Tagged With "Volunteers of America"
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Texas 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for Texas. 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, we’ll...
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The Amazingly Simple and Cost-Effective Way to End Homelessness — for Good (wakeup-world.com)
During a balmy 60ºF December morning, Rene Zepeda is driving a Volunteers of America minivan through Salt Lake City, Utah, looking for the homeless who may be camping by the railroad tracks or over by the river, sometimes in the foothills . Rene works for a program called Housing First. It has decreased the number of homeless by an extraordinary 72% — mainly by providing permanent free housing. Critics bemoan the expense, but once the numbers were thoroughly crunched, it was discovered the...
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Tributes honor the life of Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore
This is a recent photo of an image projected on a building of a younger Rep. Cummings taken on a street in his native Baltimore. From an unknown source, projected images and messages appear on the side of a building near my house in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. When the news alert came across my cell phone on Thursday morning that Elijah Cummings had died, I felt overwhelming sadness for the loss of a powerful, eloquent, and soulful human who understood trauma in his...
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Visualizing Poverty Across America (dailyinfographic.com)
Looking at maps can tell you a lot about a country- how people are distributed, or where population growth is concentrated, for example. One of the starkest visuals, though, is a map of hunger and poverty across the United States, as illustrated by SNAP benefits usage. SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the United States. Simply put, it provides a monthly supplement for eligible individuals to use on food and...
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Washington, D.C. 2018 Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the profile for Washington, D.C. 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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Youth Workers Train To Help Children Of Incarcerated Parents [news.wnin.org/]
A small group of youth workers in the state had the opportunity to learn more about how to help these children whose emotional and mental wellbeing is often impacted. One in 10 Indiana children have a parent who is incarcerated. That’s one of the highest rates in the nation. The training session in Martinsville hosted by the Indiana Youth Institute and led by Volunteers of America ’s Greta Compton. The talk provided insight into the growing problem of mass incarceration and family health. [...
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Oregon psychiatrist testifies before Senate Finance Committee on the impact of childhood adversity and toxic stress on adult health
Appearing before the powerful Senate Finance Committee in Washington, DC, recently, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Health Share Oregon, devoted a significant portion of her testimony to the role of adversity and toxic stress during childhood on adult health, both physical and emotional. She explained how Health Share Oregon—that state’s largest Medicaid coordinated care organization—examined the people with the costliest health bills and found them to...
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Personal stories from witnesses, U.S. representatives provided an emotional wallop to House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on childhood trauma
Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...
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Preventable trauma in childhood costs north America and Europe US$ 1.3 trillion a year [WHO]
By World Health Organization (photo by WHO/Malin Bring) The findings of a new study on the life-course health consequences and associated annual costs of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) show that preventable trauma in childhood costs north America and the European Region US$ 1.3 trillion a year. The article, published in the Lancet and co-authored by Dinesh Sethi and Jonathon Passmore, Programme Manager, Violence and Injury Prevention, WHO/Europe, looks at the legacy of ACEs and their...
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State profiles for 50 states and District of Columbia
Hi, Everyone: We’ve made a first pass at gathering highlights of ACEs initiatives in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. Within the text, below, are links to the individual posted profiles for each state. If you see corrections or want to make additions, we’d love that. Just add them in the comments section of that individual post. Instructions are at the top of each individual post. We will be turning those posts into living profiles that, with your help and input, we’ll keep...
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Suicide Rates Climbing, Especially In Rural America (scienceblog.com)
Suicide is becoming more common in America, an increase most pronounced in rural areas, new research has found. The study, which appears online today (Sept. 6, 2019) in the journal JAMA Network Open , also highlights a cluster of factors, including lack of insurance and the prevalence of gun shops, that are associated with high suicide rates. Researchers at The Ohio State University evaluated national suicide data from 1999 to 2016, and provided a county-by-county national picture of the...
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Tackling Patients’ Social Problems Can Cut Health Costs (californiahealthline.org)
Inspired by the way police departments mapped crime data to detect “hot spots,” family physician Dr. Jeffrey Brenner dug into ambulance records and emergency department data to show how high-cost patients were shuttling between city hospitals. “In America, we’re medicalizing social problems and we’re criminalizing social problems, and we’re wasting huge amounts of public resources,” Brenner said. “We have the wrong tools to solve the wrong problem.” To steer patients away from expensive...
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Telehealth Is Improving Health Care in Rural Areas (hbr.org)
Intermountain Healthcare is addressing the pressing needs of people who live in rural areas through telehealth, which uses secure video and audio technology to connect care providers in smaller health care facilities with specialists in large hospitals. The results we’ve experienced hold promise for rural communities throughout America. Patients are frequently transferred to distant acute care centers to receive specialized care. Local caregivers don’t get the opportunity to learn from...
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Could where you live influence how long you live? (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
How does where we live affect our opportunity to be healthy? For the first time in our history, the United States is raising a generation of children who may live sicker and shorter lives than their parents. Reversing this trend will of course depend on healthy choices by each of us. But not everyone in America has the same opportunities to be healthy. According to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.6...
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Cycle of Risk: The Intersection of Poverty, Violence, and Trauma (issuelab.org)
We make the case that the conditions that foster violence and the conditions that perpetuate poverty are interconnected and reinforce each other; we further show the traumatic effects of violence -- and how trauma drives both poverty and violence. We then examine how violence has been used to enforce systems of racial oppression and how communities of color are disparately impacted by violence today. The conditions that perpetuate poverty and the conditions that foster violence often...
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Durbin, Capito, colleagues introduce bipartisan, bicameral legislation to address childhood trauma [Office of Senator Durbin of IL]
The following is a press release issued by the office of U.S. Senator Durbin (D-IL) on Monday, June 10, announcing the introduction of bipartisan bicameral legislation that builds on last year’s opioid legislation SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act and recommendations from a recent GAO report. A link to the bill and other information will be provided as soon as possible. In the meantime, an earlier draft of the bill and a section by section are attached to this post. For Immediate...
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Education, inspiration, and action—Maryland lawmakers take deeper dive into ACEs science and how it informs policy
While members of the Maryland General Assembly did not dominate the Dec. 13th “MGA ACEs Roundtable” in numbers, they commanded the room and enlivened a focus on how ACEs science can inform current and future policies considered by elected officials.
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Eleven state profiles feature ACEs-science data, initiatives
One of the resources shared with participants in the Sept. 13-14 convening of First Spouses in Milwaukee to address trauma was a series of state information sheets that featured data on ACEs prevalence and ACEs/trauma-informed/resilience-building initiatives. These one-pagers provided a succinct summary of state highlights on trauma that in some instances were well known to the First Spouses but for others, provided new information. In partnership with state trauma leaders, ACEs Connection...
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HHS releases additional $487 million to states, territories to expand access to effective opioid treatment; 2019 SOR grants will total $1.4 billion [hhs.gov]
[March 20, 2019] Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an additional $487 million to supplement first-year funding through its State Opioid Response (SOR) grant program. The awards to states and territories are part of HHS’s Five-Point Opioid Strategy and the Trump administration’s tireless drive to combat the opioid crisis. Together with the $933 million in second-year, continuation awards to be provided under this program later this year, the total amount...
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Interim report of the President’s opioid commission says its final report will address early intervention strategies for children with ACEs
On August 8, President Trump spoke to the opioid crisis in this country and declined to declare a national emergency as recommended by the “President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.” Instead, the President emphasized the law and order aspects of the problem and the importance of preventing drug use in the first place since addiction is so hard to overcome. The Commission will make a final report in the fall. The recently released interim report makes eight...
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Louisiana 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for Louisiana. 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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Maryland lawmakers attend conference on tackling child trauma through policy [Capital Gazette]
Photo caption and credit: Frank Kros, President of the Kros Learning Group, explains The N.E.A.R. Science to the group. The Maryland General Assembly held an event to inform them about how to make trauma informed policy decisions, and informing them about the consequences of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). (Paul W. Gillespie) ____________________________________________________________ If adverse childhood experiences were eliminated entirely, rates of depression could plummet, heart...
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Afterschool programs and a trauma-informed approach [Afterschool Alliance]
“A trauma-informed, culturally responsive lens must be a part of everything we do.” This statement by Laura Norton-Cruz, Director of the Alaska Resilience Initiative, sums up the key message of last week’s Senate Afterschool Caucus briefing for Congressional staff which focused on “Afterschool Programs and a Trauma-Informed Approach.” On Wednesday, Sept. 11, the Senate Afterschool Caucus* — in partnership with the Afterschool Alliance, Alaska Children’s Trust – Alaska Afterschool Network,...
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Alabama 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for Alabama. 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, we’ll...
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Bipartisan, bicameral trauma legislation provides support for community initiatives and workforce development
In the current polarized political environment, it is no small feat for a bill to be introduced with bipartisan support in both chambers—a fact that bodes well for the future of the “Resilience Investment, Support, and Expansion (RISE) from Trauma Act of 2019.” Identical bills titled “The RISE from Trauma Act of 2019” were introduced in the Senate and the House on June 10, with bipartisan support from members of Congress representing diverse states, districts, and constituencies. While...
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Colorado 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for Colorado. 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, we’ll...
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How I Can Offer Reparations in Direct Proportion to My White Privilege (yesmagazine.org)
I had a fascinating breakfast conversation with my 11-year-old daughter a few days back. The nigh before I had a fitful dream - one that was short on plot and imagery, but chock-full of emotion. In this case, the feeling was of a deep, immovable sorrow. When I awoke, it didn't take long to recognize that the article I'd been working on - this article - was definitely working on me, too. During breakfast I knew my daughter could tell I wasn’t on solid ground. She’s a sensitive soul, and I...
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Why Ben & Jerry's statement on white supremacy is extraordinary (msn.com)
The ice cream maker has called on Americans to "dismantle white supremacy" and "grapple with the sins of our past" as nationwide protests against racial injustice stretch into their eighth day. Companies including Nike, Netflix, Twitter, Disney, Facebook and Intel have condemned racism and injustice in recent days. But the statement from Ben & Jerry's is unusually comprehensive and direct, addressing the historical roots of discrimination in the United States and calling out systemic...
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What does 'defund the police' mean? The rallying cry sweeping the US – explained [TheGuardian.com]
Orlando Police line up in front of the OPD headquarters on South Street as protesters arrive to demonstrate in Orlando, Florida. Photograph: Joe Burbank/AP Sam Levin in Los Angeles The call to “defund the police” has become a rallying cry at protests across America this week, and some lawmakers appear to be listening. Activists who have long fought to cut law enforcement budgets say they are seeing an unprecedented wave of support for their ideas, with some elected officials for the first...
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Gwyneth Paltrow and California’s First Surgeon General Talk Coronavirus and Black Health (people.com)
With the new coronavirus, COVID-19, engulfing the world, Gwyneth Paltrow decided to go to a health expert when she was asked to be on the cover of SHAPE magazine’s July/August cover . Rather than focusing on her own life, Paltrow interviewed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris , the first surgeon general of California, about the state of health today. Their conversation happened in April — before George Floyd's death in police custody led to mass protests over racial injustice across the country, and...
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America the Unhealthy: Inequality kills (knowablemagazine.org)
We are the only country that systematically collects data by race; race is not a biological construct, so what is race? So to compare the US with other countries you have to get at the question indirectly. Brazil, the United States and Cuba are countries in which the largest segment of the population is white, but each has a relatively large black population. There was a study done by a Harvard professor in the 1990s that looked at life expectancy differences among blacks and whites in each...
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Congress urged to address trauma in the 4th COVID bill
Now that the July 4 th congressional recess has ended, negotiations around the fourth major COVID relief bill are underway between the Congress and the Administration. How the chasm between Congress and the White House will be bridged is a path uncertain, with massive differences between the House and Senate complicating the work. As the pandemic rages across the U.S., there is now at least a consensus that action is needed. But no agreement exists on a payroll tax cut, unemployment...
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Wolf Administration Releases ‘Trauma-Informed PA’ Plan with Recommendations and Steps for the Commonwealth and Providers to Become Trauma-Informed [PA Governor Tom Wolf Press Release]
July 27, 2020 As a companion to Governor Tom Wolf’s multi-agency effort and anti-stigma initiative, Reach Out PA: Your Mental Health Matters, the Office of Advocacy and Reform (OAR) is releasing the “Trauma-Informed PA” plan to guide the commonwealth and service providers statewide on what it means to be trauma-informed and healing-centered in PA. This plan is the result of four months of work from OAR and the Trauma-Informed PA Think Tank, formed in February. The think tank was made up of...
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Bill introduced in US House of Representatives to substantially increase "Safe Babies" courts
Rep. Rosa DeLauro speaks to students at John Lyman Elementary School, Middlefield, CT A bipartisan bill ( H.R. 7868 )—Strengthening America’s Families Act (SAFA)— was introduced Friday, July 30 by lead sponsors Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL). The bill provides seed money to states to develop and enhance infant-toddler court teams (ITCTs, aka Safe Babies Court Teams) and authorizes a national resource center to guide state and local programs to develop their...
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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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Redesign Required: Principles for Reimagining Federal Rural Policy in the COVID-19 Era (aspeninstitute.org)
This is the first in a three-part blog series on principles, ideas, and implementation considerations essential to ensuring that development investments that are part of COVID-19 relief and recovery set the stage for thriving rural communities and a more distributed, inclusive economy. The COVID-19 crisis is testing America’s resilience. The rapidly accelerating economic fallout makes concrete the risks for a national economy built on the success of just a few key economic centers . When the...
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Florida Legislator Will Propose Compensation Fund for Police Shooting Victims [Florida Daily.com]
State Rep. Ramon Alexander , D-Tallahassee, plans to bring out a bill “creating a Victim Compensation Crime and Trauma Fund for victims of police shooting incidents and their families.” Alexander said on Monday that he will introduce the legislation for next year’s legislative session. “Trauma experienced by survivors and loved ones can be social, physical, and emotional. As lawmakers, it is imperative that we provide trauma-specific services and a greater awareness of the effects of...
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Investing in Community Resilience Webinar: Advocating for Trauma-Informed Policy and Systems Change
Building on the Foundation’s Trauma-Informed Philanthropy series, we are pleased to present a 10-month learning series, Investing in Community Resilience . This series, presented in partnership with the Scattergood Foundation, will provide vital information to funders and cooperative extension professionals for developing trauma-informed, healing-centered approaches in their work. Please join us for the sixth and final webinar in the series, Advocating for Trauma-Informed Policy and Systems...
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Children and families need resources to address trauma at its roots [statnews.com]
By Ayanna Pressley and Carolyn B. Maloney, STAT, October 21, 2020 Like many nations across the globe, the U.S. continues to combat the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration’s deficient response has elevated the emotional, physical, and economic harm suffered by families in America. As we move through this moment of collective trauma, we must adopt focused, evidence-based approaches to make our country whole again and ensure that these approaches prioritize a...
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New California preventive mental health coverage puts ACEs science front and center
A mother, frantic with worry, brought her newborn in for a checkup at the pediatric clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby. And over the next several months, no amount of reassurance could convince the mom that her child was eating, sleeping and growing just fine. If anything, the mother’s worry led to behavior that raised alarm bells for her health care providers. Dr. Kate Margolis “[The family] wasn’t returning calls from the provider, and...
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New nonprofit breast milk bank launches in San Diego (sandiegouniontribune.com)
San Diego — Every year, about 260 of the tiniest premature babies in California hospitals develop an often-fatal bowel disease known as necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC. Nobody knows what causes NEC, but a common factor in many cases is the use of formula to feed these very low-birth-weight babies because the mother’s breast milk is not available. Replacing that formula with pasteurized breast milk in every California hospital newborn intensive care unit could be a positive step in reducing...
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Covid-19 tsunami of suffering: The pandemic isn't pausing; U.S. shouldn't either [usatoday.com]
By Richard E. Besser, USA Today, November 19, 2020 One thing scientists know with certainty is that viruses don’t get pandemic fatigue, but people do. This matters today as America enters a dangerous period in which the actions of government and individuals will likely determine how many people die and whose lives our society values. We’ve known since the dawn of this pandemic that winter would be especially bad in terms of disease transmission . Many politicians put forth a different...
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Highlights from Michigan—one of four states to receive CDC funding for preventing ACEs
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just launched a three-year, four-state, $6-million project, “Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences: Data to Action (PACE-D2A)” with the potential to energize an already blossoming movement of statewide community-based initiatives to address ACEs. The CDC awards of $500,000 annually for three years, announced on August 25 , were given to the Department of Public Health in Georgia and Massachusetts, the Office of Early Childhood in...
Comment
Re: West Virginia 2018 State Profile
Dan and Jesse -- Congrats on the campaign to have the TI community sign on to the Biden-Harris letter re: priorities for the first 100 days. I cloned Elizabeth's post about it to all my communities (about 60 in the SE + four "interest-based communities) and emailed it to other folks; shared it out on social media as @ACEsConnection < blog+473769386031099869-465743931794771586-57F17AF3@acesconnection.hoop.la > . I did, however, drop the ball on getting out to you this DRAFT of an...