By The HOPE National Resource Center, 6/3/21, positiveexperience.org/blog A new framework developed by a network of leaders at the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine at Tufts Medical Center is showing how the effects of ACEs can be mitigated and even healed through positive experiences. Titled Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences , or HOPE, the framework seeks to broaden our focus beyond ACEs and create a new paradigm that highlights the positive experiences that support children’s...

Chloe Yang, 6/2/21, positiveexperience.org/blog As HOPE grows, we are thrilled about each new milestone—developments like HOPE Day in Idaho, new resources in English and Spanish, and journal publications , to name a few. More and more organizations and individuals are implementing HOPE in their own work, and we are equally excited to celebrate their efforts, too. It is truly inspiring for the team to hear how others are practicing HOPE in the world. The team recently heard from two such...

Chloe Yang, 5/10/21, positiveexperience.org/blog We are thrilled to announce the publication of our journal article, “Transforming Practice with HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences),” in Maternal and Child Health. You can read the paper here on the HOPE website, on our Publications page . This paper was a team effort, led by Dr. Dina Burstein, HOPE Project Director. Other authors include: Chloe Yang, a research assistant working on HOPE; Kay Johnson, President of Johnson Group...

Amanda Winn, 5/5/21, positiveexperience.org/blog A growing wave of individuals are joining the HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) movement, uplifting the important role positive childhood experiences play in healthy development. Now, the HOPE National Resource Center is excited to announce new resources in English and Spanish ! These materials supplement HOPE trainings and technical assistance, geared toward parents, medical providers, educators, home visitors, and more. [...

Chloe Yang, positiveexperience.org/blog, 4/28/21 Interested in learning about family experiences during Covid-19? The HOPE National Resource Center will be presenting project findings tomorrow, April 29, 2021 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM PT / 4:00 – 5:30 PM ET. See below for a description of the webinar, and click here to register! “The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse...

Chloe Yang, 4/27/21, positiveexperience.org/blog On April 9 th , the HOPE National Resource Center hosted our first annual summit! In addition to rich discussions on HOPE in various sectors, we celebrated the growing recognition of our work around the country. Just over four hundred people participated from across the U.S. and five other countries, from the health, education, child welfare, and public health sectors, including front-line providers and senior executives. For those who joined...

By Loren McCullough and Dr. Robert Sege, 4/20/21, positiveexperience.org/blog This blog continues our reflections on the results of a survey that the HOPE team, in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics , Prevent Child Abuse America , and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) , commissioned with YouGov.com in November of 2020, asking a national sample of parents and caregivers about their experiences with their children since March of 2020. The project is...

By Loren McCullough and Dr. Robert Sege, 4/20/21, positiveexperience.org/blog How do US parents and families cope with pandemic-related disturbances to their households? All across the country, family work and children’s regular way of life is topsy-turvy. The HOPE team, in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics , Prevent Child Abuse America , and with assistance and financial support from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) , sent a questionnaire to a...

Chloe Yang, 4/5/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Registration for our HOPE Summit on April 9th closes TODAY at 5:00 PM ET! REGISTER TODAY! We are happy to announce that we will now be offering Social Work Continuing Education Accreditation (CEU, 4.5 hours of credit) for those who attend both the morning and afternoon portions of the Summit! You must attend both the morning and afternoon to receive credit. Those who have already signed up for both the morning and afternoon will receive more...

Chloe Yang, 3/29/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Our first annual summit is less than a month away! Please register at this link , which you can also find on the Summit landing page (registration closes at 5:00 pm ET on Monday, April 5th). Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a movement to shift how we support children and families, creating systems of care based on understanding, equity, and trust. Morning plenary sessions will feature Dr. Bob...

Chloe Yang, 3/26/21, positiveexperience.org Our first annual summit is less than a month away! Please register at this link , which you can also find on the Summit landing page (registration closes at 5:00 pm ET on Monday, April 5th). Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a movement to shift how we support children and families, creating systems of care based on understanding, equity, and trust. Morning plenary sessions will feature Dr. Bob...

Chloe Yang, 3/24/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Our first annual summit is less than a month away! Please register at this link , which you can also find on the Summit landing page (registration closes at 5:00 pm ET on Monday, April 5th). Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a movement to shift how we support children and families, creating systems of care based on understanding, equity, and trust. Morning plenary sessions will feature Dr. Bob...

By Chloe Yang, 3/22/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Our first annual summit is less than a month away! Please register at this link , which you can also find on the Summit landing page . Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a movement to shift how we support children and families, creating systems of care based on understanding, equity, and trust. Morning plenary sessions will feature Dr. Bob Sege’s introduction to HOPE and a snapshot of our...

By Dr. Bob Sege, 3/15/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Our first annual summit is just a month away, and we are thrilled to announce that our afternoon breakout sessions are now open to the public! Please register at this link , which you can also find on the Summit landing page . Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a movement to shift how we support children and families, creating systems of care based on understanding, equity, and trust. The...

By Loren McCullough and Dr. Bob Sege, 3/11/21, positiveexperience.org/blog What’s going on with families during the COVID pandemic? In partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics , Prevent Child Abuse America , and with assistance and financial support from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) , The Lucile Packard Foundation , the California Department of Public Health , and KidsData.org , we surveyed California parents, to find out how they are doing during the...

Amanda Winn, 3/8/21, positiveexperience.org/blog The team at HOPE National Resource Center is excited to release our “HOPE as an Anti-Racist Framework in Action” fact sheet (which can be found on our Resources and Handouts & Worksheets pages). We know that Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) from the 4 Building Blocks of HOPE (relationships, environments, social and civic engagement, and social and emotional growth) support child development and buffer against the long-term health...

Chloe Yang, 3/4/21, positiveexperience.org/blog We are thrilled to share a new resource, Spreading HOPE . The Spreading HOPE publication describes why HOPE exists, our mission, and more specifics about our goals and strategies. As the demand for HOPE and positive childhood experiences mounted throughout the last year, the HOPE team faced an ever-growing need for a resource that identifies, distills, and presents the HOPE vision, values, and pathways toward change. Development of Spreading...

Dr. Robert Sege, 2/23/21, positiveexperiences.org/blog I met Dr. Bell at an American Academy of Pediatrics committee meeting, convened to develop strategies to address the epidemic of youth violence. Our charge was to develop ways that pediatricians could adapt their practice and counseling to reduce the risk of violence. Dr. Carl Bell spoke plainly about the need to build up the inherent strengths and community connections of urban teens. Compassion and understanding drove his work. In her...

We are thrilled to invite you to the Spreading HOPE – First Annual HOPE Summit on April 9! Our virtual summit seeks to inspire a group of leaders who will, together, champion a HOPE-informed movement.

Loren McCullough, 2/11/21, positiveexperience.org/blog In our last blog post , we introduced the Black History Month series we’ll be running on the HOPE blog, to highlight and honor the work of Black individuals in the fields of public health, education, and child welfare. Today, we reflect on Ruby Bridges and the harmful effects of racism against Black girls in education. In next week’s post, we will be releasing a new resource that walks you through four questions you can ask to begin...

Amanda Winn, MSW, 2/4/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Throughout Black History Month (which, as Angela Davis reminds us, should be every month, since Black history IS American history), the team at HOPE will be lifting up the achievements of Black people in the fields of public health, education, and child welfare. We’ll be looking at HOPE’s origins and reflecting on the important groundwork that was laid by Black scientists, doctors, social workers, and activists. As a team, though, we felt...

Chloe Yang, 1/27/21, positiveexperience.org/blog A portrait of a doctor, the photographer’s father, reviewing charts during Covid-19. A snapshot of bubbles and chalk art. A photo of protestors fighting for more equitable school reopening plans. These are some of the winning entries to the HOPE High School Phone Photography Contest. Last fall, the HOPE National Resource Center announced this contest, open to all high school students in the Greater Boston area. To enter, students took...

1/20/21, positiveexperience.org/blog “For those who are telling me to keep my mouth shut, I can’t do that…I’m not going to segregate my moral concerns. And we must know on some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there’re times when you must take a stand that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but you must do it because it is...

Dr. Robert Sege, 1/12/20, positiveexperience.org/blog Last Wednesday, we woke up in the morning to learn that Georgia had elected a Jewish filmmaker and a Black pastor as its new US Senators; each represented a milestone and a rejection of the racist and anti-Semitic ads funded and released by their opponents. Later in the day, we saw a White supremacist insurrection, and our congressional representatives, senators, and their staffs faced immediate danger as the Capitol building was invaded.

Chloe Yang, 1/6/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Happy New Year from the HOPE National Resource Center! In the new year, you can expect to see even more workshops, partnerships, and resources from the HOPE team. We look forward to another year of engaging with you, learning from our conversations and collaborations, and bringing HOPE to families and children across the nation. In this post, we’ll share some upcoming events and developments to watch out for in the near future. 2021 National...

Dr. Robert Sege, 12/22/20, positiveexperience.org/blog We wish everyone a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday season! Whatever traditions or beliefs your families hold, this is the time of year when many of us can pause, reflect, and celebrate that the long nights of winter are already getting shorter. Over at the HOPE National Resource Center, we have been thinking about everything we have heard, seen, and read in our personal and professional lives. Children’s experiences form the center of...

Charles Bruner and Kay Johnson, 12/21/20, positiveexperience.org/blog Our country and the world are eager to move toward the coming new year. In 2020, the triple crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic downturn, and reckoning on racism have elevated attention to social injustice in both the health care system and our country as a whole. Because of COVID-19, the public and policy leaders have heightened awareness of the importance of physicians, nurses, community health workers, child care...

Chloe Yang, 12/9/20, positiveexperience.org/blog At the HOPE National Resource Center, one of our greatest joys is having opportunities to work with and learn from those engaged with HOPE—from workshop participants, advisors, and collaborators, to blog readers and commenters. This engagement and co-learning both spreads HOPE and improves our materials, resources, and core concepts. In that spirit, we partnered with Corey Best (Community Curator, Mining for Gold, and HOPE National Advisory...

Chloe Yang, 12/3/20, positiveexperience.org/blog Last week, in anticipation of an unprecedented Thanksgiving experience, we published a special holiday blog post . The post was composed of crowdsourced stories, featuring individuals’ efforts to safely create positive experiences during a socially distanced time. Our first story came from Dianna Shaw, a Meals on Wheels volunteer driver in suburban Rhode Island. To recap, Dianna realized she would be the last or only person the seniors on her...

HOPE is seeking individuals who will review our pilot learning module and leave feedback! Click here to take the module , and click here to give feedback on your experience. The HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) team is working with the Education Development Center to make our trainings accessible to even more individuals, through an online curriculum for HOPE-informed care. The full curriculum teaches participants about positive childhood experiences, the science of HOPE,...

Dina Burstein, positiveexperience.org/blog, 11/24/20 Thanksgiving in 2020 is proving to be very challenging for many families. The dangers of spreading Covid-19 to loved ones is keeping families apart, and many are facing significant economic challenges. Yet, we know families and children across the nation are finding ways to safely create positive experiences, too. To spotlight these efforts, the HOPE team sought out some stories of HOPE for this Thanksgiving, and we want to share them with...

By Bob Sege and Kay Johnson, 11/19/20, positiveexperiences.org/blog This week, we focus on opportunities to spread HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) with the new Biden-Harris Administration. With the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, families feel more stress than before, adding to long-simmering concerns about child poverty and its implications. On a more positive note, the recent resurgence in calls for racial justice have spurred many more Americans to work...

Guest Author, positiveexperience.org/blog, 11/12/20 More and more evidence points to the important role positive childhood experiences play in child development. Today's blog post is based off of an interview with Dr. Ron Ferguson , founder and president of The Basics (a public health approach to supporting social, emotional, and cognitive development of children from birth to age three). In this post, Dr. Ferguson walks us through The Basics and several experiences that benefit child...

By Chloe Yang, 11/2/20, positiveexperience.org/blog The HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) National Resource Center has long held interactive workshops—made virtual during the pandemic—which teach participants about positive childhood experiences, the science of HOPE, the evidence-based Building Blocks of HOPE, how to translate HOPE into practice, and more. In this time of disruption and adversity, there is an especially urgent need for HOPE’s strengths-based approach. In...

By Loren McCullough and Dr. Robert Sege Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) National Resource Center In this blog, we report the results of a survey of ACEs Connection members that shows that positive childhood experiences appear to counteract the long-term effects of childhood adversity. In the face of worldwide changes in childcare and schooling, researchers have become even more invested in understanding the impact of PCEs on health and how they interact with ACEs. Within...

By Dr. Bob Sege, 10/22/20, positiveexperience.org/blog [...] The spirit of HOPE is simple: children are not products to be graded, sorted, and labeled, and parents are complex human beings who love their children and do everything in their power to care for them. This sounds simple. However, we live in an age where accountability has been translated into systematic evaluation–including children’s physical and developmental progress, parents’ and caretakers’ mental health education and...

Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand and Chloe Yang, 10/14/20, positiveexperience.org/blog A growing body of work recognizes the important health effects of highlighting and creating positive childhood experiences. Today’s blog post makes the scientific case for this, based off of an interview with Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology at Stanford School of Medicine. Below, Dr. Anand details how positive childhood experiences buffer against adverse ones and explains the biological...

By Zhawin Gonzalez (compiled by Chloe Yang), 9/30/20, positiveexperience.org/blog HOPE knows that all families, communities, and cultures have inherent strengths. In recent webinars with The Montana Institute , we’ve learned real world examples of this from co-presenters at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) . Zhawin Gonzalez, or Wasegabo, is the MIWRC Education and Resource Coordinator. In this blog post, Zhawin shares his insight on the long tradition of positive...

ACEs Connection, we need your help ! We are performing a research study to better understand the relationship between positive childhood experiences (PCEs), ACEs, and health outcomes in adulthood. All we need is 5-10 minutes of your time and your honesty to complete the following anonymous survey. With your help we can find a better way to combat ACEs and to support the development of children into resilient adults. Just a little bit more about the survey: This survey is sponsored by the...

Dina Burstein, 8/31/20, positiveexperience.org/blog How can providers translate HOPE into action? Faced with the multiple demands and increasing accountability of every aspect of the encounter, where does an assessment of assets fit in? To answer that question, we take a step back and remember the dynamics of an initial encounter. Patients/clients approach their first meeting with a new provider nervously: will this new person judge me? Do I really need or want what they have to offer? For...

Loren McCullough, 8/26/20, positiveexperience.org/blog HOPE involves a change in mindset. For many of us, our professional training and inclinations lead us to discover risks, problems, and deficits. In this blog (the first from our new team member, Loren McCullough), we examine national data that points to severe problems with the food supply – as experienced by families. Hidden within the data, we also see evidence for hope. Family and community engagement have buffered some of these...

By Chloe Yang, 8/19/20, positiveexperience.org/blog As the pandemic stretches far into the foreseeable future, with jobs, schooling, housing, and almost every other aspect of life a swirl of uncertainty, it is easy to fixate on the negative. Here at HOPE, we do not deny the devastating severity of the pandemic’s effect on lives across the nation. We do not deny Covid-19’s exacerbation of long-standing systemic inequities in healthcare, housing, education, employment, and more. However, we...

8/5/20, positiveexperience.org/blog With public health measures surrounding Covid-19, many are feeling isolated from friends and family. The social isolation of the pandemic, as well as the recent resurgence in calls to dismantle all forms of racism, has emphasized the importance of civic and social engagement. Engagement, developing a sense of connectedness and “mattering,” is one of the 4 Building Blocks of HOPE . Illustrating the importance of engaging youth and empowering them to make...

By Guest Author, positiveexperience.org/blog, 7/21/20 From the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black Americans throughout history, whose lives were taken by police brutality and systemic racism, we have seen how dismantling all forms of racism is critical to the central mission of HOPE: ensuring healthy, equitable child development for all, regardless of race. Systemic solutions, structures of accountability, and addressing individual biases are all...

By Dr. Robert Sege, positiveexperience.org/blog, 7/16/20 The HOPE National Advisory Board met virtually on July 14. This extraordinary and diverse group of leaders is deeply invested in the success of our work. Over the past year, we’ve built the trust needed to have candid conversations about difficult topics. This blog post shares some insights gained from our conversation about the relationship between HOPE, anti-racism, and inequities children face in the United States. One advisory...

positiveexperience.org/blog, 7/13/20 Today’s post is based on an interview with Brooke Adams , Director of Organizational Change at Marathon Scholars. Brooke Adams is a first-generation college graduate with a master’s degree in social work and a passion for working with students from under-resourced communities. Please introduce yourself and your work for our blog readers. I’m Brooke Adams. I am 33 years old, I live in Portland, Oregon, and I have an ACE score of 8. I work with underserved...

7/2/20, positiveexperience.org/blog Today’s post is based on an interview with Elliott Orrin Hinkle (they/them), an alumnus of the Wyoming Foster Care System. They are an advocate for child welfare, mental health, and the LGBTQ population. Nationally they work as a consultant to the National Capacity Building Center for States at ICF International and at JBS International working on NYTD. Since 2014 they have been a trainer of Youth Thrive and recently were certified to train on Youth Thrive...

6/29/20, positiveexperience.org Today’s post is based on an interview with Victor Sims, an active advocate for children in foster care. Victor works as a case manager supervisor at SailFuture , won a 2020 Casey Excellence for Children Award , and is an American Bar Association Reunification Hero . Please introduce yourself and your work for our blog readers. My name is Victor Sims. I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, primarily in Polk County. I have been a child welfare advocate since I was...