Blog

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...

With introductory remarks from Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, FAAP, California Surgeon General Wednesday, July 29, 2020 Noon – 1 p.m. Register for the Webinar Presenters Brent Sugimoto, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Family Medicine Physician and New Physician Director, American Academy of Family Physicians Mimi Mateo, CNM, MSN, CDE – Certified Nurse Midwife and Clinical Director of Midwifery, North County Health Services Denise Gomez, MD, PharmD, ACP – Internal Medicine Physician and Associate Medical...

A preview of the programs happening during Racial Truth & Reconciliation Week is up on the Voices for Virginia's Children blog! All programs will be posted by July 31, and we'll share more at the end of this week! You can already take a look at the Art & Activism Virtual Showcase , sign up to be a Partner in Solidarity , read stories , and access a Social Media Toolkit . From a Moment to a Movement: Envisioning a Child Welfare System We Have Yet to See from the Chronicle of Social...

From Families USA, July 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic, and its disproportionate impact on low-income people and people of color, has starkly demonstrated the need for long-term investments targeted at social drivers of population health. Although chronic physical and behavioral health problems are not the only source of these disparities, they are among the most important causes. Health inequities often start in childhood. Yet important efforts to re-orient our health care system to focus more...

By Robert C. Smith, JAMA Pediatrics, July 23, 2020 The study by Saunders and colleagues in JAMA Network Open is an important contribution to the field of what I’ll call medically unexplained symptoms (MUSs). MUSs in their most severe form encompass what the authors call somatic symptom and related disorders, as well as numerous other similar terms, such as somatic symptom disorder from psychiatry and chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia from medicine.

Friends of the Children - Los Angeles' Executive Director Thomas Lee, with Friends of the Children - New York's Executive Director Gary Clemons join together on Tuesday, July 28th, to discuss how Friends of the Children's Two-Generation (2Gen) approach impacts the inequity facing our families. Friends of the Children has known for more than 25 years that the presence of a Friend in a child's life has ripple effects to parents, caregivers, siblings, friends, and communities. Los Angeles and...

Greetings to Everyone in the acesconnection community! As a tribute to our Healthcare, EMT's, social workers, mental health and other essential workers and with gratitude for their wonderful care during these difficult times, our team invites you to view the Broadcast version of CAREgivers film FROM AUGUST 1-8 at www.caregiversfilm.com Please feel free to contact me as well with any questions about the film, other kinds of screening opportunities and/ or virtual presentations and discussions...

From The National Council for Behavioral Health, July 27, 2020 We are living in a time of unprecedented stress impacting individuals, families and communities across cultures, generations, genders and racial groups. Our nation is reckoning with the systemic racism laid bare by COVID-19 racial disparities and the death of George Floyd sparking outrage and bringing to light the additional traumas experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color. Are you looking for the tools and training...

As a special tribute to our healthcare, EMT, and many additional essential workers during the COVID epidemic , the producers of CAREgivers film invite you to view the film for free online. When? August 1st through August 8th, 2020 Where ? www.caregiversfilm.com About the Film (from our website) Portraits of Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion, Their Pain is a documentary film based on interviews with nurses, social workers, clinical psychologists, doctors, firefighters, first responders...

It seems clear to most that not all communities in the United States are created equal and not all people are treated as equals. How do environments—both physical and atmospheric—affect our children and do Adverse Community Environments place our children at as much risk as Adverse Childhood Experiences?

By Alex S. Vitale, The Appeal, July 20, 2020 Policing in America has gone too far. It has now become the one-stop response to our communities’ public health and public aid problems. Police officers must enforce traffic laws and respond to domestic disputes. They must manage mental health crises and drug overdoses. They must deal with homelessness and school discipline. Police officers, of course, are neither trained nor equipped to be part of our social support systems, and so it’s...

By Michael Burke, Ed Source, July 22, 2020 Students at California State University for the first time will be required to take a course in ethnic studies or a class with a social justice component under a policy approved Wednesday by the system’s Board of Trustees. The trustees voted 13-5 to approve the new general education requirement for students who enter the 23-campus system beginning in 2023-24. Students will be required to either take a class in one of four ethnic studies disciplines...