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By Emma Keith, The Norman Transcript, January 7, 2020 Jeremy Elledge thinks he can change Oklahoma. From where he sits, that’s a tall order. Elledge works in mental health services in a state that's top in the nation for childhood trauma. Oklahoma leads in female incarceration and heart disease mortality, and has high rates of child abuse and divorce, lending to the cycles of trauma that impact the state’s youngest residents, the Tulsa World reports. But Elledge wants to stop that cycle. For...

By Greg Barnes, North Carolina Health News, January 6, 2020 No one told Army veteran Carter Bryant about groundwater contamination near the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant when he bought a home there in July. Bryant said he knew almost nothing about GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals” — before he and his family moved in. About two months later, Bryant said, he received a notice from Chemours stating that contaminants in his...

By Associated Press, The Washington Post, January 7, 2020 Maryland’s Health Department has received $3.6 million in federal funding to address opioid use among pregnant and new mothers. The department launched the initiative, called the “Maternal Opioid Model,” this month, according to a statement released by the agency on Monday. The initiative focuses on improving substance abuse treatment for pregnant and postpartum mothers on Medicaid by providing them with additional resources during...

By Perri Klass, The New York Times, January 6, 2020 In December, the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a new clinical report on autism, an extensive document with an enormous list of references, summarizing 12 years of intense research and clinical activity. During this time, the diagnostic categories changed — Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder, diagnostic categories that once included many children, are no longer used, and we now consider all these children (and...

Trauma and Transition

By Steve Davis and Peter Laugharn, July 29, 2019 The Seattle Times The World Health Organization just unveiled an initiative that could improve millions of children’s lives and boost the global economy by trillions of dollars. The initiative, known as the Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development , [ PDF attached ] seeks to change how we raise infants and toddlers. Children’s experiences during their first three years of life heavily influence their well-being as adults,...

Research papers this month include links between ACEs and bullying, dropping out of high school, adult disability, and the effects of countering ACEs.

Byron Hall mentors adolescent parents for the Community Enrichment Organization , a nonprofit in Tarboro, NC, which partners with a program that supports to keep adolescent parents in school. One of the parents he mentors is 13 years old. At the age of 17, Hall was an adolescent parent himself, growing up with a single parent in the Bronx, NY, then an African American community where drug-dealing and prostitution were common. For the counselor, helping these young men and women, who are...

New and returning lawmakers take the oath of office on day one of Washington state's 2017 legislative session. — Jeanie Lindsay/Northwest News Network As advocates prepare to see how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) science, trauma, and resilience play out in the 2020 state legislative sessions — many beginning in January — they are undoubtedly asking: “What does a legislator want?" It may be a stretch to play on Freud’s question: “What does a women want?", but the query captures how...

As we all know, Adverse Childhood Experiences , or ACEs, can cause a rise in a number of different mental health disorders. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ACEs are common problems and the effects of which can add up over time. For instance, 61 percent of adults had at least one ACE while 16 percent had four or more types of ACEs. Preventing ACEs can help children thrive and can even lower the risk of conditions such as depression, asthma, cancer, and more in...

The following are FREE Strategies 2.0 Trainings at First 5 San Bernardino in 2020: http://strategiesca.org/ The Culturally Proficient Professional – 1/23/2020 Thursday 8:30am-4pm Partnering with Families: Case Management 101 – 2/13/2020 Thursday 8:30am-4pm Home Visiting Essentials – 2/25/2020 Tuesday 8:30am-12n Family Strengthening Certificate Training Series (Must attend all session listed below to obtain the certificate): Intro to Protective Factors – 4/2/2020 Thursday 8:30am-4pm Concrete...

By Erin Blakemore, The Washington Post, January 4, 2020 An emergency room patient has a broken bone. Could she suffer from human trafficking, too? Thanks to a growing call to treat trafficking as a public health problem, an ER worker who treats a trafficking victim might be able to connect the dots. Trafficking occurs when someone exploits someone else sexually or makes them perform labor against their will. According to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, an estimated 24.9...