December 2022

Last week I posted “ The trouble with trauma (-informed), the aggravation of ACEs (screening): We're trying to fit both into traditional frameworks and it isn't working .” This post goes one step farther to describe the first easy steps that all organizations can use, no matter what the sector, to wrap their minds around integrating healing practices and policies based on PACEs science. In the comments section, Rebecca Bryan asked, “What is a reliable tool to assess organizational ACEs? Does...

This month’s CTIPP CAN call will feature Erin McDonald from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP), presenting on the just-launched Equitable Long-Term Recovery and Resilience Plan . We’ll also have Lisa Cushatt and Sara Welch from Iowa ACEs 360 share their valuable findings on the most effective messaging while advocating for trauma-informed policies and practices. We found their initial findings insightful and actionable,...

We know a high ACE score is connected to “substance-related disorders,” but oftentimes it’s overlooked that food can be that substance of choice, too—not just drugs or alcohol.

(Merced, California) Valley Children’s, along with a collaborative of Merced community-based organizations, has been selected as a $500,000 recipient by the California Department of Health Care Services to combat adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress screening. ACEs are stressful or traumatic events children experience before the age of 18, including abuse and neglect. The screenings will focus on patients at Valley Children’s Olivewood Pediatrics in Merced. “Children who are...

CAPTA (The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act) was first passed in 1974 and has been reauthorized ever since. The FVPSA (Family Violence Prevention and Services Act) was first passed in 1984 and has been reauthorized ever since. Both were expected to be reauthorized during the present Congress. This will NOT happen. The must-pass Omnibus Bill will not include reauthorization CAPTA and FVPSA even though there is bipartisan support for these basic federal programs. Unknown amounts of...

To advocate is to plead for, support, or recommend action for a cause; at least, that's what the general definition tells us. In reality, advocacy entails much more than what a dictionary definition or complex training tells us. For those of us who have taken on this work, we know it requires passion, heart, and determination. As we continue to pursue a society where trauma-informed relationships and care are the standards, there will be inevitable pushback. The pushback may take our...

Hello. I am a mental health curriculum developer currently looking for prospective peer and lived experience trainees based in Oregon. There's an opportunity this month to fund development of a free course on trauma-informed peer support and advocacy/activism skills from a mad justice / liberation / decolonization perspective. Can also somewhat tailor this to other learning needs you may have and happy to chat about that. Course completion will also mean earning a Peer Support Specialist...

(Note: I was looking through some old essays and found this one I wrote for a wellness website exactly 10 years ago. With a couple of updates, it still rings true to my decades-long commitment to breaking cycles of addiction and abuse.) It’s as omnipresent as bad Christmas music: that vague sense of dread for people who are related to an active addict at holiday time. “I don’t know when he’ll do it, but I know it’s a matter of time before he’ll drink too much and make an ass out of himself.”...

Why is there so much emphasis on healing from the effects of unsupportive and harmful parenting and so little emphasis on the prevention of unsupportive and harmful parenting? Is it a money issue? Is there money to be made in intervention, treatment, healing, and rehabilitation? Is there money to be made in primary prevention?

Image via Rubén Moreno Montolíu/Flickr Our home, from space. Author: To read more of Tod Perry's article, please click here. Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.” The overview effect...

First, here is an opinion published in CALMATTERS by Richard Wexler who is Executive Director of NCCPR. His interest in child welfare grew out of 19 years of work as a reporter for newspapers, public radio and public television, often doing stories about child abuse and foster care. He is the author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse (Prometheus Books: 1990, 1995). Wexler is a graduate of Richmond College of the City University of New York and the Columbia...

By Laura Gallant, 12/15/22, https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ Registration is now open for the HOPE National Resource Center’s 3 rd Annual HOPE Summit – Practicing HOPE. Register before January 15th to get the early bird special worth $50 off the full registration price. The Keynote speaker will be Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, PhD, MPA-URP, Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Professor of Human Development and Social Policy, and Director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy...