Tagged With "early childhood"
Blog Post
Looking at Children with a New Set of Eyes
Our children are giving us clear signs that we need some changes. After 300 years of industrial revolution our modern society has been shaped and molded by the industrial complex. Everything about our contemporary world is a product of the industrial age. We now live in homes, work in buildings, store our food, bake in ovens, and talk on cell-phones that are all formed out of square and rectangular shapes. One might say we have fashioned our existence around and into boxes. For many who...
Blog Post
MARC Booklet 2016: Features Walla Walla and Whatcom
Please find attached the 2016 booklet for the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project, including Walla Walla, Whatcom and the other 13 communities that have been selected to participate in this 2 year learning collaborative. This is a great summary of the work happening in all 14 communities across the country. I am looking forward to working with the WA group as we grow so we can share your story!
Blog Post
May 26 Webinar - Resilience in Washington State: What Works and How to Make it Happen
With Suzette Fromm Reed, community psychologist, and Dario Longhi, change/sociology researcher. Presented by the Washington State ACEs and Resilience Community of Practice. May 26, 2020 at 12:00 PM. What works? What kinds of resilience increases community-wide levels of well-being and moderates ACE impacts? Come learn about the evidence of the effects of contextual resilience based on research from 108 Washington communities. How to make it happen? What we can learn from strategies employed...
Blog Post
Meet CRI Founder Teri Barila
Today, we have the opportunity to get to know CRI’s founder and board president Teri Barila. Teri holds a M.S. Degree in Fisheries Science and Management, has over 20 years experience working for government agencies from the Bonneville Power Association in Portland to the Army Corp. of Engineers in Walla Walla, WA. She was a founder or major instigator for numerous community focused non- profits, most notably, Friends of Children of Walla Walla, Community Center for Youth (CCY), Commitment...
Blog Post
Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) Represented at California ACEs Conference
(L to R) Teri Barila from Children's Resilience Initiative in Walla Walla, WA along with Dr. Ariane Marie-Mitchell from San Bernardino County, CA ACEs Task Force share their ACEs journey in their communities Representatives from several MARC communities were among the 450 people who attended the 2016 Adverse Childhood Experiences Conference in San Francisco, CA on October 19th and 20th. This is the third CA ACEs conference sponsored by the Center for Youth Wellness (CYW), and it was also the...
Blog Post
New Study Shows Communities Can Reduce the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences [Mathematic Policy Research]
[ Ed. note: Following is a media release published yesterday by Mathematica Policy Research. This follows on the heals of the report, "Self-Healing Communities" that Laura Porter, Dr. Robert Anda and WHO wrote for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Both reports and executive summaries are attached to this blog post. Both reports are significant, because they show that community ACEs initiatives -- with "modest investments and limited staff" -- are solving some of our most intractable...
Blog Post
NJ medical school program requires all first-year students to learn about ACEs science
In 2015, Dr. Beth Pletcher, a pediatrician and associate professor specializing in genetics, was at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington D.C. when she heard two speakers that forever changed her work with medical students. Dr. Beth Pletcher “I went to two talks on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that were so mind-boggling to me that I decided on my drive back to New Jersey that I had to do something about it,”says Pletcher, director of the Division...
Blog Post
October is Resilience Month in our Valley
CRI supported Walla Walla Clinic, Walla Walla Parks and Recreation and Michelle Coleman, LICSW, in the community event for the screening of Screenagers , a film addressing digital screen time and health issues (obesity, social isolation, mental health) in youth. CRI's resource table distributed our Practice a Resilience Strategy Every Day calendar (see it displayed in the attachment), our new Resilience across the Life Span bookmark, and other items for education and awareness. Great fun and...
Blog Post
Our Collective Thoughts and Feelings on “The Heart of the Matter”
We measured the feelings of our CRI members with a thought provoking question at our monthly meeting in May. We asked “What is the heart of this work to you?” Our question provided a basis for why our efforts to raise the personal and public awareness about stress and trauma are so powerful! Twenty- three members and three guests sat around 5 tables and shared their passion about the trauma informed work we’re all doing. Poster paper was used at each table as members spelled out the key...
Blog Post
Reaching the Tipping Point: 2019 BPT Big Idea Session by Jane Stevens
CRI is excited to welcome back Jane Stevens, Founder and Publisher of our very own ACEs Connection, to the 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference in Pasco, Washington. Jane will be hosting a BIG IDEA session titled, "Reaching the Tipping Point." Reaching the national — and your local — tipping point. How can we do that in the next five years? And what happens when we do? We REALLY need to reach a tipping point —ASAP! —in educating people about ACEs science, engaging organizations in the ACEs...
Blog Post
Resource List - Growing Cross-Sector, Community-Based ACEs and Resilience Initiatives
Resources for individuals, organizations, and communities moving along trauma and hope-informed pathways in order to: Prevent and mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Promote resilience and safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. Promote equity and racial justice. Prevent substance abuse and promote mental health. … so that all children, youth, families and communities have equal opportunity for educational success, economic stability, health, and well-being.
Blog Post
Stages and Ages: Make a Splash with our Fisheries-Inspired Activity! A Not-To-Be-Missed Social/Networking Event at 2019 BPT Pre-Conference
"In our community, we were first exposed to ACEs and brain architecture. We frequently talked about the impact of ACEs. Until this happened when Dr. Rob Anda came in . Because of this brave mom who shared her 10 ACE childhood Because of that vulnerability in a first exposure to ACEs Until finally… I finally knew we had to do this And now I was convinced to start CRI." - Our own Teri Barila uses the 7-Sentence Story model to tell of CRI's Incubation Stage. We are excited to bring to you a new...
Blog Post
Talking ACEs and building resilience in prison
At Washington State Penitentiary, Tony McGuire talks to the inmates in his construction trades apprenticeship preparation (CTAP) class about ACEs, trauma and resilience every single day. Not only is he teaching the guys a trade, but he also teaches them how to be a healthy, happy and well-adjusted employee. Note: Becoming a healthy, happy, well-adjusted employee is way harder than basic carpentry, plumbing, electrical and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning).
Blog Post
Beyond Paper Tigers Presenter Showcase! Teaching Employability in Prisons: Tony McGuire’s Harmony of Emotional Resilience and Building Instruction
Tony McGuire- a member of Community Resilience Initiative, and an instructor for Walla Walla Community College at the Washington State Penitentiary- had divided his Building Maintenance class into random groups where white supremacists may be working on the same team as Native Americans. This choice was intentional; “there’s no affiliation on a job site, so you don’t get that here,” Tony told his students. Yet not long after the start of such teamwork, tools began flying. One student was...
Blog Post
Thank you for your participation in CRI’s October is Resilience Month!
Thank you to everyone who participated in CRI’s October is Resilience Month! From film screenings to a Dia de los Muertos celebration, from yard signs to new products, we accomplished a lot this past month! CRI kicked off the month with two proclamations - from the City of Walla Walla and the county- to declare our effort to mitigate ACEs via community resilience building. We hosted a resilience treasure hunt with our friend Tod Sullivan , themed according to his home country- England. He...
Blog Post
The Journey From Me to We: The Walla Walla Way
“We’re all humans and we’re all going through the same things,” Kelsey Sisavath explains. “It’s important for everyone to know. It can change your perspective on how you see yourself, how you see others, and how you see the world.” The “it” Kelsey is talking about is trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) . She has a unique perspective on the topic given her range of experiences throughout her 19 years of life. The story...
Blog Post
Trauma and Resilience Tools
Partner Showcase No. 7 -- Dr. Don Ashley is not your typical pediatrician. If I’m reading Dr. Ashley correctly, he suggests that our bodies hold memory patterns from early childhood experiences that control our biological and decision making processes throughout our lives. In his words: “Pretty scary to have your body sabotage your health, sabotage your marriage, and sabotage your work”. New brain science and the study on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) reveal that certain habits that...
Blog Post
Trauma & Resiliency Summit in the Columbia River Gorge
Hello all! The Columbia River Gorge is hosting a Trauma & Resiliency Summit on October 20th & 21st, 2016 in The Dalles, OR. Registration is made free to attendees through MARC Grant funding. If you are in the area please join us! And please note that registration is only available prior to the event as we have a limited amount of space. Claire
Blog Post
Virtual Screening of Broken Places on March 21st & Registration for ACEs Connection Members!
Please join us on Thursday, March 21st for a special virtual screening of Broken Places , the latest U.S. documentary on early childhood trauma and resilience. The film will be offered via a private Vimeo link with passcode to all registered members of ACEs Connection, for free, accessible in the United States and internationally. REGISTER TODAY: To register, please visit : https://goo.gl/forms/apdoINwgtQmydEXK2 The viewing portal for the film will open on Vimeo at 6am EST and close at 11pm...
Blog Post
Walla Walla: Collective Action and Data Drive Trauma-Informed Change [SAMHSA]
August 25, 2016 By: Larke N. Huang , Ph.D., Director, SAMHSA Office of Behavioral Health Equity; Rebecca Flatow, Office of Policy, Planning, and Innovation; Mary Blake, SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services Six cities were invited to SAMHSA for a listening session to present their innovative approaches to addressing trauma. This blog is part of a series that highlights community approaches in selected implementation domains and how each city is working to create safer and healthier places...
Blog Post
Webinar Oct. 17 — Integrating ACEs science in pediatrics: Early adopters share lessons from the field
An ACEs Connection webinar co-sponsored with 4 CA In 2017, California became the first state in the country to pass a law supporting universal screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the 5.3 million children in the state’s Medicaid program. As clinicians around California await the state’s announcement of what this new policy will entail, many are wondering what it takes to integrate ACEs science in a pediatric practice. Meet Drs. Deirdre Bernard-Pearl, R.J. Gillespie and...
Blog Post
Welcome new members!
Welcome to the Children's Resilience Initiative group! Our team's goal is to share material and generate conversation as we strive to learn from each other in our collective efforts to "grow" the Resilience movement! Many of you took the time to travel to Walla Walla to participate in our June 28-29 conference, Beyond Paper Tigers Conference . We were humbled by the response to our first ever conference! We hope you left with new strategies, ideas and energy for this work; we certainly...
Blog Post
Welcome to Walla Walla Valley ACEs Connection Group!
Welcome to the Walla Walla Valley ACEs Connection Group! Please take a little time to review the attached one page (2 sided) ACEs Connection Overview that gives an overview of the many resources available to you as part of the Walla Walla Valley ACEs Connection Group. Also feel free to adapt and share with others. Should you have any questions about the Walla Walla group, please contact: Jennifer Hossler: jhossler@acesconnection.com MARC Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection Network OR Ty...
Blog Post
What other ACE surveys have additional questions? We know of seven.
We’ll start to populate the new Resource Center next month. One of the sections lists ACE surveys that have additional questions. The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study revealed that ACEs contribute to most of our major chronic health, mental health, economic health and social health issues. It measured five types of abuse and neglect: physical, verbal and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect. And five types of family dysfunction: a family member with mental...
Blog Post
What the ACEs Screening Movement Can Learn from the Healthcare Hotspotting Movement
No brief intervention or short-term infusion of services is a silver bullet that will overcome the long-term harm caused by structural racism, poverty, and multi-generational trauma.
Blog Post
A Valuable Voice in support of Collective Lenses, Dr. Shawn Ginwright
This past Thursday, the NW Children's Foundation sponsored a forum titled, "Community Trauma and Child Well-Being: Trauma-Informed Care and the Future of Healing." The forum featured Dr. Shawn Ginwright, an invaluable voice in the conversation about collective childhood trauma, one CRI is excited to support. Dr. Ginwright is Associate Professor of Education, and African American Studies at San Francisco State University and the author of Hope and Healing in Urban Education: How Activists are...
Blog Post
ACEs Connection, our Cooperative of Communities, and....Pando!
Last month, we officially launched the ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities. We are SO excited about this! And the communities that are part of the handful of ACEs initiatives that are piloting the Cooperative are, too! Before describing the Cooperative, I want to reassure our 40,000+ members and 277 ACEs initiatives (plus another 100 in development) that have communities on ACEs Connection that nothing on ACEsConnection.com changes! Membership is and remains free ! And it will remain...
Blog Post
‘Ambassadors of Hope’ Trauma-sensitive schools understand the whole child [DerbyInformer.com]
Kindergarten teacher Erica Nunemaker ripped down the clip chart she used for behavior management in her classroom. Children moved their clip up for good behavior and down for bad behavior. Nunemaker realized the same students were moving down every day. The clip was a public display of the student’s failure, and children weren’t learning how to fix their behavior. “I’ve noticed that a lot of times we discipline them and tell them that’s not right ... but then we don’t give them a solution to...
Blog Post
Announcing Building Resilience Across the Life Span 2'x6' Vinyl Banner & 2'x3' Poster!
Announcing Building Resilience Across the Life Span 2'x6' Vinyl Banner & 2'x3' Poster! CRI is celebrating October is Resilience Month in Walla Walla, WA! As part of the October celebration we are announcing two NEW resilience capacity building products. The prototype Building Resilience Across the Life Span banner debuted at our Beyond Paper Tigers Trauma-Informed Care Conference this past June, and since then has been a much requested product! Looking for a creative way to engage...
Blog Post
Apply now to Showcase your work at the San Francisco National ACEs Conference in October 2018!
Applications due June 18. Application link included in this post
Blog Post
Artists in the ACE and Resilience Movement: Creative Avenues to Change
They began with a song and ended with a poem. In-between, there were photographs and giant graphic renderings, movement exercises and a “human pulse” formed when 90 people stood in a circle and squeezed each other’s hands. At a June summit in Whatcom County, Washington, titled “Our Resilient Community: A Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity,” the arts played a starring role. Kristi Slette, executive director of the Whatcom Family and Community Network, one of two Washington sites...
Blog Post
Banners of Science and Hope Fly High in Walla Walla
The child may not remember, but the body remembers. Researchers have recently discovered a dangerous biological syndrome caused by abuse and neglect during childhood. As the new documentary Resilience reveals, toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, prison time, and early death. While the broader impacts of poverty worsen the risk, no segment of society is immune. Resilience , however,...
Blog Post
Be the Spark: Igniting trauma-informed change within our communities
Authors note: This piece is co-authored by @Lara Kain and @Christine Cissy White. Though we had never worked together or met, we were asked to co-present on creating t rauma-informed changes in communities by the Attachment Trauma Network for the first national (now annual) Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Summit in Washington, DC. This article is an expanded essay version of that presentation). Be the Spark Oprah Winfrey helped mainstream discussion about...
Blog Post
Beyond Paper Tigers Presenter Showcase! Increasing Access to Trauma-Informed Care: Twigy Tellez’s Spanish Language Translation
Twigy Tellez was among the crowd of the Paper Tigers Conference in 2017. She had been invited by Rick Griffin and CRI to join the community for the conference, and to explore her potential offering for the next conference. “I would love for all the Spanish speakers to get to do this, ” Twigy said about trauma-informed care training. Indeed, this year, she will be translating the Level 1 Trauma-Informed Certification of the Beyond Paper Tigers conference into Spanish. It is the same...
Blog Post
Beyond Paper Tigers Presenter Showcase! Working on the Leading Edge: Laura Porter’s Wisdom from the ACEs Movement
“I get the most emotional about the courage the people have, when people step into a void and try something new,” Laura Porter responds to a question about what lights her fire, what keeps her going during the difficult chapters. Laura will be giving the closing plenary lecture at the 2018 Beyond Paper Tigers conference, and her knowledge of ACEs science, community resilience, and social change is extensive. For many years, Laura has worked with Rob Anda, a principal investigator of the...
Blog Post
Beyond Paper Tigers: The Heart of the Matter
Graphic artist Anne Nelson created this visual roadmap during the partner showcase, capturing the "heart of the matter" for each community member Teri Barila, co-founder and CEO of the Children’s Resilience Initiative and the igniting force that brought change to a quiet corner of southeast Washington, kicked off last month’s Beyond Paper Tigers Conference by sharing one of her “aha” moments. In 2007, she attended a conference in Winthrop, WA, where Dr. Robert Anda spoke about the CDC-Kaiser...
Blog Post
Bringing ACEs, Resilience, and Hope to preschool families
This school year, an endeavor of the Franklin Pierce Hewins Early Learning Center (ELC) was to bring Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Resilience to the preschool families. What began as a broad idea soon turned into an exciting project: “Rise to Resilience & Hope”. Our ELC has had a Kids at Hope culture for many years – believing that all children are capable of success, with no exceptions. With Kids at Hope, the adults are Treasure Hunters, seeking out and recognizing the...
Blog Post
Broken Places- A 2019 BPT Film Screening
"The world breaks and afterward many are strong in the broken places" - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms During the BPT Pre-Conference on June 25th, CRI will be screening Broken Places - a documentary that posits why some children are severely damaged by early adversity while others are able to thrive. Filmmakers explored 40 years of film archives following children who experienced immense childhood stress, watching with curiosity as some overcame hardship and thrived in their adult...
Blog Post
Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) launches new grassroots initiative to engage and educate Congress
CTIPP (Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice) today announced the launch of the National Trauma Campaign , calling for federal action to prevent and address childhood trauma and build resilience through educating and engaging Congress. Its widely circulated communication invited people from around the country to join the new grassroots initiative. The campaign provides ways for everyone to get involved by joining the effort, becoming a Local Liaison to take the lead in every state...
Blog Post
Community Leaders Tell Their ACEs Success Stories at 2016 ACEs Conference in California
(l to r) Teri Barila, director of the Children's Resilience Initiative; Dr. Ariane Marie-Mitchell, assistant professor in Loma Linda University Preventive Medicine and Pediatric Depts. (Photo: Jennifer Hossler) _________________________________ Sauntering on stage to the beat of Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone, four “heroes” of the ACEs movement took their seats for a panel on trauma-informed and resilience-building communities on October 21, the last day of the 2016 Adverse...
Blog Post
CRI honored three National Resilience Champions at the 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference!
CRI is grateful to have honored three National Resilience Champions- Karen Pritzker, Jane Stevens, and Laura Porter- at the 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference. Each has inspired the development of critical mass, and have been energetic catalysts of new ideas. The three women have represented tipping points in the national movement. They have worked tirelessly to shift culture and mindsets around how human restoration occurs and have provided brilliant insights to reframe beliefs about the...
Blog Post
CRI of Walla Walla accepts $15,000 Premera Grant to create Spanish materials
Walla Walla’s Community Resilience Initiative (CRI) has been awarded a Social Impact Grant in 2019 through Premera Blue Cross. Premera’s award will provide funding to translate the CRI materials into Spanish, thus providing access to Spanish-speaking members of our community and elsewhere. Ultimately, the award will help support CRI’s community work in addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)- by expanding understanding of the impact of ACEs on parenting and health, and more...
Blog Post
Developing Super Powers: Using Resilience Strategies to Cope with Negative Experiences. Introducing CRI's Newest Book!
“I believe that everyone, especially a child, deserves to know how their brains are shaped by environment, to then understand their capacity for building proactive protective factors. We all deserve to be super heroes as we do the best we can to consciously live life well. ” - Teri Barila The superheroes we learn about in comics, movies, and TV shows swoop in to save the world with their incredible powers, to shield people from harm. But in our world, no matter how much we wish to protect...
Blog Post
"Distance" connecting
With every risk factor or adversity we face, the best response is one based on protective factors - ways to buffer the storm. No question, the coronavirus and its implications are significant. But how do we support staying safe and connected when social distancing and other recommendations take us away from direct relationships? When the Community Resilience Initiative was created, it offered the benefits of protective factors to the risk factors identified as Adverse Childhood Experiences.
Blog Post
Early Childhood Emotional and Social Development Skills - according to our No. 4 showcase partner Yolanda Esquivel, THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE!!
Mental health costs have been a constantly increasing burden on our society, until recently. As the Director of the Inspired Development Center Yolanda Esquivel promotes early childhood social and emotional education as a key solution to curb the high costs of mental health care that has grown out of proportion over the past several decades. Yolanda claims the adult skill building capacity of her staff was recently transformed after she completed the Head Start Trauma Smart Training...
Blog Post
Education of Early Child Development
Partner Showcase No. 5 - Melissa Clearfield. -- Just as healthy crops require healthy seeds to be selected from healthy plants, and planted in healthy soil to be nurtured with water and sunlight, healthy people require healthy parents who can supply them with the essential requirements to thrive. A man who attempts farming and grows crops in poor soil, without water or sunlight will be a man who fails at farming. A parent who attempts to raise a child without first understanding the...
Blog Post
Friends organization pairs mentors with area kids [Union-Bulletin.com]
Friends of Children of Walla Walla focuses on the well-being of children in the area, by providing school- and community-based programs that help youths socially and academically through one-on-one relationships. “We are purveyors of hope and resilience for kids,” said Jim Byrnes, executive director. Many children have adverse childhood experiences, called ACES, including verbal and physical violence, poverty, neglect, bullying and more. And many parents have their own set of emotional ACES...
Blog Post
Honoring a humble champion, in front of a packed ballroom!
The Walla Walla Valley Chamber of Commerce hosted their 137th Annual Community Awards last week, and one of Community Resilience Initiative's trainers-- Tony McGuire-- was recognized for his service to our community. As an instructor of basic carpentry at the local Washington State Penitentiary, Tony is so much more than that- he is a mentor, champion, communicator and lifelong learner of what makes us human together. His gift to the world is his ability to share the insights of the...
Blog Post
Hope Heals: Lighting Hope for Walla Walla's Homeless
“Four and a half years ago when I started Hope Heals, I helped two people. By the second year, I had helped 28. Then 321 in the third year. In 2016, I helped 2031 people, and in 2017, I helped 2131 people.” Hope Heals, now a bright light in the Walla Walla community and preparing for its first large fundraiser on Friday, has been growing exponentially since its conception. Yet it began as a faint lightbulb. On March 26th 2008, Dr. Robert Anda visited Walla Walla on behalf of CRI to present...
Blog Post
How Community Networks Stem Childhood Traumas [NYTimes.com]
[Ed. note: This is the second of a three-part series that David Bornstein is doing on how communities are integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs science.] Liberals and conservatives often disagree about the causes of poverty and other social ills. Broadly speaking, liberals point the finger at structural factors and advocate for policy changes, while conservatives look to individuals and families and favor behavior changes. Clearly, both points of view...