Tagged With "Bridgewater Commons"
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Weekly Highlights
Neighborhood conditions associated with children’s cognitive function November 4, 2020 U.S. National Institutes of Health A study published today in JAMA Network Open shows that children from poorer neighborhoods perform less well on a range of cognitive functions, such as verbal ability, reading skills, memory, and attention, and have smaller brain volumes in key cognitive regions compared to those from wealthier neighborhoods. While multiple studies have shown that household socioeconomic...
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NJ medical school program requires all first-year students to learn about ACEs science
In 2015, Dr. Beth Pletcher, a pediatrician and associate professor specializing in genetics, was at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington D.C. when she heard two speakers that forever changed her work with medical students. Dr. Beth Pletcher “I went to two talks on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that were so mind-boggling to me that I decided on my drive back to New Jersey that I had to do something about it,”says Pletcher, director of the Division...
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Nicholson Foundation Funding Efforts to Address ACEs and Build Resilience in New Jersey on Multiple Fronts
Since 2018, The Nicholson Foundation has been working hard to make New Jersey a leader among states in how it addresses, treats, and prevents Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—traumatic events that can cause children lifelong physical, mental, and social damage. Over the past two years, The Nicholson Foundation has invested $3.5 million in efforts that directly prevent ACEs or build resilience to their effects and complementary programs and services that support healthy child development...
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Nashville’s Purposeful Twist on ACEs: All Children Excel
In 2015, the pieces that became ACE Nashville began to fall into place. A five-year Community Health Improvement Plan included the support of mental and emotional health as one of its three goals. A core team of individuals from the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD), Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee and the Family Center, a non-profit focused on breaking generational cycles of child trauma, began to meet weekly. And a citywide “consensus workshop” in April of that year—drawing 44...
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*NEW PUBLICATION* Chronic Disease Among African American Families: A Systematic Scoping Review
Chronic diseases are common among African Americans, but the extent to which research has focused on addressing chronic diseases across multiple members of African American families is unclear. This systematic scoping review summarizes the characteristics of research addressing coexisting chronic conditions among African American families, including guiding theories, conditions studied, types of relationships, study outcomes, and intervention research.
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PreventingACES.pdf
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Gentrification vs. Revitalization
As we work towards healing communities, it is imperative we understand the difference between gentrification and revitalization. Gentrification is a term that people throw around a lot, but it’s often oversimplified as neighborhood revitalization. In an enlightening talk, urban planning scholar Stacey Sutton shows us the true costs of gentrification. Stacey Sutton teaches at Columbia University. She thinks deeply about our common misconceptions around gentrification. This talk was given on...
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Racial Equity and Philanthropy
“... Philanthropy is overlooking leaders of color who have the most lived experience with and understanding of the problems we are trying to solve.”
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Melanie Funchess |Implicit Bias - How it Effects Us and How We Push Through
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Everyone makes assumptions about people they don’t know. Melanie will teach us to recognize these assumptions and work toward a common understanding. Ms. Melanie Funchess is currently employed by the Mental Health Association where she serves as the Director of Community Engagement. She is also involved in several community based coalitions and organizations such as the African American Leadership...
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It’s called ‘the pandemic wall’ and it mostly affects children, psychologists say
JEN URSILLO | NJ1015 It's been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began and kids are hitting a breaking point that many developmental psychologists have coined "the pandemic wall." The pandemic wall refers to cognitive overload, said Jaime Arlia, vice president of Children and Family Services at CarePlus NJ. Kids have hit the point where their bodies and brains just can't take it anymore. They're exhausted and worn out. They're taking the brunt of this because their capacities were...
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A Novel Effort to See How Poverty Affects Young Brains
By Alla Katsnelson | NY Times An emerging branch of neuroscience asks a question long on the minds of researchers. Recent stimulus payments make the study more relevant. New monthly payments in the pandemic relief package have the potential to lift millions of American children out of poverty. Some scientists believe the payments could change children’s lives even more fundamentally — via their brains. It’s well established that growing up in poverty correlates with disparities in...
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Redefining Mental Health with Common
As we are all facing ongoing adversity, we are learning to navigate our struggles in innovative ways. Join our conversation with Common, Grammy and Academy Award winning artist and activist, and Dr. Apryl Alexander, prominent psychologist, as they discuss the many paths we can create to cope and come together with our communities to begin healing. Register HERE
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6TH ANNUAL TRAUMA INFORMED: MOVING TO RESILIENCE CONFERENCE
CRI was founded with the goal of creating a community that speaks a common language around ACEs, brain development, and resilience. A common language will help us understand the negative impact of trauma or adversity and buffer against it by strengthening our resilience toolbox. That same goal of common language continues to hold our attention as we strive to learn how our bodies respond to stressors, and to consciously incorporate and practice the language and acts of resilience in our...
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Here We Grow Again!!
Thank you to everyone who has joined our Common-Unity. Let's keep learning and growing together.
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NJ Spotlight News Virtual Roundtable: Back to School in New Jersey: What to Expect this Fall
The educational disruption to New Jersey students due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been extreme by all measures. But with increasing numbers of vaccinated adults in the state and new COVID-19 cases dropping, attention (and planning) is turning to how schools can begin returning to normal for the new school year this fall. A wide range of challenges deserve consideration: Instructional - How will teaching be different once virtually all students are back in the classroom? How will technology...
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Akeera Weathers - The Barbershop Theory
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “barbershop”? Whatever that word is I want you to keep it in the back of your mind as you’re reading this. For me, the first word that comes to mind is healing. I’m sure many of you are reading this thinking “you are so far off from what a barbershop is”, but before you completely write it off let me explain. As someone raised within an urban community, I can tell you 90% of barbershops are owned by African American, Puerto...
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PACEs Champion Dwana Young navigates community-driven ACEs healing centers in New Jersey
In 2020, New Jersey, a state with about 9 million people spread over the rural countryside and dense urban areas like Newark, launched a new entity: the NJ Office of Resilience (NJOR). The NJOR is unusual because it is a public-private partnership. It brings together three private foundations as well as the NJ Department of Children and Families to provide community-driven strategies for preventing, treating, and healing from ACEs. Like a ship’s navigator laying out a course on charts, Dwana...
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State Actions To Prevent And Mitigate Adverse Childhood Experiences [National Governors Association]
The National Governors Association along with the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Academy for State Health Policy, released today, December 9, the report "State Actions To Prevent And Mitigate Adverse Childhood Experiences." The Executive Summary is included below. To read the entire report, click here. An article about the NGA Learning Collaborative and this report will be posted soon on PACEs Connection. Preventing and mitigating adverse childhood experiences and...
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Need to fund your resilience initiative? Here’s how.
Chart is sample page from county-by-county funding allocated as part of ARPA. Information is available by clicking here. This is the first of several articles on the importance of any resilience-focused entity, including your PACEs Connection community, seeking out the people in your area allocating ARPA funding and asking for money. Organizations do not necessarily have to be 501 C-3 nonprofits to receive funding. Thanks to federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to states in April...
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Spring Registration Now Open for These Courses for Educators!
Cowart Trauma Informed Partnership is pleased to announce three upcoming courses for educators! This school year has introduced us to a whole new understanding of what "tired" means. Even before, studies showed that a significant portion of the population have experienced trauma, or harmful or life-threatening events which have impacted their everyday functioning or well-being. Research shows that individuals living in poverty or with a disability are even more at risk for having experienced...
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Shopping while Black: Bridgewater mall incident amplifies talk of racism in retail spaces.
By Vashti Harris | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com and Matthew Stanmyre | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com For Tionni Kennedy, Bridgewater Commons mall is a place she frequently visits to hang out with friends, browse through stores, and gab over meals in the food court. It’s also where Kennedy, who is Black, said she often encounters racism. The 17-year-old from Piscataway feels the glare of store workers when she walks into shops and notices how they always seem to follow her as she looks at...
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Trauma-informed Design Evaluation Tool for K-12 Schools Is Here!
The Trauma-informed Design Society is pleased to announce the new TiDEvalK12 tool ! This tool is the first of its kind--an evidence-based tool to facilitate interior design renovations and new builds of K-12 schools! It can be used to evaluate the physical space and identify changes that can lower the stress levels of students and staff. The tool is grounded in the Substance and Mental Health Services Administrations' guidance for a trauma-informed approach, the Trauma-informed Design (TiD)...
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The White House is highlighting NJ’s regional health hubs. Here’s why.
The hubs coordinate medical and social services, especially for people with complex challenges like homelessness or addiction. When state health officials sought to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates in Camden — one of a handful of communities lagging statewide immunization levels in July 2021 — they turned to the Camden Coalition for help. The Coalition, a nonprofit alliance founded two decades ago to improve health outcomes in the city, distributed information about the benefits of...
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Screen for Relational Health, Not Just Physical and Emotional Health
What gives me hope is that we have agency in this. We can make eye contact or provide physical touch, if those are appropriate and feel comfortable; we can be kind, we can bring intention to building connection – it all has ripple effects. And we can put.down.our.phones.!