Tagged With "Champions for Life"
Blog Post
Kimberly Teehee
Over 200 years ago, the United States signed a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, granting them representation in Congress. However, this position was never filled until Kimberly Teehee entered the scene. In 2019, Teehee became the first Cherokee Nation delegate in the House of Representatives. As a lawyer, activist, and former advisor to President Obama, Teehee has quickly become a monumental figure in history. Kimberly Teehee was born on March 2, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois. Due to a federal...
Blog Post
Malala Yousafzai
At age eleven, Malala Yousafzai was already advocating for the rights of women and girls. As an outspoken proponent for girls’ right to education, Yousafzai was often in danger because of her beliefs. However, even after being shot by the Taliban, she continued her activism and founded the Malala Fund with her father. By age seventeen, Yousafzai became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan. Mingora...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Why Atlantic City’s minority neighborhoods are also its most flooded
ANDREW S. LEWIS | NJ Spotlight When Veronica Grant reflects on growing up in the Venice Park section of Atlantic City in the 1970s, regular nuisance flooding isn’t a memory that comes to mind. Yet these days, high tides spill across the neighborhood’s streets and yards so frequently that Grant can’t keep count. Flooding has been a reality in Atlantic City since its founding a century-and-a-half ago, but it has never been as frequent as it is today. Since 1911, the city’s tide station has...
Blog Post
Law and Disability Conference 5/5 @ 9:30AM EST
The Law and Disability Conference is held each year at the New Jersey Law Center and is cosponsored with the Community Health Law Project . This year, we will be pivoting to an online format due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The topics for the 2021 Law and Disability Conference will include: supportive housing, special needs trusts, Medicaid eligibility and transition from children’s to adult system of care. The 2021 Conference will be held Wednesday, May 5, 2021 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Blog Post
YURI KOCHIYAMA
Yuri Kochiyama was a radical Japanese-American liberation activist and a pioneer of the intersectionality movement. Born in California to Japanese immigrants in 1921, Yuri lived what she felt was an “all American childhood”. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor her life would drastically change; Yuri’s father was arrested by the FBI, accused of being a “threat to national security”, was detained for six weeks and died just days after his release. Yuri, her mother and brother were some...
Blog Post
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...
Blog PostFeatured
ACEs Training Opportunities
Building Self-Healing Communities – Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences Join us for a 3-hour session on the impact of childhood trauma and its implications across the life course. The session with be interactive and will include small and large group dialog, reflection and time for questions and answers. Come ready to actively participate and engage with others on this journey! The Office of Resilience is presenting 3 great opportunities for you to engage in this transformative...
Blog Post
‘An isolated world’ — LGBTQ youth battle mental health issues during pandemic | Hannah Parker | WTOP
The isolation of COVID-19 lockdowns brought about a nearly 30% increase in demand for mental health services throughout the country. But for LGBTQ youth, the isolation and anxiety from the last year has only exacerbated preexisting mental health battles. In 2020, 42% of young LGBTQ people — including more than half of transgender or nonbinary youths — considered suicide, according to a survey conducted from October to December 2020 by The Trevor Project, a national organization that provides...
Blog Post
Launching June 23: The Actions 4 ACEs Awareness Campaign [Actions4ACEs, NJ ACEs Collaborative]
Note: This notice was sent out today, Tuesday, June 22, from Dave Ellis, Executive Director, Office of Resilience, New Jersey. Since it may be of interest to others outside New Jersey, I'm sending it along. There will be a post about the event in PACEs Connection. Dear Colleagues and Friends, I am excited to share that the Actions 4 ACEs campaign will launch tomorrow! Actions 4 ACEs will raise public awareness about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the simple - yet powerful - actions...
Blog Post
Community listening session on white supremacy, domestic threats, & youth extremism with The Division on Civil Rights (DCR)
DCR listening Sessions on White Supremacy Extremist will cover groups in the state, with the specific focus on how youth are recruited to these groups, the role social media plays in that recruitment, and how individuals and the community are harmed by these groups' hateful actions. These listening sessions are part of uplifting our 27 Youth Bias Taskforce Recommendations. Register: Wednesday, July 14th 6:30pm – 8:30pm - Click Here for Zoom Registration For those that are unable to attend...
Blog Post
Newark, NJ cop uses 'empathy, compassion' to save suicidal teen on roof
NEWARK — An officer was commended for removing a window and climbing out onto a roof to talk a teenage girl out of jumping. Newark Public Safety Director Brian A. O’Hara said Officer Elijah Melvin was part of the response to a report of "family trouble" at a home in the South Ward around 5 p.m. Wednesday. He spoke to the girl, who said she was upset about the loss of an older brother. Read More: NJ cop uses 'empathy, compassion' to save suicidal teen on roof | ...
Blog Post
Think you know something about historical trauma? PACEs Connection's 'Historical Trauma in America' series promises to be an eye-opener
Per: Jane Stevens , PACEs Connection staff. The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 unleashed hundreds of articles, books, podcasts, film and online documentaries. It’s not that the roots of racism and inequity in historical trauma hadn’t been known about or written about previous to his death (Frederick Douglas, James Baldwin, anyone?), but the pressures of hundreds of years of injustice began a near explosive untangling from the massive twisted and angry knot they’d formed over generations.
Blog Post
New Study Suggests Ending Group Care for Foster Youth BY JOHN KELLY | The Imprint
Astudy of life in institutions and group homes revealed firsthand testimony of poor nutrition, upended education and excessive use of psychiatric drugs, and urged an end to their use to house foster youth. A team of seven researchers produced “Away From Home: Youth Experiences of Institutional Placements in Foster Care,” some with lived experience in the child welfare system. “People can disagree about the extent of harm they do,” said Sandra Gasca-Gonzalez, the vice president of the Center...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Finding Peace in the Midst of Brokenness: Anonymous Blogger
In honor of mental health month I ask myself this question: What is something you need to start saying “yes” to? To most individuals the answer is very simple; minute. Unfortunately for an over thinker and self-doubter like I this is a loaded questions which constitutes a complex answer. My old self wants to run as fast as I can and hide until the question goes away, but the new me is ready to face it head on. So here it goes. I need to start saying yes to MYSELF! Over the past few months,...
Blog Post
NJEDA ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL $75 MILLION FOR COMMERCIAL PROJECTS UNDER ECONOMIC REDEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH (ERG) PROGRAM
TRENTON, N.J. (July 29, 2021) – The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) today announced a $75 million extension of the commercial component of the Economic Redevelopment and Growth (ERG) Program. The Authority also announced that the extended Residential ERG Program, which began accepting applications in June, has been expanded from $50 million to $125 million. More information about the ERG Program is available at https://www.njeda.com/erg . “Thanks to the foresight of...
Blog Post
How Every Child Can Thrive By Five - Molly Wright
"What if I was to tell you that a game of peek-a-boo could change the world?" asks seven-year-old Molly Wright, one of the youngest-ever TED speakers. Breaking down the research-backed ways parents and caregivers can support children's healthy brain development, Wright highlights the benefits of play on lifelong learning, behavior and well-being, sharing effective strategies to help all kids thrive by the age of five. She's joined onstage by one-year-old Ari and his dad, Amarjot, who help...
Blog Post
Simone Biles, ACEs and PCEs [positiveexperience.org/blog]
By the HOPE Team, 7/28/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Like so many people, we spent part of the weekend transfixed by the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Despite COVID, no crowds, and troubles with the Tokyo organizing committee, the athletes dazzled us with their speed, endurance and grace. In particular, Simone Biles seems superhuman – a woman who seems to defy gravity and performs gymnastic feats that had been thought to be impossible. She wears her past on her body and outfit: her collarbone bears...
Blog Post
Why pausing evictions likely won’t help kids harmed by housing uncertainty and instability | Lois M. Collins |
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has extended to Oct. 3 the moratorium on evicting tenants behind on paying for housing during the pandemic. The extension applies only in counties with “substantial” or “high” levels of community transmission of COVID-19. Not all tenants are shielded: They must be able to show they struggled financially because their incomes fell during the pandemic, they applied for rental assistance and they have paid as much as possible along the way. Even...
Blog Post
ACEs Training
We have two more trainings left!!! Register NOW!! Building Self-Healing Communities – Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences Join us for a 3-hour session on the impact of childhood trauma and its implications across the life course. The session will be interactive and will include small and large group dialog, reflection and time for questions and answers. Come ready to actively participate and engage with others on this journey! The Office of Resilience is presenting 3 great...
Blog Post
New Jersey Association for the Education of Young Children Annual Conference 2021
We’re back! The 2021 NJAEYC Annual Conference is scheduled for October 21 at the Hilton Meadowlands, New Jersey. We are changing the conference to one day this year and still plan on reaching as many early childhood educators as possible. The theme of this year’s conference is The Comeback Conference 2021. For additional information contact Helen Muscato, Conference Coordinator at (732) 329-0033 or online at mail@njaeyc.org Are you a student? Click here to apply to be an Annual Conference...
Blog Post
Your Brain Makes You a Different Person Every Day Our brains are wired for new sensations.
BY STEVE PAULSON OCTOBER 14, 2020 Brain “plasticity” is one of the great discoveries in modern science, but neuroscientist David Eagleman thinks the word is misleading. Unlike plastic, which molds and then retains a particular shape, the brain’s physical structure is continually in flux. But Eagleman can’t avoid the word. “The whole literature uses that term plasticity, so I use it sparingly,” he says. Eagleman also discounts computer analogies to the brain. He’s coined the term “livewired”...
Blog Post
New Jersey Hispanic Heritage Month Happenings
Dowdell Library On Sept. 27 , Dowdell Library will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Marcia Mercado by reading stories in Spanish and English, listening and dancing to traditional music and making crafts, including a Frida Kahlo mural created by the community. The online catalog makes it easy to search for resources focused on Hispanic history and lived experience. Jersey City Library The library will be honoring one of its own: Hugo Morales , an Ecuadorian-born artist who tragically...
Blog Post
Me & My Emotions: A New, Free Resource for Teens
The pandemic has had a lasting effect on youth mental health. Moved by a desire to reduce youth’s toxic stress and increase their resilience, The Dibble Institute, in partnership with a team of students and alumni from ArtCenter College of Design and author Carolyn Curtis, PhD, is releasing Me & My Emotions —a new, free adaptation of our beloved Mind Matters Curriculum. The mobile-friendly Me & My Emotions website features engaging graphics and bite-sized lessons teens can access and...
Blog Post
WHO honors exploited heroine - Henrietta Lacks
Cells taken from Henrietta Lacks without her consent have saved countless lives. By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA – The chief of the World Health Organization on Wednesday honored the late Henrietta Lacks, an American woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge during the 1950s and ended up providing the foundation for vast scientific breakthroughs, including research about the coronavirus. The recognition from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came more...
Blog PostFeatured
Position Statement: Social Equity In New Jersey Demands Appropriate Use of The ACE Study
The New Jersey ACES Collaborative1 is committed to pursuing a standard of excellence in the engagement, partnering, and servicing of New Jersey residents and communities. This commitment demands we continuously review and assess the unique and comprehensive ways we provide that service. In 2019, the Collaborative released Adverse Childhood Experiences: Opportunities to Prevent, Protect Against, and Heal from the Effects of ACEs in New Jersey. This report identified five areas of...
Blog Post
October is Domestic Violence Awareness
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and while the unfortunate truth is that domestic violence occurs all year-round, this month offers us the opportunity to continue to engage others about the social, emotional and economic impact domestic violence has on individuals, families and communities. On Thursday, October 21 st , we’ll be raising awareness by wearing PURPLE , the color that represents support for domestic violence victims and survivors. Resources can be found here DCF...
Blog Post
The Hidden Biases of Good People: Implicit Bias Awareness Training
The Dibble Institute is pleased to present an introductory webinar by Rev. Dr. Bryant T. Marks Sr. of the National Training Institute on Race and Equity , which will provide foundational information on implicit bias. It will focus at the individual level and discuss how implicit bias affects everyone. Strategies to reduce or manage implicit bias will be discussed. Broadly speaking, group-based bias involves varying degrees of stereotyping (exaggerated beliefs about others), prejudice...
Blog Post
Prison mandate for teen killers fought at top NJ court
Juveniles as young as 15 can be tried as adults in New Jersey, where they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. EMILEE LARKIN / October 26, 2021 TRENTON (CN) — The New Jersey Supreme Court pushed prosecutors on Tuesday to defend the constitutionality of a mandate that sends juveniles convicted of felony murder to prison for 30 years. Fighting the scheme is James Comer who was 17 years old in 2000 when one of his accomplices to four armed robberies shot and...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
ACEs Trainings Presented by The Office of Resilience
Building Self-Healing Communities – Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences Join us for a 3-hour session on the impact of childhood trauma and its implications across the life course. The session will be interactive and will include small and large group dialog, reflection and time for questions and answers. Come ready to actively participate and engage with others on this journey! The Office of Resilience is presenting SIX great opportunities for you to engage in starting January 2022.
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Connections Matter NJ Facilitator Training Announcement
Everyday connections are more important than we ever believed. Science tells us that relationships have the power to shape our brains. Relationships help us learn better, work better, parent better. When we experience tough times, they help us heal. With each connection, we develop a healthier, stronger community. Connections Matter is a healing-centered curriculum that teaches adults how to use the power of connections to help develop healthy brains and supportive relationships, prevent and...
Blog Post
Building the Movement workshop series
If you haven't already been joining our Building the Movement workshop series, I wanted to personally invite you to join the next free, virtual workshop that aims to provide stakeholders, advocates and practitioners the tools to integrate trauma-informed, resilience-focused and healing-centered approaches and principles into their daily operations. Please join us on Friday, March 4, 2022, from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. PT) as we focus on populations with high prevalence of...
Blog PostFeatured
ACE Interface ACEs Training Presented by The Office of Resilience
Building Self-Healing Communities – Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences Join us for a 3-hour session on the impact of childhood trauma and its implications across the life course. The session will be interactive and will include small and large group dialog, reflection and time for questions and answers. Come ready to actively participate and engage with others on this journey! The Office of Resilience is presenting SIX great opportunities for you to engage in starting January 2022.
Blog Post
Systemically Neglected How Racism Structures Public Systems to Produce Child Neglect
In recent years, more than a quarter of a million children each year have been removed from their families and placed in foster care because of alleged neglect and these children are disproportionately Black or Indigenous. Too often, circumstances stemming from poverty are construed as neglect, but underlying both poverty and neglect is historic and present-day racism. This report outlines the history of how child protective services developed to over-surveil families of color, examines how...
Blog Post
THIS FREE SUMMIT WILL CHANGE HOW YOU LOOK AT TRAUMA
Some people are unaware they have been through a traumatic experience. In fact, it can lay deep in the psyche for years… And sometimes, it’s only years later that we suddenly think: ‘Hang on, that thing I experienced, that was pretty traumatic – maybe I need to process it before I can move forwards in my life?’ TCCHE have proudly partnered with Quantum Way on this free summit to deepening the understanding of trauma and the sequence of events it can have throughout a person’s life. The...
Blog Post
Autism Awareness Month
In 1970, the Autism Society launched an ongoing nationwide effort to promote autism awareness and assure that all affected by autism are able to achieve the highest quality of life possible. In 1972, the Autism Society launched the first annual National Autistic Children’s week, which evolved into Autism Acceptance Month (AAM). This April, we continue our efforts to spread awareness, promote acceptance, and ignite change. The Autism Society of America, the nation’s oldest leading grassroots...
Blog Post
Somatic Trauma Healing Summit
with Dr. Peter Levine, Thomas Huebl, Jan Winhall, Dr. Albert Wong, Steve Hoskinson, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, Staci Haines, Lisa Dion, Dr. Angela Grayson, Dr. Ameet Aggarwal, Zeebha Khan, Kai Cheng Thom and Dr. Scott Lyons LIVE & ONLINE JUNE 18TH & 19TH, 2022 This two-day summit can be attended live or via the on-demand recordings. All class times are posted in Eastern Time / New York time zone. Click here to register and learn more ABOUT THIS SUMMIT Empower your healing journey and...
Blog Post
Pioneering child-advocacy office loses its leader
LILO H. STAINTON, HEALTH CARE WRITER | MAY 13, 2022 | HEALTH CARE Private funds paid his salary. NJ taxes covered the staff. Now he’s gone New Jersey generated a national buzz among child welfare experts when in June 2020 it launched the first state-level office devoted to childhood resilience and arranged for private foundations to pay the salary of the director. Two years later acclaimed director Dave Ellis is leaving the Department of Children and Families Office of Resilience. The...
Blog PostFeatured
The People’s Gathering - Healing NJ Together - September 22, 2022
The NJ People’s Gathering is a first of its kind, open, online learning collaborative conference, being held on September 22, 2022 , to bring together people from all walks of life to discuss healing solutions to the big issues affecting New Jersey’s communities: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Collective trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic Youth mental health and wellbeing Material Needs (homelessness, hunger) being experienced within our communities Substance Use Issues Racism,...
Blog Post
Highly-honored school nurse and nurse educator Robin Cogan calls PACEs Connection her ‘north star’; urges each member’s support!
Note: PACEs Connection is in dire financial straits. We are asking for support, from you, our 57,505 members, to help cover the loss of foundation funding that was promised and did not come through. Pay and hours have been cut for our staff—most of us will be laid off for the month of December. Another grant will pick up in January. Since sounding the alarm this summer, we’ve raised about $24,000 . To get a sense of who your fellow members are, who is donating and why, please enjoy and share...
Blog Post
Microgrant Moment - Be Inc. Collective
It was a Thursday evening around 6pm, and the youth center at UrbanPromise Ministries in Camden, NJ was a hive of activity. Kids buzzed with energy as parents signed in at the greeter table, while down the hall a line of eager possibly people were being served a hot meal before finding seats in the main room. Further down the hall was the childcare room bright with colors and activities awaiting little hands to use them. Welcome to the Be Inc. Collective Family Café! Brainchild of Siomara...
Blog Post
Healing New Jersey One Project At a Time
The First Round of RAC projects, funded by DCF’s Office of Resilience, is now five months into the grant period and we have seen some outstanding results. While three of our projects in the Central RAC are preparing to launch, five others are up and running. We are seeing creative project activities and curriculums, participants experiencing success, and programs evolving. Projects are currently serving Hunterdon, Union, Mercer, and Middlesex counties. One of the most exciting, inspiring...
Blog Post
Microgrant Moment - Build 360
Everything starts with a vision! The vision of one organization was curated with passion, dedication, persistence, and drive. NWON Opportunities, has been in business for years. Staff there are creating opportunities for young people, people of color, and women who have building construction skills and are between 18–25-years-old. In 2022, the Office of Resilience within the NJ Department of Children and Families created a microgrant program for communities to design programs that help to...
Blog Post
The NJ Office of Resilience Has Shifted Its Focus from Self-Healing Communities Model to Healing-Centered Engagement Model
The shift to a Healing-Centered Engagement Model releases culture as a root cause of trauma, to instead celebrate the intrinsic resilience and the capacity to promote PCEs that ethnic history, racial and other social identities afford. This is particularly important for white, privileged communities to embrace, given their historical diminishment of non-white cultures.
Blog Post
embrella's Power to End Adverse Childhood Experiences (P.E.A.C.E.) Initiative
Work within or interact with the child welfare community in New Jersey and want to get involved in a movement to prevent childhood adversity? You're invited to participate in embrella's P.E.A.C.E. Initiative! Our goal is to Help Build a Connected and Healthy New Jersey Child Welfare Community embrella’s inaugural Power to End Adverse Childhood Experiences (P.E.A.C.E.) Initiative is a year-long series of Educational Workshops and Family/Community Engagement Events for foster, adoptive, and...
Blog Post
Microgrant Moment - Holy Family Parrish
A small purple ukulele sat inside Deacon Nelson’s office, waiting for its next musician. Deacon Nelson picked it up and started to play. “ The ukulele is easy to play. It is a soft instrument.” Deacon Nelson’s connection to music is clear – music has the ability to heal, to calm the noise all around. A guitar player himself, Deacon Nelson wanted to give this same gift of music to the youth of his community. He landed on the ukulele because of its relative affordability and ease of playing.
Blog Post
Registration Open! Maternal Health Innovation & Reproductive Health ECHO Series Starts 1/9/24
We are very excited to share that registration for the new Maternal Health Innovation & Reproductive Health ECHO series is open. The ECHO will be on Tuesdays from 8:00 am – 9:00 am on Zoom (starting 1/9/24) and CEs are available. Thank you to those who have already registered! Please register for the ECHO series here: https://bit.ly/MHI-RH-ECHO You can find more information (such as the series curriculum and dates) on our website here:...