Dear Legislator, It was a well known fact in 2013 that students under the new graduation law, did not have consistent nor fair access to fair and equitable opportunities to meet the new graduation requirements. With that knowledge, the Legislators moved forward and denied thousands of students their HS diploma. Another fact... a high percentage of those being denied were students of poverty and color. The Democrats blamed it on the Republicans. Now that there is a Democrat majority, the...

Community Resilience Initiative's third Beyond Paper Tigers Conference is now open for registration! A social/network event kicks off the conference on June 26, with two full days of keynotes and breakout session June 27 and 28 at the Red Lion Hotel Conference Center in Pasco, WA. Our conference theme is the power of relationship--“the mutual and interdependent respect that results when people feel safe, believe that everyone has something to offer, and are confident that each person is...

Sound Discipline has room for a few more participants in our next Building Resiliency workshop on March 5th. Registration deadline is Sat, Feb 24. Workshop cost is $55. CEUs are available for this workshop through Seattle Pacific University. We also offer registration fee discounts for groups of 5 or more. Description: Do the youth you work with or live with overreact to small things? Struggle to regulate emotion? Act younger than their age? Many children have been exposed to trauma and as a...

Administrators in the Bellingham, Washington school district realized that a free public education actually came at a price. School supply lists could easily run up a $250 tab at office supply stores; families were tapped for field trip fees, sports uniforms and musical instruments. And those costs inevitably pinched hardest in the least affluent neighborhoods. In the 11,000-student district, where one-acre wooded lots sit next door to apartment complexes housing migrant workers,...

As a teenager in foster care , Zack Zibrosky was detained eight times, five for running away from the same group home where some of the other kids had a history of aggressive behavior. Running away is considered a status offense, an activity that is prohibited only if you are a minor. In between trips to detention, Zibrosky spent time on the streets. School fell by the wayside amidst all that upheaval. “Kids who are going through this obviously have some type of turmoil or something in their...

Boot-strapping types who believe that surmounting a difficult childhood is mainly a matter of will may be perplexed by an anecdote near the beginning of Nadine Burke Harris’s new book, “The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity.” In it, the pediatrician describes a 7-year-old boy named Diego, who showed up at her Bay Area clinic looking like an undersized 4-year old. He had been referred by a school nurse for suspected ADHD . But Burke Harris also noted that her...

I am often asked, “What are the benefits of ACEs prevention work being data-driven, cross-sector and systemic?” I also hear, “Isn’t raising awareness of ACEs enough?” These are important questions. From our work in child welfare we know that many parents struggle to gain access to behavioral health care, safe shelter and living wage jobs. Imagine twenty-year-old single parent Deirdre with her three-year-old son Ethan. She grew up experiencing emotional trauma and faces huge challenges. She...

Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) is a vibrant learning collaborative of fourteen sites actively engaged in building the movement for a just, healthy and resilient world. Using the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resiliency as their organizing framework, these communities have built strong cross-sector networks to help heal and prevent early childhood adversity. From October 2016 through May 2017, we were privileged to travel to all fourteen MARC...

Background Identifying children with adverse childhood experiences is challenging but critically important, because early intervention has the potential to improve health across the lifespan. This study tests the feasibility of using an integrated state agency administrative database to identify childrens' social complexity risk factors and examine their relationship to emergency department usage. What This Study Found State administrative data can be used to identify social risk factors for...

Reminder of tomorrow's ( Wednesday, January 10, 10am PST/1:00 PM EST) webinar on State Policy Approaches to Addressing Childhood Adversity Please join us for a three -part learning series hosted by the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity and ACEs Connection . We'll hear from states that are making great strides towards adopting trauma-informed policies and practices. Three-Part Learning Series: Webinar 1: Overview of State Level Efforts to Address Childhood Adversity and...

Childhood trauma is at epidemic rates. To address this public health crisis, our non-profit just published Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment. You can learn more here: www.AnnaAgeEight.org We have an opportunity to strengthen our vital work through a data-driven, cross-sector and systemic ACEs prevention strategy. Our non-profit Safety+Success Communities is launching the nation's first data-driven and cross-sector ACEs prevention project...

Please join us for a three -part learning series hosted by the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity and ACEs Connection . We'll hear from states that are making great strides towards adopting trauma-informed policies and practices. Three-Part Learning Series: Webinar 1: Overview of State Level Efforts to Address Childhood Adversity and Highlights from Oregon, Tennessee, and Wisconsin Date: January 10th, 10AM PST (1:00 PM EST) Speakers: Elizabeth Prewitt, Policy Analyst, ACEs...