Blog

I will always remember the day that, as a student teacher, I watched as a student entered my second-grade room covered in blood. After quickly establishing that he was not injured, we learned that the blood was that of his brother who had been shot the night before. No parents were around that night, so this second grader became the sole caregiver of his bleeding brother. My student would never be the same. We didn’t care about grades or test scores. We just knew that this moment would...

Please join this June 6 webinar on Florida’s early childhood courts (aka “safe babies courts”) hosted by the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health and co-sponsored by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice and ACEs Connection. Background: Every six minutes in the U.S., an infant, toddler or child under the age of 3 is removed from their homes for alleged abuse and neglect and placed in state custody through the child welfare system (Zero to Three).

There's a fantastic five-part series, Whole People , done by PBS, " spotlighting the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) through personal and community stories. It explores the long-term costs to personal well-being and our society. While much work needs to be done, there are many innovative developments to prevent and treat ACES. We all play a role in becoming a whole people." It's amazing. The five topics covered are as follows: Childhood Trauma Healing Communities A New...

In the coming weeks, thousands of college students will walk across a stage and proudly accept their diplomas. Many of them will be hungry. A survey released this week by Temple University’s Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that 45 percent of student respondents from over 100 institutions said they had been food insecure in the past 30 days. In New York, the nonprofit found that among City University of New York (CUNY) students, 48 percent had been food insecure in...

The University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions partnered with Peace4Tarpon under the Robert Wood Johnson Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) grant funding period and have sustained their strong community-academic partnership. Together they created a 9-credit online graduate certificate in trauma-informed and resilience-based public health. Peace4Gainesville also contributed to this certificate. This post is intended to showcase some of the work of...

Destination: Home is a public health intervention center and shelter designed to be multi-faceted and a leader when it comes to LGBTQIA+ rights and advocacy. What sparked the vision for this intervention is the need for social connection among diverse groups of LGBTQIA+ youth and the homelessness which they face. This center functions as a as a shelter targeting LGBTQIA+ youth within a specific radius. Although it functions as a shelter, there is also internal and external programming and...

Family First: A New Home is a project that aims to create a home away from home that embodies the emotional characteristics of a healthy household environment for those to whom this environment is unavailable. Our project aims to create an after-school program for elementary school-aged children from single-parent households. Our goal is for children and parents from single-parent households to grow in capacities which are unavailable to them. This intervention aims to affect the...

Alcohol abuse in households across the nation is an issue deeply felt by those who are impacted. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse Alcoholism, an estimated 88,000 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Furthermore, according to a 2012 study, more than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent who has problems with alcohol abuse and...

Although many organizations providing temporary shelter for individuals experiencing homelessness exist, there is a gap in the Gainesville, Florida community for these services specifically serving families and unaccompanied youth. In 2018 there were an estimated 641 people experiencing homelessness in Alachua County, the majority of whom were on the streets rather than in shelters (NCF Alliance 2018) . In the entirety of Gainesville, Florida, the most recent data from 2012 showed that an...

Abstract: Native American communities in the United States have disproportionately high rates of health disparities such as post-traumatic stress, depression, violence and substance abuse, especially when compared to other demographic groups in the United States 1 . These communities also disproportionately experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with up to 40.3 percent experiencing 2 or more ACEs 3 including childhood physical and sexual abuse, witnessing violence, poverty, racism...

Vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress can occur in populations of workers who are exposed to the traumas that others are experiencing. Critical care nurses caring day after day for suffering individuals, have a unique set of experiences that have an increased risk of developing compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue has been well studied and mimics similarly to Post Traumatic Stress and is often called Secondary Traumatic Stress (Figley, 1995). High Adverse Childhood Experience...

Owsley County, Kentucky is in dire need for a public health intervention. Owsley county is currently experiencing high rates of school drop outs, high percentage of persons living in poverty, and various other poor health outcomes. If there is no intervention, Owsley county will continue to experience such trauma and possibly experience worsened conditions. My idea for intervention will include involvement from the public health sector, health care providers and the school system to decrease...