Tagged With "community schools"
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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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What Events would you like to see in this Community?
As we build the ACEs Caribbean Community and seek to provide you with relevant ACEs information, we also desire to create community events for our members. Until regional travel and in-person community events are allowed to occur again, we propose to host a virtual Quarterly Meet and Greet to get to know each other better. In addition, we would like to host monthly virtual Events to equip members for the very important work you do. Some thoughts include Podcasts (interviews of our members to...
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Helpful Video Playlist
Aces Connection offers LOTS of resources on Starting and Growing ACEs Community Initiatives . While many text-based resources are provided on this website, several helpful audio-visual resources can be found on their YouTube Channel . There is a complete Playlist that you can review at your leisure. It comprises a series of webinars with detailed information and examples. To get you started, we've embedded the Overview video in the series is below for your viewing. If you would like...
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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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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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First Things First
Hi everyone, welcome to ACEs Caribbean Community! (Insert sounds of reggae, soca, steelpan, or tassa here) This is a safe space for all who are interested in addressing issues of childhood trauma, adult trauma, resilience, hope, and related threads. Whether you are a Clinician, Parent, Educator, Researcher, Healthcare practitioner, NGO member, or Government employee, your input to address Trauma is valuable to make the Caribbean a safer place. Our lens is a distinctly Caribbean one because,...
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How You Can Participate
Here at ACEs Caribbean Community, we want you to be involved in shaping the content and activities of our shared space. So please introduce yourself , take advantage of the upcoming Calendar Events listed, suggest activities in which we can all engage, and post to the various categories of the blog. We have categorised posts into various Blog Categories (see right panel) to make it easy for members to find the information most relevant to them. Please consider serving as a moderator for any...
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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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Re: #ChooseToChallenge - What leads to a man assaulting a woman or a child?
Yes, this phrasing, versions of which are used in Jamaica too, assumes/suggests that the woman is always 'the victim’. And when we speak of GBV here, in the region, we rarely talk about emotional/verbal abuse. Put that into the equation and we’ll have a much clearer picture of the scale of women’s violence against men and boys in the Caribbean. In many ways, emotional verbal/abuse is just as egregious and harmful as physical abuse by men. In some cases, it is worse. I had a conversation...
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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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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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Kids Need More Time with Grandparents
In the article linked to below, there is an evidence-based solution being out forward to raise emotionally healthy children. In a 2011 Brigham Young University study, children in both two-parent and single-parent homes who felt close to at least one grandparent exhibited "higher pro-social behavior." (Pro-social behaviors tend to benefit others: helping, sharing, donating, volunteering, cooperating, etc.) "The bottom line," the researchers say, "is that grandparents have a positive influence...
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First Weekly Update from ACEs Caribbean Community
Hi everyone! Hoping you're all staying safe. 😷 We just posted a weekly update to our new YouTube channel on how things are going for us as a brand new ACEs Community. https://youtu.be/y4hllID0Fcg Thanks to all the ACEsAllies around the world for all your support and encouragement! Shout-Out to the ACEs Allies in the USA, Canada, Scotland and across the African continent, who were so kind and embraced us on Twitter!🙋 Don't be strangers. Connect with us on IG, Twitter and YouTube. 😆
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Grief and Crime.
Odd title. What's the deal with that? How is crime connected to grief? I've spent a few decades serving (in one form or other) people who were incarcerated or had a history of incarceration. A few years ago, I was privileged to do a program on the topic of "Grief and Hope" at a local penal facility with a group of amazing men. During the course of our time together, both I and they were surprised to find out that most of them had experienced grief in childhood prior to them becoming involved...
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Can You Tell The Difference?
It is the Easter school vacation and online and in person education is on hold. However, this is a perfect time to explore what we know of and apply to our interaction with the children we teach. As persons who are entrusted with the social and emotional learning of the nation's children, are you able to identify and distinguish behaviour which has pain as its genesis? If not, have you treated with it in a manner which has caused greater pain to your students? Your thoughts as educators...
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'Incarceration should be a last resort for youth,' researcher says.
Research from Northwestern Medicine shows nearly 2/3 of males and more than 1/3 of females with 1 or more existing psychiatric disorders when they entered detention, still had a disorder 15 years later.
The findings are significant because mental health struggles add to the existing racial, ethnic and economic disparities as well as academic challenges from missed school, making a successful transition to adulthood harder to attain.
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Changing Our Response to Childhood Adversity.
"For generations, we have trained practitioners to consider childhood suffering only through the institutional lens of child protection. Through research on the prevalence of ACEs in our most vulnerable children, it has become clear this approach is not enough." This is the introduction to an online event, "Changing Our Response to Childhood Adversity", to be hosted by The Learning Institute (https://www.learninginstitute.co.uk/) of the UK on 30th June 2021 where they will unveil their...
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Rebounding from La Soufriere - Looking Back as We Look Forward.
Good morning Caribbean peoples! As events continue to unfold in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, we want to take a look back to 1979 when the La Soufriere volcano last erupted. At present, volcanic ash covers the islands, electricity has been cut and water supplies have been affected while tens of thousands are being evacuated to safer parts of the main island and to other territories. Life remains unsettled and the experts suggest the volcanic activity may continue for weeks or months.
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Wondering Wednesday - Could Your Children Study Here?
Hello everyone! Welcome to "Wondering Wednesday" where we share insights and experiments from across the globe and inquire how they might work in the Caribbean. For many of our territories, there have been waves of the Coronavirus and those have led to periodic imposition and relaxation of various public health restrictions. At present, Trinidad and Tobago is under a 3-week period of restrictions where beaches and rivers are off-limits following the Easter holiday weekend and a spike in...
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Secret Service Study on Children Who Kill Finds Link to ACEs.
Hello Community. It's Friday again! To kick off the weekend, we want to examine some research from the USA conducted by the Secret Service that has found a link to Adverse Childhood Experiences in youth who plotted or executed mass murders or shootings at school. According to the study, most of the perpetrators were "motivated by grievances against them, usually peers and bullying. Many were suicidal or had depression." Eight had a desire for fame or notoriety. "More than half had been...
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'A lot of grief and anxiety' for kids, youth after living with COVID for 1 year, says psychotherapist. [CBC article]
Around the world, the 1 year anniversary of Covid-19 interrupting our lives was observed in different ways. For many, the concern is for the children and young people who are experiencing Covid-19 as an adverse childhood experience. The clinical observations of a Canadian psychotherapist may well be true for the Caribbean region as it relates to how children are coping one year on. Alyssa Strachan, based at the Delton Glebe Counselling Centre in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada has been helping...
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The Trauma of Nowhere to Go [Newsday article]
Good Monday morning everyone. We hope the week was restful. We bring you an extract from a Sunday Newsday article with an update from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines where the situation continues to evolve. As the threat of further eruptions from the La Soufriere volcano remains, a new trauma is being seen, particularly among those displaced by the event. "As St Vincent and the Grenadines enters into its third week of dealing with effects of the eruption of the La Soufriere volcano, the...
Member
Bonnie M. Exell
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Action on ACEs Conference 2021: From ACEs to Resilience (June 10)
Hi ACEs learners. We're trying to ensure you have access to credible information and training on ACEs by sharing links to such events. Today is no exception. The organisation, Action On ACEs, based in Gloucestershire, UK is hosting a free virtual conference on Thursday 10th June 2021 from 9:30 am to 3:30pm UK time. The conference, ‘From ACEs to Resilience’ will focus on "resilience, how to build it in children and young people and how we can support adults who have experienced ACEs. It will...
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How Trauma-Informed Are We, Really? [ASCD article]
Good morning everyone and welcome to another Friday. We are offering you an opportunity to think deeply about addressing trauma in education as we move into the weekend. In an article on Trauma-Informed Schools, Paul Gorski shares about his experience at a particular school and asks us to explore how we are seeking to implement Trauma-Informed practice in our school systems. "A major challenge at this school, as in many schools, was the leadership team's habit of embracing shiny new program...