could be included in a new stimulus package. The recommendations are...
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After her incarceration 'broke' son, this woman created non-profit to support children of offenders [al.com]
By Roy S. Johnson, Al.com, December 4, 2020 Danielle Lacey Chavers rolled the dice. Though she didn’t fully grasp the depth of the consequences. Not even as she rounded the corner inside a gated Trace Crossings community in Hoover and saw a fire truck leaving the cul-de-sac where her family lived. Or as she saw an ambulance and a phalanx of police cars in front of their home. Or realized it was a drug raid. The oldest of Chavers’s two sons, Jeremy, a teenager who had picked his younger...
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Reviving a Crop and an African-American Culture, Stalk by Stalk (nytimes.com)
SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. — Fall is cane syrup season in pockets of the Deep South, where people still gather to grind sugar cane and boil its juice into dark, sweet syrup in iron kettles big enough to bathe in. This autumn, no cane syrup has been more significant than the batches Maurice Bailey and his friends made from the first purple ribbon sugar cane grown here on Sapelo Island since the 1800s. The 11-mile-long barrier island is home to the Salt Water Geechees , who can trace an unbroken line...
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ACEs Champion: The reintroduction of Michael Hayes — from ACEs awakening to ACEs community service
It wasn’t until his fifth prison term in a North Carolina county jail — his fourth conviction for driving under the influence — that Michael Hayes volunteered to take an ACE survey that changed his life. The 48-year-old father of six sons and one daughter had spent a number of years in and out of prison. During his last term, to get some time out of the cell where he spent 16 hours a day, he volunteered to attend a class offered by RHA Health Services, a nonprofit that incorporates the...
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What the pandemic has done to racial inequality in North Carolina [charlotteobserver.com]
By Gene Nichol, The Charlotte Observer, December 28, 2020 It doesn’t happen as often as one might wish. But, on occasion, you can still be surprised by what someone says. For example, earlier this month, the Donald Trump-appointed Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, explained to the Senate Banking Committee: “Disparate economic outcomes on the basis of race, have been with us for a very long time, they are a long-standing aspect of our economy, and there is a great risk that the...
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Introducing Resilient Georgia's 8 Regional ACEs/TIC Coalitions
Introducing Resilient Georgia's 8 Regional ACEs/TIC Coalitions Resilient Georgia , in partnership with the Pittulloch Foundation, has been working with 8 cities across Georgia and the surrounding counties to provide a regional emphasis on trauma informed awareness and care, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and child sexual abuse prevention training as a basis to transform systems and procedures crossing both public and private sectors. Resilient Georgia serves as a supportive and guiding...
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An Open Letter to Police Chiefs: The Need for Trauma-informed Policing
Recently, I was provided a form letter addressed to a local police chief and friend of mine who knew of my interest in trauma-informed policing and who thought I should read the letter. The letter claimed that trauma-informed policing, specifically as it related to domestic violence and sexual violence allegations, was everything from “junk science” to “prejudicial against men.” Needless to say, I found the letter uninformed and unpersuasive.
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Four New Communities Join ACEs Connection / March 2021
Please welcome these four new communities to the ACEsConnection.com network! ACEs Caribbean Community American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapters RAISE [Resilience Alexandria: Inform. Support. Elevate.] (VA) Resilient Brunswick County (NC) Details about each of them are below as is information about starting and growing your community initiatives and joining the Cooperative of Communities . ACEs Caribbean Community : We are the ACEs Community Initiative for the Caribbean. We educate...
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Want to empower youth in communities of color during COVID? Let them lead.
Widespread reporting has revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many poor communities of color. Less widely known is how the pandemic has affected young people in those communities. “COVID-19 has had a particularly harsh impact on youth of color,” further traumatizing [juvenile-justice] system-impacted youth and their families already struggling with disproportionately high rates of disease, death, job loss and housing insecurity,” said Jim Keddy of Youth Forward . Keddy was...
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We’ve changed our name to PACEs Connection!
We have some very exciting news! As of today, ACEs Connection is now PACEs Connection. PACEs stands for Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences.
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A Better Normal Friday, March 26, 2021: PACEs and HOPE with Dr. Christina Bethell
Please join us for our next installment of A Better Normal, our live webinar series in which we imagine and create our society as trauma-informed! You may have seen we changed our name recently from ACEs Connection to PACEs Connection. Please join us to learn all about the groundbreaking research of Positive Childhood Experiences and how this is going to transform the work we are all doing. >>Click here to register<< PACEs and HOPE Live Event Friday, March 26, 2021 Noon PT / 1pm...
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Rural Opportunity Institute March Update
ROI supports people's healing process by educating, reshaping systemic practices, and fostering deep-rooted connections. We know people are not to blame for the trauma and stress that impacts them. Resilience is an inner strength in all humans, regardless of background, and we as people are wired for connection and healing. We strive to end generational cycles of trauma and poverty by preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress for the community in rural Eastern North...