Tagged With "African American"
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WHY FAMILY SUPPORT MATTERS? (Its Importance for Strengthening Resilience from Adverse Childhood Experiences-ACEs)
Graduation day - a picture of my mother and me after I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice (Corrections) studies from Kent State University in June 1977. This was seven years after that fateful summer of 1970 when my mother and I realized that our family needed some help. When I look back at that time, I marvel at the love of GOD and the love from both parents as they began to realize that the harmful consequences of their domestic violence squabbles and of my father’s...
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Why Kids With ACEs Shouldn't Get a Pass on Chores
Don't worry that chores are too stressful for kids with ACEs, says trauma researcher Bob Sege, MD. “You don’t want to coddle them,” Sege said, “because the message they will get is that they are damaged goods. They need to know that the adversity they suffered is only one part of them; it’s not all of them.”
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Why Mandating Mental Health Education in Schools is a Band-Aid on a Gaping Wound
Don’t get me wrong: of course I care deeply about the mental and physical health of children, including my own son’s. I don’t want students to suffer in silence and shame. But I am very concerned about just how this topic will be taught in schools.
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Why Resilience is Harmful and How to Improve it
Resilience is awesome, but also poses some risks and challenges. In 2012 a special edition of the Social Justice Studies academic research journal explored some of the risks. An intro and 5 academic research articles go very deeply into the topic of the "Dangers of Resilience Promotion." All the articles can be downloaded free at this link. https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SSJ/issue/view/70 I will attempt to summarize those 6 articles here in common language, cuz the articles are...
Ask the Community
Help our public radio station with our reporting: How did separation from your parents as a child impact you?
KQED is the NPR-affiliate public radio station based in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How did it impact you as a parent? We’re interested in this topic due to recent news of parents and children being separated at the U.S.-Mexico...
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Native American Children Protected in Groundbreaking Foster Care Settlement [youthtoday.org]
By Bette Fleishman, Youth Today, May 8, 2020 For decades, we have repeated and recapitulated: Our nation’s foster care system is broken. New Mexico, which receives the lowest markers of child wellbeing and the second-highest level of childhood poverty, has, not coincidentally, one the worst child welfare systems in the nation. It is largely coercive and punitive, and disproportionately targets low-income children of color. Further, 23 Native American tribes and pueblos are located in the...
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New ACEs data on Kidsdata.org
On behalf of California Essentials for Childhood, I am very excited to announce the release of a new Child Adversity and Resilience data topic on Kidsdata.org! This has been a collaborative effort between the CA Essentials for Childhood Initiative's Shared Data and Outcomes Work Group and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. I represent ACEs Connection Network on Essentials and am the co-chair of the Shared Data & Outcomes Work Group so I couldn't be more thrilled about...
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New County Health Rankings Show Differences in Health and Opportunity by Place and Race [rwjf.org]
Princeton, N.J. and Madison, Wis .—For nearly a decade, the County Health Rankings have shown that where we live makes a difference in how well and how long we live. This year, our analysis shows that meaningful health gaps persist not only by place but also by race and ethnicity. These health gaps are largely influenced by differences in opportunities that disproportionately affect people of color, such as access to quality education, jobs, and safe, affordable housing. This year’s report...
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New Study Details The Long Shadows Cast on Children After Parents Are Locked Up [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Giles Bruce, Center for Health Journalism, August 26, 2019 Incarcerating parents doesn’t just affect them, but can also have a major mental health impact on the children left behind, even as those kids become adults. That’s the crux of a new study published in JAMA Network Open that crystallizes the long-term psychological effects of having a caregiver behind bars. It comes at a time when an estimated 8% of American children have had a parent or guardian imprisoned. Previous research has...
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“No Coincidence, No Story.” Lisa See Inspires (www.healwritenow.com)
(Cissy's note: This is a post my sister, Karyn White Doherty, wrote for my blog about an event she organized with her book club. I share it here because it's about loss, grief, and ACEs as well as about what heals - relationships, community, and sharing stories. If you have been dealing with extreme weather or life conditions the last few days, and find reading or writing to be a soothing and wonderful escape, I hope you enjoy this. My sister is the best!) How does an author bring about...
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Opioid Addiction: Advice for Parents
Given the way the media portray opioid addiction, it's natural to react with panic or moral outrage when you discover your child struggling with the problem. It's not natural to calm down and try to view your child as someone who is using opioids to cope with serious problems, though that is likely the case, according to research.
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Parent-Child Therapy Helps Young Children With Depression (scienceblog.com)
Children as young as 3 can be clinically depressed, and often that depression recurs as kids get older and go to school. It also can reappear during adolescence and throughout life. But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that an interactive therapy involving parents and their depressed children can reduce rates of depression and lower the severity of children’s symptoms. The findings are published June 20 in The American Journal of...
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Parenting: A Cultural Perspective from Dr. Darcia Narvaez and Others
My first foray into the world of social services led me to become involved with what I thought was an under-appreciated aspect of parenting: the role of a father and the problems caused by an absent father. I drew from my own experience growing up. My parents first separated when I was about four-and-a-half years old. There were four children in our family. The youngest was only about six months old when the separation happened. My parents reconciled long enough for a fifth child to be...
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Parenting Advice from Kahlil Gibran (dailygood.org)
Art by Alessandro Sanna from Crescendo . A century ago, perched between two worlds and two World Wars, the Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) addressed these elemental questions with sensitive sagacity in a short passage from The Prophet ( public library ) — the 1923 classic that also gave us Gibran on the building blocks of true friendship , the courage to weather the uncertainties of love , and what may be the finest advice ever...
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Parenting’s Troubled History
As we learned from the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , negative childhood experiences are often kept secret, downplayed, or repressed because of our powerful desire to put such things behind us. Unfortunately, our minds and our brains don’t work that way. Patterns can play out automatically, no matter how hard we try to be original and create our own realities. Just as it is important to know family medical history (e.g., diabetes or tuberculosis) it is equally important to know about our...
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Parenting stress associated with epigenetic differences in African American mothers [medicalxpress.com]
Parenting can be stressful - and this stress may be influencing the DNA methylation of African American mothers, finds a new study led by NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. Stress can contribute to a range of health problems, including high blood pressure and heart disease - health issues that are particularly pervasive among African American women. The stress that parents feel in their roles adds to overall maternal stress...
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Parenting with PTSD: Breaking the Cycle Without Falling Apart - Event
I'm thrilled to offer a workshop at Riverside Trauma Center in Massachusetts in Dec. I'll be speaking as a parent-writer-trauma survivor perspective about ACEs and parenting with post-traumatic stress. The talk, geared mostly to clinicians and social workers and I'm eager to talk about parenting with ACEs (this group and in general). More about Riverside Trauma Center and the workshop, below. Riverside Trauma Center . a service of Riverside Community Care, helps people in Massachusetts...
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Perinatal Trauma Informed Care and the Trauma Sensitive Intake
Monday, March 4, marks the beginning of Birth Psychology Month for the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Pyschology and Health (APPPAH). This monthlong celebration features a panel of speakers around trauma informed practices for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care. APPPAH received a grant for this project, so live lectures are free. Our first two speakers will be on Monday at 7 pm and 8:30 pm Eastern time. Jennie Birkholz, Principal of Breakwater Light, LLC, Trauma informed educator...
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Personal Touch Beats Technology for Parent-School Communication, Survey Finds [edweek.org]
By Jake Maher, Education Week, February 20, 2020 A new report from the Center for American Progress finds that personalization—not technology—is seen as the most important feature of good parent-school communication by key players in the public school community. CAP senior consultant Meg Benner and research associate Abby Quirk surveyed more than 900 parents who were broadly representative of the public school population, along with more than 400 teachers and more than 400 school leaders, to...
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Podcast Episode: "Community Data into Action: An African American Breastfeeding Blueprint" (28 min)
The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is excited to share the seventh episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. Episode 7: Community Data into Action: An African American Breastfeeding Blueprint Headquartered in Atlanta,...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Power of Family Resilience to Protect Children From Bullying [sciencedaily.com]
By American Academy of Pediatrics, Science Daily, October 25, 2019 Studies show that children exposed to childhood trauma known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at increased risk of being bullied or bullying others. New research being presented at the American American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2019 National Conference & Exhibition suggests that family resilience -- the ability to work together to overcome problems, for example -- reduces this risk. The research abstract,...
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Pregnant Behind Bars: What We Do And Don't Know About Pregnancy And Incarceration [NPR]
There are 111,616 incarcerated women in the United States, a 7-fold increase since 1980. Some of these women are pregnant, but amid reports of women giving birth in their cells or shackled to hospital beds , prison and public health officials have no hard data on how many incarcerated women are pregnant, or on the outcomes of those pregnancies. A study published in The American Journal of Public Health Thursday changes that. The study included 57 percent of the US prison population (New...
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Programs work from within to prevent black maternal deaths: Workers targeting root cause — Racism [APHA]
By Kim Krisberg, Aug 2019, American Public Health Association Twenty years ago, working at the bedside in a maternity ward, Hakima Tafunzi Payne saw first-hand how poorly black women were often treated. “People didn’t go out with the intention to be racist, but you still saw the impact that racism had,” said Payne, MSN, RN, a labor and delivery nurse. “Black families were always held to a different standard, seen as more suspect. White patients were given leeway that black patients were...
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Progress Stalls on Child Poverty, According to New Data [datacenter.kidscount.org]
By Kids Count Data Center, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, September 27, 2019 In 2018, 13 million children in the United States — 18% of all kids — were living in poverty, and for the first time since 2014, the percentage did not decrease compared to the previous year. This is discouraging news; all children should have the economic security that provides them the opportunity to thrive. However, the share of children in poverty remains significantly lower than its recent peak of 23%, seen in...
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Pueblo, CO, clinic rewrites the book on primary medical care by asking patients about their childhood adversity
In October 2015 in Pueblo, CO, the staff members of a primary care medical clinic – Southern Colorado Family Medicine at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center – start asking parents of newborn babies to kids five years old about the parents’ adverse childhood experiences and the resilience factors in their lives. They ask the same questions of pregnant women and their partners in the hospital’s high-risk obstetrics clinic. The results are so positive after the first year that the clinic starts...
Comment
Re: ACEs-, Trauma-Informed, and Resilience-Building Parenting Programs
Another program addressing reducing ACEs, particularly related to addiction is Celebrating Families!™ - a family-centered, skill-building program serving children ages birth through 17, their parents, and caregivers. This evidence-based program, available from the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA),emphasizes healthy living skills including addiction prevention/recovery; attachment; the development of a sense of hope and expanded life view; reduction of stress/anxiety;...
Comment
Re: ACEs-, Trauma-Informed, and Resilience-Building Parenting Programs
I added a comment on the site a few days ago. Would like NACoA's Celebrating Families! added to the list. Description (which I added to the site) attached. Rosemary Rosemary Tisch, Program Developer Celebrating Families! National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) rstisch@gmail.com, 408-406-0467 www.celebratingfamilies.net www.nacoa.org
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ACE Fact Sheets to Give Your Doctors, Patients & Beyond (free downloads)
I was first inspired to create a fact sheet summarizing the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) after reading a comment in “Got Your ACE score?” A reader wished she had a form to give her doctor that documented the vast body of evidence explaining how early trauma increases risk for chronic physical and mental health conditions and much more.
I could relate.
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ACE Member Discount 18th Annual Families and Fathers National Conference Limited
I am sharing a 20% discount and that U.S. OCSE as well as trauma experts are actively participating with a special series on March 1st at the 18th Annual Families & Fathers National Conference, "Never Giving Up - Breakthrough 2017", will be hosted by Fathers & Families Coalition of America from February 27 - March 3, 2017 in Los Angeles, CA. Early Bird Registration is now open with full event, two-day or one-day options for individuals to customize their training. The focus of this...
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ACE Surveillance Study of Teachers and Administrators in Public and Private Schools in Southwest Nigeria, West Africa
Note: These findings were presented at the Child Trauma Conference in Lagos on October 25-26, 2019. Rationale: Many children today live with layers of stress both subtle and overt which in this report are collectively referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Specifically, these ACEs are physical, emotional and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; household dysfunction and domestic violence as well as community violence. The children have a life marked by chaos,...
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ACEs & African Americans Community on ACEs Connection
ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...
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ACEs champion pediatricians talk about life and practice in a COVID-19 world
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers everywhere are changing how they care for their patients. I asked a few members of the ACEs in Pediatrics community what they’re doing differently. Dr. R.J Gillespie, pediatrician at The Children’s Clinic in Portland, OR. Dr. R.J. Gillespie Gillespie says that, as much as possible, they’re switching to virtual visits, which allows them “to comfort and reassure our patients face-to-face as much as possible without risking their...
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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ACEs Research Corner — January 2020
Research papers this month include links between ACEs and bullying, dropping out of high school, adult disability, and the effects of countering ACEs.
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ACEs Science and Racism
This is a collection of resources regarding structural racism and trauma. This list aims to give a broad overview and is not all-inclusive. We welcome suggestions; if you have any, please comment below! The titles below and the PDFs in attachments are in alphabetical order. BSC Full Report Trauma Resilient Informed City Baltimore: This is the full report of the work, data, lessons, and direct quotes from several teams of people from various backgrounds in the Baltimore community as they...
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ACEs Science Champion Series: Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
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Adolescent Suicide Up 87 Percent Over Last Decade; LGBT and American Indian/Alaskan Native Teens at Highest Risk [prnewswire.com]
By Trust for America's Health, October 29, 2019 Adolescent suicide deaths have spiked over the last decade and substance misuse including vaping is exacting a heavy toll on teens according to a report released today by Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and Well Being Trust (WBT). The report, Addressing a Crisis: Cross-Sector Strategies to Prevent Adolescent Substance Misuse and Suicide finds that, while progress has been made in reducing some risky behaviors, adolescent suicide and substance...
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Alarming Suicide Trends In African American Children: An Urgent Issue [SAMHSA]
The suicide rate among African American children aged 5 to 11 years has increased substantially since 1993 and is persisting, according to Dr. Jeffrey Bridge, a leading researcher at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In 1993 suicide ranked as the 14 th leading cause of death among this population. Today it’s the 10 th leading cause of death—with rates nearly twice that of their White counterparts. While it is not intuitive and is difficult to understand, suicide ranks as a leading cause of...
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'All The Rage' Isn't About Moms Having It All — It's About Moms Doing It All [npr.org]
Darcy Lockman conducted interviews with 50 women about the division of labor in their households, and she heard a lot of anger and a lot of gratitude. The gratitude concerned her — here's why: "It was actually a way of walking back their own anger," she says. Women would express legitimate grievances and then say: "But I know women who are in worse situations, so I don't want to complain too much." In her new book, Lockman demonstrates why women have every right to complain. All the Rage:...
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American Academy of Pediatrics Addresses Racism and Its Health Impact on Children and Teens [aap.org]
By Maria Trent, et. al., American Academy of Pediatrics, July 29, 2019 Racism has a profound impact on children’s health. With the goal of helping all children reach their full potential, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is publishing new recommendations on ways to lessen the impact of racism on children and teens. In the policy statement, “ Racism and Its Impact on Child and Adolescent Health ,” the AAP calls on pediatricians to create welcoming, culturally competent medical...
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American Academy of Pediatrics Addresses Racism and Its Health Impact on Children and Teens [aap.org]
By Maria Trent, et. al., American Academy of Pediatrics, July 29, 2019 Racism has a profound impact on children’s health. With the goal of helping all children reach their full potential, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is publishing new recommendations on ways to lessen the impact of racism on children and teens. In the policy statement, “ Racism and Its Impact on Child and Adolescent Health ,” the AAP calls on pediatricians to create welcoming, culturally competent medical...
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[Announcement] 3 Part-Series on ACEs from "Terrible, Thanks for Asking" (Podcast) [ttfa.org]
Hosted By Nora McInerny, Terrible, Thanks for Asking, October 28 2019 'Terrible, Thanks for Asking' the award winning podcast hosted by Nora McInerny and produced by American Public Media (AMP), challenges real people to candidly discuss their feelings. Beginning November 5, 2019 'Terrible, Thanks for Asking' will be asking guests to share the experiences and challenges they encountered while growing up with ACEs. With the knowledge that adversity and trauma has harmful implications later in...
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Augmenting Attention Treatment Therapies for Difficult-to-Treat Anxiety in Children and Adolescents [sciencedaily.com]
By Science Daily, December 19, 2019 Between 30 to 50 percent of youth in the United States diagnosed with an anxiety disorder fail to respond to cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT). A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that computer-based attention training could reduce anxiety in children and adolescents. "CBT is the leading evidence-based psychosocial treatment," said co-lead author Jeremy Pettit, PhD, a...
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Author Hopes to Put Her Emotions Journals in the Hands of Girls in Every State
Back in the spring, I was in the middle of putting together a panel on community interventions for ACEs when the conference planning chair suggested adding Tara Shephard. We had an amazing panel that day, but Tara hit it out of the park. Her love and care for African-American girls in Arkansas and the adversities they face was apparent in every word she spoke that day. To give some background, Tara is an author, education and mental health advocate; an auditor for the American Correctional...
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Breastfeeding myths in the African-American community (www.breastfeedingrose.org)
New moms get a lot of baby advice. Although people usually mean well, not all of it is based on fact. Myths about breastfeeding are common. The fact is that breastfeeding is a healthy way to feed your baby. The decision to breastfeed is a personal one, and it should also be an informed one. So let’s clear up some of the myths you may have heard. Myth: Everyone uses formula. More women breastfeed than you think. According to the latest Breastfeeding Report Card by the Centers for Disease...
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CA pediatrician develops, tests, gets state OK for whole-child assessment tool that includes ACEs
Over the last dozen years or so, many pediatricians, astounded by the ramifications of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the children they care for, began integrating this science into their practices. The most common approach has been to ask parents about ACEs using a questionnaire, and to use this information to counsel parents and identify resources for the family. Different practices have been using different questionnaires: Some ask parents for their ACE scores...
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CA pediatrician develops, tests, gets state OK for whole-child assessment tool that includes ACEs
[Editor's note: This blog was first posted in April 2017. Dr. Marie-Mitchell updated the assessment by modifying a few of the questions, so we are republishing with the new assessment, one in Spanish and one in English.] Over the last dozen years or so, many pediatricians, astounded by the ramifications of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the children they care for, began integrating this science into their practices. The most common approach has been to ask parents...
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Childhood Trauma, Addiction, and Eating Disorders (Psychology Today)
By Carolyn C. Ross M.D., M.P.H. April 29, 2020, Real Healing. What Native American, African Americans, and Holocaust survivors have in common. Have you ever thought about traumatic experiences as having their roots in the lives of your parents or grandparents? Trauma can be defined as the loss of an essential part of ourselves — a sense of safety, of trust or security. Trauma ultimately has the ability to define our behaviors, actions, and sense of self. More and more research is also...