Tagged With "Early Life Stress and Mental Health"
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ACEs_Toolkit.pdf
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In the Return to "Normalcy" in 2021
Okay, so we all are hearing of the end of life as we have come to know it for the past 14 months. The social isolation, physical distancing, mask-wearing, business shutdowns, country lockdowns, and travel bans are what we in the region have endured since March 2020. The disruption of life from Covid-19 is expected to come to a close as more than one vaccine has been approved and is being used in the Caribbean. As we adults relish in the return to school of our children, our return to gainful...
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When Acknowledgeing Our Family's Failures Is Not Betrayal.
As a child to Caribbean parents, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, it was rare to see families which did not raise their children with physical and verbal abuse on a regular basis. The conversations we children engaged in with our "best friends" often revealed the dark secrets lurking behind the facades of our picture-perfect family lives. Even in the seeming "best" families, the children faced private, if not public shaming. Some lived in fear of parental outbursts to their childish...
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Linking ACEs to Psychopathy
The issue of Justice is dear to my heart for several reasons. So, in light of the over-use of imprisonment in our region, amidst overburdened or slothful criminal justice systems, I question whether we are "doing justice" when we incarcerate people for what may only be their Trauma Responses. What do I mean? Well, often a criminal investigation does not delve further than the identification of the perpetrator of an alleged and reported crime. Once that is done, if the accused has no or...
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Education Related Resources
With the Covid-19 fallout having its toll on school attendance around the world, many persons of all ages and stages of life have been adversely affected. But it has not only been children who have been impacted. Trauma has arisen through separation from playmates and colleagues, loss of access to food from school feeding programmes, loss of safety from abuse within the household, loss of familiarity with the school environment, loss of employment for non-academic staff, loss of income for...
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How Caribbean Parents Can Hurt Their Children
Growing up in the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago) in the 1970s - before the age of enlightened parenting - meant that I was raised in a strict culture. Whenever there was an infraction by us children, there would be verbal and often physical "retribution". This culture did not only exist in the immediate home but also extended to our visits to our grandparents. (It was easy to understand where my mother had received her parenting style when I witnessed my grandmother disciplining me and my...
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Building Strong Brains Series
The state of Tennessee in the USA has a comprehensive programme to build strong brains by reducing ACEs and combating toxic stress in children and youth. A really positive tone of the programme is that it emphasises Hope by reinforcing that while ACEs science is a FACT it is not FATE. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) website has a series of 6 short videos outlining the various components. The last 2 videos show how to get buy-in for your initiative from law enforcement agencies, state...
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Question of the Month - Is Child Adversity Linked to Ethnicity?
Hi Community! Here in Trinidad and Tobago, we are probably more diverse in terms of ethnicity than many of our Caribbean neighbours - a callaloo of sorts (Remember the national anthem proclaims: "...Here every creed and race find an equal place..." ) Well, research overseas shows that there is a difference in how children experience adversity based on their ethnicity. In the USA in particular, there are neighbourhoods that are predominantly white and others where the majority of persons are...
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Help Inform and Transform the Caribbean with ACEs Caribbean Community
Hi there. We recently started the ACEs Caribbean Community on the website, Aces Connection, to rally our Caribbean people and those who love the region to work together to bring the knowledge of Aces Science ( Adverse Childhood Experiences ), Resilience, Hope, and Truth to our regional people and government institutions. We are facing an epidemic of crime, violence, addiction, despair, and suicide throughout the region and we believe that a better understanding of the connection between what...
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Can ACEs Training Help Doctors and Patients During Covid-19?
For more than a year the world has been gripped in the throes of combating the Novel Coronavirus 2019 and over 1 million lives have been lost globally to the disease. In the face of the fear, anxiety, despair and grief which has arisen, a question for those familiar with ACEs science is whether this body of knowledge can help alleviate the prevailing stressors. Here is where Hope steps in. Last month, panelists in an Aces Aware webinar discussed the secondary health effects associated with...
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ACEs Connection Overview
ACES CONNECTION NETWORK OVERVIEW ACEs = Adverse Childhood Experiences 2 SITES ACEsTooHigh.com A solutions-oriented news site for the general public that covers stories on ACEs, trauma, and resilience. ACEsConnection.com An action-based...
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Re: #ChooseToChallenge - What leads to a man assaulting a woman or a child?
Excellent points made by all parties in that discussion, Juleus! Our societies are largely unaware of the harm caused because we are underplaying the value of regional research into the issues. Even then, the issue is hard to raise and engage in dispassionately due to the high emotions involved and the strong value placed on our matriarchs. Here in Trinidad and Tobago, reports from children's advocates revealed that abuse is perpetrated by female caregivers (largely physical and verbal) and...
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Young Black Men's Mental Health During Covid-19
Research from the UK suggests that men from racialised backgrounds are reporting higher levels of mental distress during the pandemic compared to white men (Proto et al., 2021). Contributing factors include bereavement, loneliness and worries about coronavirus and misinformation.
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Calendar Event on Caribbean Women's Mental Health
Hi Caribbean Community! I hope everyone is doing well. Our newest member on ACEs Caribbean Community is Dr. Joanne Spence from 🇹🇹. On Friday 19th March 2021, she and other female mental health professionals from the Caribbean (Guyana 🇬🇾 and Jamaica 🇯🇲) will be speaking at an online workshop on Caribbean Women's Mental Health. The event is part of International Women's Day celebrations. #IWD2021 #ChooseToChallenge More info on the event is available at the Calendar entry at the link...
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Optimism About Covid-19 End Linked to Gender?
Hi Community! We know many Caribbean people who have been forecasting the end of the lockdowns, closures and drama that has been associated with Covid-19.😷 Even as more vaccines💉 are being administered around the world, a new USA survey by Yahoo/YouGov has found that optimism over the return to normalcy (however that may look to you) is more aligned to gender than we realised. The survey respondents came from different ages, races, income levels and political ideologies. Only 50%...
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FREE Virtual Screening of the Resilience Documentary - 14th to 18th March 2021
Hi everyone! Well, it is Friday afternoon and I am sure as Caribbean people you are as excited as I am for the weekend. If you are missing the movie theatres being open in your country, do not despair because --- we've got you covered for the next few days! So this is BIG news for those who have been looking forward to seeing " Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope ". There will be a FREE virtual screening over a four-day period from Sunday 14th to Thursday 18th March...
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Building a Multi-System Trauma-Informed Collaborative.
Since the effects of childhood trauma do not play out in isolation, an effective response to child trauma should benefit not only children but the communities in which they live. This feeds into what we know from studies about factors that impact a child's growth - they occur within the family, community and also are climate-related. Multiple studies reveal the extremely high percentage of youth in contact with the law and under the care of social services who have been exposed to violence...
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UK 'Punishing Abuse' Report Finds Many Justice-Involved Youth have Trauma Histories.
A published study from West Midlands in the United Kingdom, titled "Punishing Abuse", has confirmed what many have long suspected - many youth are being punished in the criminal justice system for acting out in the aftermath of childhood trauma. It looked at 80 youth, 67 of whom were male, and many of whom were of Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) heritage. They included White and Black Caribbean youth, some of whome were born in and others whose parents came from the Caribbean island...
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How do we do #SmartJustice?
What is social justice? What is smart justice? How do these terms intersect with adversity in childhood, trauma, and resilience? All interesting questions which are answered in one stunning webinar conducted over 90 minutes and done by Community Justice Scotland . The webinar brings forth insights of credible and experienced people like Fr. Gregory Boyle, who founded Homeboy Industries in the USA over 30 years ago, and Sir Harry Burns, former Professor of Global Public Health. The link to...
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How Trauma Affects the Body.
In a post on the website, Aces Aware, California paediatrician, Dr. Eric Bell shares how he and his family experienced Trauma after the death of a pet, which was a close member of their family. As a doctor, he was aware of his physical, emotional and other symptoms and is able to clearly articulate these as well as the benefits he and his family derived from implementing protective factors, stress-busting strategies and using other resilience building tools. We love how he is able to use his...
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Reminder - Caribbean Women's Mental Health
Hi everyone, a gentle reminder that Friday at 12pm you can tune in to view this discussion live on the YouTube channel of A Healing Paradigm. (See link below) https://youtube.com/channel/UCNW5524VD38t55KAKoNITbg
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Is There A Link between ACEs and Human Trafficking?
Today is March 25th and - just in case you have no clue why that date is significant to us in the Caribbean - it marks the anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 by which the British Parliament abolished the trade in slaves in the British Empire. (If you are not a student of history, you can read the Wikipedia version here .) True, the abolition of the institution of slavery itself occurred nearly 30 years later but this 1807 legislation was a proverbial "nail in the coffin" for slavery...