Tagged With "confiding in writing"
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ACEs Within Tribal Communities
Mechuksus, As I write this I am trying to overcome the taboo's within California Tribal Communities that come along with asking the ACE questions. Our traditional societies had very strict factors on what we talked about between male and female relationships as well as outside of the community unit. Unless you work within the wellness realm or you have pursued your own healing many Tribal Communities are unaware of what ACEs are. This is something that my family has pledged to change. My 15...
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Cal WORKs Training Academy: Compassion Fatigue
Front-line and case workers for the TANF program (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) are at high risk for compassion fatigue. They hear approximately 30 stories of trauma, abuse and hardship each day. Complaints from workers vary from “How many stories of torture will have to I hear.” “It feels like I am spitting at a forest fire.” “After 12 years in the field, I am now on blood pressure medication.” This year the Cal WORKs Training Academy featured a workshop on compassion fatigue...
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Why Silicon Valley is teaming up with San Quentin to train young people to code (usatoday.com)
Inside an aging brick facility ringed by a chain-link fence and agricultural fields, 14 young people convicted of violent crimes are trying to program a better future for themselves. For the past two months they’ve been learning to write code through a first-of-its-kind pilot program at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility in Camarillo, California, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. They’re looking to break that streets-to-prison cycle by picking up new skills – JavaScript, HTML,...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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RYSE Center's Listening Campaign: Young people in Richmond, CA help adults understand trauma, violence, coping, and healing
"My experience with violence is very brutal...I grew up with violence as if it were my sibling." - LC participant (youth) "We know we can't run the city- it's too complex- but our experience and our voices should count, especially because we're the most effected ." - LC participant (youth) "Our city's problems are shared by us all; we are all part of the problem AND the solution. Listening is a key component to healing." - LC Share Out partici pant (adult) Three years ago, RYSE Center in...
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Sacramento Native American Health Center Presentation by Jeanine Gaines (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)
On June 11th, Jeanine Gaines from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation presented to the Resilient Sacramento ACEs Connection meeting discussing the intersection of ACEs and historical trauma of first nation people. My intention was to upload the information for everyone to review right away but I found myself so emotionally moved that it took a full moon meditation to be able to free my feelings and write about my experience during and after the presentation. I consider myself well read concerning...
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Suisun Elementary (CA) makes ACEs science intrinsic to everyday life
Students start each day with meditation During her first year as principal of Suisun Elementary in Suisun City, Calif., in 2014 Ann Marie Neubert suspended 102 students — out of a student population of 550 —for disrupting their classes. It was a serious problem, but the school’s teachers didn’t know what to do. “[Teachers] felt like they were using all the tools in their toolbox and it wasn’t changing behavior,” she recalls. Ann Marie Neubert Too many students were spending too much time out...
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Telling a more complete story about child welfare
A new study from Berkeley Media Studies Group found that coverage of the child welfare system omits important context and connections to other issues. Here are four steps practitioners can take to improve the news.
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The Challenges and Blessings of My Dissociative Disorder
A remarkable coping mechanism helped me survive parts of my childhood, and I find I need to give a heads-up about it to anyone who treats me in a medical setting. While chatting about it at last year’s ACEs Conference in San Francisco, Dr. Vince Felitti asked me to write an article for The Permanente Journal about my experiences with the medical community, as a person with a childhood-trauma-related, but mostly invisible, mental health disorder. And, of course, who can say “No” to Dr.
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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Educators’ “Complex Trauma” Resolution: Will it have an impact?
When I met up with school psychologists Donna Christy and Robert Hull at the Starbucks in Greenbelt, MD, they sparred good-naturedly about each other’s extra-curricular activities outside the school building—he says she is a big honcho with the National Education Association (NEA) and she says he will speak to any audience, anywhere (as long as his expenses are covered) on the subject of trauma and education. Both work for the Prince George’s (P.G.) County School District in nearby...
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Effects of L.A. teachers' strike ripple across California and beyond [latimes.com]
They didn’t write the lesson plan or instruct Cristopher Bautista’s ninth-grade English class. But members of United Teachers Los Angeles were a powerful presence in the classroom where he works at Oakland Technical High School. UTLA had taken to the streets 370 miles south, striking for smaller classes, a living wage and more help for their mostly low-income students. Bautista was teaching “Cannery Row,” John Steinbeck’s classic tale of Central Coast haves and have-nots. “I’ve been teaching...
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From Awareness to Action, with Voices of Lived Experience: Wisconsin’s Collective Impact Initiative
Perhaps it wasn’t the optimum time to update the network’s vision and values statements: a virtual meeting held in the midst of a global pandemic. But a record number of people—51, compared to the typical 30—tuned in for the May 1 Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health (OCMH) Collective Impact Council, and they gave the new values statement, which highlights inclusivity and collaboration, an enthusiastic thumbs-up. At the virtual table were members from key state departments—Children...
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journal article: Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools
Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am . 2012 January Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools Sheryl Kataoka, MD, MSHS, Audra Langley, PhD, Marleen Wong, PhD, Shilpa Baweja, MA, and Bradley Stein, MD, PhD The prevalence of trauma exposure among youth is a major public health concern, with a third of adolescents nationally reporting that they have been in a physical fight in the past twelve months and 9% having been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Studies have...
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Lesson learned integrating ACEs science into health clinics: Staff first, THEN patients
Nearly two years ago, a team of colleagues at LifeLong Medical Clinics jumped at the opportunity to integrate practices based on ACEs science to prevent and heal trauma in their patients when it joined a two-year learning collaborative known as the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC). A few months after training began, the staff realized they had to put on the brakes.
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Opportunities to Engage your Community in the Trauma-themed May 10th Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day
Trauma is the theme of the 2018 SAMHSA-sponsored (U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day on May 10 th (7-9:00 pm ET) . The virtual town hall, “Partnering for Health and Hope Following Trauma,” will focus on taking an integrated health approach to support children, youth, and young adults who have experienced trauma. The goal of Awareness Days in general is “to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health and...
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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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Preparations begin for 2018 State Legislative Sessions—Tools to help you communicate with your state legislators
With the majority of states convening legislative sessions in 2018*, now is the time to begin preparations to advance trauma-informed proposals and educate lawmakers on the impact of trauma on the health and wellbeing of their constituents. ACEs Connection Network (ACN) will be sharing tools to help in this process over the next months. Two are now available—“How to Create a Community Profile” and “Tips on How to Build Relationships with Your Legislators.” One of the most effective tools...
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Program offers hundreds of young men, boys safe space to heal from ACEs
Dennis McCollins recounts some of the experiences that caused him to harden against the world as a teenager. “There were times I went to more funerals than birthdays,” says McCollins, who is the clinical director of the School Based Health Center at Greenwood Academy in Richmond, Calif. And it took its toll: “I spent time homeless. I got expelled [from school]. I was so angry and upset and mad,” he says. Dennis McCollins Then a man that he met when he was sent to Job Corps as a teen turned...
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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California Office of the Surgeon General Invites Sector-Specific Vignettes
The California Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) is creating a report to be published in the summer of 2020. The report will feature the public health response to preventing and mitigating Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress—tentatively titled “ Halving the Burden of ACEs and Toxic Stress in a Generation—California’s Blueprint for an ACEs-Aware Public Health Movement .” An important portion of the report will be dedicated to outlining primary, secondary, and tertiary...
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California Office of the Surgeon General Invites Sector-Specific Vignettes
The California Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) is creating a report to be published in the fall of 2020. The report will feature the public health response to preventing and mitigating Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress—tentatively titled “ Halving the Burden of ACEs and Toxic Stress in a Generation—California’s Blueprint for an ACEs-Aware Public Health Movement .” An important portion of the report will be dedicated to outlining primary, secondary, and tertiary...
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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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Ideas for engaging with your state legislators in the home district
Whether or not you participated in the July 11 4CA Policymaker Education Day in Sacramento, there are many ways to build a mutually constructive relationship with your legislators by communicating regularly throughout the year. Ways to build those relationships include meeting face-to-face in the district, attending forums, town halls, or district office hours as well as making phone calls, and sending emails and letters (to the legislators and to local paper). Make the commitment now to...
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In Housing Crisis, Rural Californians Need Greater Legal Protections and Access to Legal Aid
In a new policy brief from the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research, Zach Newman and Lisa R. Pruitt write that California's legal-aid system should be funded with sensitivity to rural needs in order to deliver adequate legal aid to all Californians, wherever they reside. Key Facts: Rural homelessness in California is rising, sometimes more quickly than its urban equivalent. High rural eviction rates are caused in part by inadequate access to legal assistance in rural communities. New laws...
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It Takes a Village Homeless Task Force funds Patrick McCaffrey Foundation for Tiny Houses
SONOMA COUNTY CA written by Marcy Cooper I want to thank our community groups, the Fire Department, Sheriff’s Department, CHP, the selection committee, and the full Homeless Task Force . It has been voted and recommended that the Patrick McCaffrey Foundation receive $300,000 for building tiny houses, buying land, having an outreach team, and transporting folks as needed - thus saving vital services for locals living between Sea Ranch and Forestville. Here is a short synopsis of one part that...
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ITRC calls for Universal Resilience Education and Skills Training for Climate Trauma
Sneak Preview for ITRC ACEs Connection Members! Next Tuesday, Jan. 8, the ITRC will release a major report Preparing People on the West Coast for Climate Change. The media release about the report is below (and attached). It includes a link to the webpage for the report, where people can download the full report, and find a link to the webpage with examples of resilience programs across the west coast. You can connect with the ITRC CA and PNW Facebook page:...
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Re: Customizing ACEs Screening for High School Students in Santa Rosa, CA
Hi Todd, This is a bit complex to answer - but I will do my best! Here goes ... Since this post was written the work at Elsie Allen and Roseland Pediatrics has continued to evolve and now includes all of the Santa Rosa Community Health Center sites (most are based on a Family Medicine model) see minutes below for further details. Click this link for more detailed Minutes from Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting From the document: Meredith Kieschinck MD shared the initial data revealed by...
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Re: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experiences: Health and Mental Health Consequences
Hi Jane, I get the sense from the registration form that this is only for licensed professionals - is that your understanding, as well? I would like to attend, but I'm not one of the license designations they list and my work is primarily in studying the research around mental health, addiction, secondhand drinking, childhood trauma, etc., and then simplifying aspects of it for various audiences. Thanks for your input,Lisa Lisa FrederiksenAuthor | Speaker | Trainer | ConsultantFounder...
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Re: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experiences: Health and Mental Health Consequences
Super - thank you! From: ACEsConnection < communitymanager@acesconnection.com > To: Lisa Frederiksen < lisaf@breakingthecycles.com > Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 3:35 PM Subject: Comment By Jane Stevens: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experie... Comment By Jane Stevens: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experie...== To reply by email, write above this line. == Hello, Lisa Frederiksen: We're sending you this notification because you are either following...
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Re: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experiences: Health and Mental Health Consequences
Super - I'll sign up, then - thank you!!Lisa Lisa FrederiksenAuthor | Speaker | Trainer | ConsultantFounder BreakingTheCycles.com and SHDPrevention(o) 650-362-3026 • (c) 650-799-9813 From: ACEsConnection < communitymanager@acesconnection.com > To: Lisa Frederiksen < lisaf@breakingthecycles.com > Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2016 6:49 PM Subject: Comment By Jane Stevens: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse Childhood Experie... Comment By Jane Stevens: Workshop in Oakland, CA: Adverse...
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Re: 4CA Campaign Statement on ACEs Screening in California
One useful approach to consider for trauma screening would be to have a large group of students anonymously fill out the one-page ACE Questionnaire. Then, pool the results and project them to that group in an auditorium, asking the group what they think that all means. Freed of personal association, people have the freedom to speak about what they know. Realizing the commonality of these issues is relieving, a learning experience, and supportive of group bonding. An alternative would be to...
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Re: Webinar on Advancing Change to Support Trauma-Informed Initiatives and Build Evidence of Impacts [ASPE, US Depart. of HHS]
I have had something come up , I really wanted to attend will there be a replay of the webinar posted at all? On Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 12:00:06 AM PST, ACEsConnection < communitymanager@acesconnection.com > wrote: Event Reminder: Webinar on Advancing Change to Support Trauma-Informed Initiatives and Build Evidence of Impacts [ASPE, US Depart. of HHS] | == To reply by email, write above this line. == | | | | | Hello, charlena m mcfarland: We're sending you this notification...
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Webinar Recap: Fostering HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) during COVID-19 with Drs. Robert Sege and Dina Burstein
On June 16, 2020, the California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative held a webinar entitled, “Fostering HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) during COVID-19" and heard from special guest speakers, Drs. Robert Sege and Dina Burstein from the HOPE Project at Tufts Medical Center . Drs. Sege and Burstein presented research and data supporting the benefits and importance of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), background on the HOPE Project, and the relevance to ACEs...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...
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UCSF White Coats for Black Lives Statement on the Public Health Crisis at San Quentin State Prison and Other California Prisons and Jails [medium.com]
By UCSF White Coats for Black Lives, July 26, 2020 To Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: As doctors, nurses and healthcare workers of California, we write to you today in outrage at the conditions of the California Prison system. With 2,401 COVID-19 cases and 17 deaths, the outbreak at San Quentin is now the second largest in the nation. This is a public health crisis — one that impacts not only those Californians who are currently...
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How Health Departments Can Address Police Violence As a Public Health Issue [humanimpact.org]
September 2020 The health impacts of policing and incarceration are well documented. On average, 1,000 people are killed by police in the US each year, with Black and Indigenous people being 2 to 3 times more likely to be killed by police than White people. Even in the absence of physical violence, stops by police — or the constant threat of stops by police — are associated with adverse mental health outcomes , including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially for...
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Re: Uncovering America's Best Kept Secret: Family Resource Centers and Family Support & Strengthening Networks
I went through my filters to eliminate the insane amount of emails I get from ACEs Connection and it does not seem to work. While I do find this community an important one to stay connected to, 15 emails in one day is overboard. I am now at the point where I am planning to set my filters to none to prevent this on slot of messaged each day. I am still receiving notifications as I write this message. Stacy Hudson Child Care Resource Navigator Resource and Referral/ Foster Bridge Infant Child...
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Think beyond ACEs screening, advises California funders workgroup in new report
Californians have experienced an alarming epidemic of adverse childhood experiences. Between 2011 and 2017, 60 percent of Californians reported experiencing at least one type of childhood adversity; about 16 percent experienced four or more. People who experience four or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease, 1.9 times as likely to have a stroke, and 3.2 times as likely to have asthma as people who have experienced no ACEs. (For more information about ACEs and ACEs science,...
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Designing for family needs: Del Norte County & Ready4K
Del Norte and Ready4K have been working together to create a program specifically designed to support the health and educational goals of this beautiful, remote corner of CA. We're so proud to share the story of what we've created together - a story that continues to unfold. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nestled in the northwestern corner of California along the Oregon border, Del Norte County is one of the most rural communities in the most populous state in the country. It’s a land of towering Redwood...
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"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise PNP, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be on...
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Self-Care for Kids
At Ready4K , we talk and write a lot about parental self-care. It’s absolutely key that every caregiver find time and strategies to de-stress and relax even if it’s just for a few minutes. But did you know that kids need self-care too? So how do we help kids learn to care for themselves? In this article, Ready4K content manager Fran Lartigue provides specific ideas for helping kids learn simple self-care strategies that can last for a lifetime. Read the article >>
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A hospital builds awareness about trauma, deploys acts of empathy
In late 2018, Roberta Azzo, an operations program manager at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center in Midlothian, Virginia, decided to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to infusing the hospital’s culture with a trauma-informed approach to care. This involves recognizing that trauma is widespread and that it can cause all kinds of troubled behavior, learning ways to de-escalate that behavior, and preventing practices that trigger patients and staff who have experienced trauma. The hospital...