Blog

By Erica L. Green, Photo by Chet Strange for the New York Times, The New York Times, October 13, 2022 The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing. WASHINGTON — Maria Elena Thomas and her husband were ready for a simpler life after they retired in 2015, sold their home in Colorado and settled on the southeastern coast of Spain. “People would ask, ‘When...

By Robert Sege, 10/13/22, https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ HOPE National Resource Center Director, Bob Sege, went to Darwin Australia two weeks ago. Below is his firsthand experience and impression of how international foster care organizations are practicing the HOPE framework. I recently gave a keynote address at the International Foster Care Organization ’s annual meeting in Darwin Australia. This was their first in-person meeting since 2019. About half of participants were...

The How We endUP Convening is a two-day virtual gathering of advocates, activists, researchers, policymakers, and leaders from different communities, agencies, and efforts coming together to explore how we can move toward abolition of family policing--how we can dismantle harmful, racist systems and build different ways of caring for one another. Featured speakers are Angela Davis, Joyce McMillan, and Mariame Kaba. Join in discussions that expose racism in how families are surveilled and...

The October 2022 issue of Children's Bureau Express (CBX) features resources related to the issue of youth homelessness and ways to mitigate the challenges children and youth involved with child welfare face during times of financial insecurity. Read a message from Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg about the importance of practicing positivity when engaging with children and youth and how the Lakota tribe implements this principle of being acutely mindful of the language they use...

Placing children in need of out-of-home care with relatives can help them maintain connections to family, community, and culture. Discover important resources from Children's Bureau Express on kinship care to help you support the important work kin caregivers do for the children in their family. Speaking of Change: How Can Kinship Care Advance Racial Equity in Child Welfare? Amara's Kinship Program has a second installment in its Speaking of Change webinar series that seeks to break down...

Event Title: Interrupting the School to Prison Pipeline Using a Trauma Informed Lens Event Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2022 Event Time: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PST Event Facilitators: Porter Jennings-McGarity & Lara Kain Special Guest: Tia Martinez Join PACEs Connection’s trauma-informed education consultant (Lara Kain) and trauma-informed criminal justice consultant (Dr. Porter Jennings-McGarity) and special guest Tia Martinez for our first ever interdisciplinary collaborative event...

October 12, 2022, from 3-4:30 p.m. ET Register now! Meet longtime friend of PACEs Connection and award-winning author, science journalist, and international speaker Donna Jackson Nakazawa as she shares insights and findings from her newest book, “ Girls on the Brink: Helping our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression and Social Media ”. Her seven books explore the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and human emotion, and are in 12 languages. Register now to join...

The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) invites you to join us for a discussion on Flourishing Families, Centering Justice: Policy Solutions for Prevention-focused, Trauma-informed Supports for Children and Families . This webinar will explore trauma-informed primary, secondary, and tertiary approaches to supporting struggling families and keeping them together. Our expert panelists will: Reframe our understanding of neglect Provide a brief overview of historical and...

By Elaine Miller-Karas MSW, LCSW Building Resiliency to Trauma Psychology Today, September 30, 2022 Mental health can suffer after extreme climate events. KEY POINTS Mental health conditions exacerbated by natural disasters include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. After a disaster, the number of people needing assistance from the mental health systems strains or exceeds community capacity. There are simple strategies helpers can use to help survivors restore...

By Julia Lurie, Mother Jones, September 26, 2022 When Bryan Hickson and Patricia Soto found out they were going to have a baby, the thrilled couple jumped into action. They watched YouTube videos about parenting, prepared healthy meals, and, since they planned to stay in their separate places to start, bought cribs and baby clothes for each of their homes. When Soto went in for ultrasounds, Hickson FaceTimed in from the warehouse where he works as a supervisor. When Soto went into labor, he...

PACEs Connection is thrilled to share that our first-ever Connecting Communities One Book at a Time initiative involved thousands of people; scores of book studies! The PACEs Connection's Connecting Communities One Book at a Time initiative helps people bring their community together around books that help us have critical conversations about trauma, racism, inequity, protective factors, positive childhood experiences, and the role community plays in preventing and healing trauma and...

By Clara Bates, Missouri Independent, September 19, 2022 More than half the frontline staff working in the Children’s Division at the start of the last fiscal year left by the end of the year. Some who remain take second jobs or sell plasma to make ends meet. It’s a situation advocates warn puts Missouri’s most vulnerable children at risk. Eighty open cases of child abuse and neglect sat on Matt Cordova’s desk in 2017 during the height of the “hole I found myself buried in,” he remembers.