Many people seem keen to start screening children and adults for ACEs in the hope that we can help them avoid or counteract the negative effects. I have been looking at the experience of screening for other problems, like domestic violence, and there are some cautionary lessons to be learned. We need to be careful about how we go about doing this, and I make some suggestions in the attached article.
To See the Conference Agenda, List of All-Star Speakers, and To Register Click Here Why Should Californians Attend This Unique Conference ? From high levels of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), to job and financial struggles, racism and other forms of inequity and injustice, traumatic stress is epidemic today. Climate change will aggravate all of these existing adversities, and add many new ones as well. Yet, California is leading the U.S. in finding innovative new ways to address...
I recently wrote a post on LINKEDIN ( link and text of post are below) designed to encourage positive as opposed to negative feedback. It was inspired by another blog post which I have also linked and the text of the inspirational post below). Indeed, we suffer from negative feedback on many levels. As parents, teachers and employers, positive feedback can improve outcomes, it can ease tension and stress, it can improve work produce and sense of self. One key issue: how do we encourage more...
Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives have taken a new and important step to promote the use of trauma-informed approaches. Democrat Danny Davis from Illinois and Republican Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin have introduced House Resolution H. Res. 443, "Recognizing the Importance and Effectiveness of Trauma-informed Care," which encourages the use of trauma-informed care by Congress and federal agencies. The resolution also proposes the designation of a month as National Trauma...
Photo of Nadine Burke Harris by Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle _______________________________________________ Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, pediatrician and CEO of the Center For Youth Wellness, and Dr. Melissa Merrick, behavioral scientist at CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and lead scientist on the ACE Study , will present at a session on today titled “Improving Children’s Chances by Combating Early Trauma" at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) meeting in...
Imagine you are on the run from a Nazi manhunt and are taken under the protection of a stranger. This stranger spends the winter providing you with food and shelter—even traveling to other towns to relay messages to your family members—yet has no hope or expectation of repayment from you. While your loved ones are systematically ensnared by the Nazi machine, this stranger keeps you alive and nourishes your faith in humanity, offering proof that in the midst of widespread horror, many...
T HE 1907 EPISODE in a seaside timber town in Washington came to be known as the Bellingham Riots. Really, though, there were no riots. There was a pogrom. At the time, the U.S. was suffering through deep economic distress, a panic-filled recession that had begun the year before. Angry anti-immigrant sentiment was ascendant. And hundreds of Sikh men who had traveled from India to Bellingham to toil in the lumber mills paid the price. [For more of this story, written by AC Thompson, go to ...
Sports psychologists have developed a multi-step program based on the practice of mindfulness to increase coaches’ and athletes’ mental readiness for the game. Mindfulness involves being aware of the present moment and accepting things as they are without judgment. When it comes to sports, athletes who are able to simply observe moments as they come and go rather than latch onto them and overthink are better able to focus on their performance rather than on distracting negative experiences.
In the months since President Trump took office we’ve heard a lot about crackdowns on undocumented immigrants and the return of law and order. In fact, as The Atlantic recently reported, the administration is scaling up use of high-tech methods of tracking down what it deems the criminal immigrant class . In addition, the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has walked back an Obama-era vow to step down use of private prisons, and his “ four-sentence memo rescinding...
The debate about how and whether to depict suicide on TV or in any kind of entertainment has continued to brew since the March 31 debut of Netlfix’s controversial series 13 Reasons Why. Aimed a teen audience, the show graphically depicts the suicide of a high school girl and its aftermath. The show was criticized for what many mental health professionals saw as a glamorization and distortion of major depression and suicidality, both of which are on the rise among teens. Parents and...
This isn’t Thomas DiSilvestre’s first stint in prison. At 23 years of age, he’s already been inside New York’s Rikers Island and the Ulster Correctional Facility for felony drug charges. His arms are scarred, and his almond-shaped eyes are downcast on the table in front of him. “You have to always worry about people running around, cutting you,” he says, talking about his previous times in prison. “You don’t feel safe.” DiSilvestre is incarcerated again. In May 2016, he was caught breaking...
My tribe sees life within the frame of seven generations: The current generation is shaped by the experience of people three generations before and tasked with setting the course for three generations to come. That’s why I summoned the stamina needed to paddle a canoe for eight days last summer in a tradition that binds our generations. I joined thousands of men, women, teens and children from my tribe— Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe —as well as our neighbors from the Chinook Indian Nation, to...
John Schmid of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in his piece “A Time to Heal” , explores generational trauma in Milwaukee, the nation’s third most impoverished big city. The article consolidates information from local, state, and national data on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), interviews, U.S. Census data, and statistical consultation. In 1970, Milwaukee was an upcoming industrial city with a low poverty rate. However, industrial decline and a population decrease increased the poverty...
Emily Clary is responsible for helping develop and coordinate the ACE Interface training and Self-Healing Communities partnership with the Children’s Mental Health and Family Services Collaboratives across the state. Emily holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Sociology from Beloit College. Emily is deeply committed to sharing research about Adverse Childhood Experiences and...
Regional ACE Training Coordinator- Southwest MN Job Profile and Reporting Relationships The Regional ACE Training Coordinator is responsible for coordinating the organization’s ACE Interface training and Self-Healing Communities program partnership with Family Service Collaboratives and Children’s Mental Health Collaboratives in their region in coordination with the Director of ACE Collaborative Partnerships. This position plays a key network weaving role in the learning community approach...