Tagged With "Healing Collective Trauma in the Time"
Blog Post
Gathering in Topeka, Kansas for the Educators’ Art of Facilitation continued
We can not solve problems from a distance from ourselves or from each other. The way we muster the courage to heal is to walk the journey together. Any effort to create policy change, structural change, or even programatic change will not succeed unless there is an explicit healing perspective. It begins with a deep understanding that we all come hurt and that those hurts often mean that in striving to relieve our own pain we hurt each other. “Hurt people, hurt people.” It is simplicity on...
Blog Post
GEAR Up for Co-Parenting (Generational Education Aiding Resiliency)
We are very excited to introduce this new program at the Wexford / Missaukee Friend of the Court as our part of a larger scale initiative to build resilience in families and our community as a whole. As it relates to our clients here at FOC, our Gear Up program helps parents to identify separation and divorce as a common adverse childhood experience which can have lifelong negative affects throughout the lifespan. We hope parents will take away from it real tools they can use to minimize...
Blog Post
Get results with better parenting conversations video series (www.successfulsurvivors.org)
I found a great series of parenting videos today . While they are geared towards helping foster parents communicate, build trust and handle challenging situations - the videos are great for all parents. The advice is kind, wise and sound - especially for those of us Parenting with ACEs. It’s nice to hear about parenting and traumatic stress in relation to working through real-life conflicts and situations. The videos are accessible and show how body language, shaming or the facial...
Blog Post
Girls are Bearing the Brunt of a Rise in US Cyberbullying [apnews.com]
By Sally Ho, Associated Press, July 26, 2019 SEATTLE (AP) — Rachel Whalen remembers feeling gutted in high school when a former friend would mock her online postings, threaten to unfollow or unfriend her on social media and post inside jokes about her to others online. The cyberbullying was so distressing that Whalen said she contemplated suicide. Once she got help, she decided to limit her time on social media. It helps to take a break from it for perspective, said Whalen, now a 19-year-old...
Blog Post
Girls From Low-Income Backgrounds Are Truanting Because They Can’t Afford Sanitary Products (www.buzzfeed.com) & Commentary
Girls from lower-income backgrounds are missing days of school because they can’t afford sanitary products. A campaigner with Freedom4Girls, a organisation that provides women and girls in Kenya with sanitary products, told BuzzFeed News they were contacted by a concerned police officer working in a school in Leeds who had noticed a pattern in some girls’ truancy. “There is a problem, but we just don’t know how big,” campaigner Tina Leslie told BuzzFeed News. She was told by the officer,...
Blog Post
Going beyond asking what happened: building beloved community
“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” –bell hooks One of the most notable descriptors of trauma-informed care is shifting the question of what is wrong...
Blog Post
Good Parenting vs. Bad Neighborhood
Hello my name is Julius Patterson. I am currently a intern at Hopeworks N' Camden. I am twenty three years old and i am also a student at Camden County College. I found this article very intriguing because of past situations that i have encountered and i feel like i can relate on a personal level. Growing Up In Disadvantaged Areas May Affect teens Brains, But Good Parenting May Help By: Sarah Whittle, Julian G.Simmons, Nick Allen Summary & Analysis by: Julius Patterson Growing up in...
Blog Post
Grace Mattern: The importance of recognizing white privilege [concordmonitor.com]
The last time you handled a challenge well, were you called a credit to your race? When you go shopping, do store clerks watch you closely or follow you? Do you have trouble finding a hair salon nearby that knows how to style your hair? When you buy greeting cards and magazines, is it difficult to find ones with people the same race as you? If you answered no to these questions, you’re almost certainly white. There’s also a good chance you’ve never looked at your whiteness this way.
Blog Post
Great Basic Parenting Tips & Why I Have Such a Hard Time Sharing Them
At least once a week I struggle about what to share here. This is my most recent example. It's a series of tips on the U.S. Department of Education . These are great hand-outs with comprehensive information about child development that's not too long, abstract or hard to read. Here's the list (also attached below). I especially like the flyer for talking about feelings which has the tag line "Talking is teaching." And the short summary of milestones at different ages and stages from birth to...
Blog Post
Greatest Mother’s Day Gift
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I have been given the greatest gift a mother could ask, my daughter- back. Last year a month before Mother’s Day I began a heart wrenching journey. My oldest daughter was in a serious car accident. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, broken neck, broken back, broken foot, but she was alive. She was a single mom. I became the guardian of my toddler grandson. I wasn’t prepared to become a mother in that way again. I was prepared to be a doting, spoiling...
Blog Post
Ground-breaking Bible study on trauma-informed ministry/ACEs now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble
I've been busy trying to make the study as accessible and available to those interested in sharing trauma-informed principles within their churches and fellowships, and I am pleased to announce a few new developments: First, the study is available as an e-book on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. In fact, to celebrate the release of the book on Barnes and Noble, you can get the study for half price through June 15. Just use the code BNPCHRIS50) at check out! Click HERE to go directly to the...
Blog Post
Group Name Change
Hi folks, In order to streamline our efforts, the "Infant Bonding and Community Support" group will now be called "ACEs In Parenting." The "ACEs In Parenting group will focus on ACEs-, trauma-informed, and resilience-building education,...
Blog Post
Growing Up in Today's World is NOT Easy: One Student's Story
Growing up in today's world is NOT easy. I have heard hundreds of students tell me this. Despite this fact, many of them have also told me that many of the adults in their lives don't seem to understand this, including parents, teachers, and society. Adults who are disconnected from the reality of the lives of the youth that they are around will not be able to completely understand how to provide the support that might be needed for those youth needing it most. I recently met a young woman...
Blog Post
Growth through Trauma-Informed Strategies: Coaching and Consultation with Rick Griffin
There is a Chinese proverb that states, “If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people." The benefits are evident, yet the real question becomes, “how do you grow people?” This Big Idea Session, CRI’s Trauma Coaching and Trauma Consultation Training, answers this question. Schools, organizations, and parents are discovering that the traditional “command and control” style of working with...
Blog Post
Guidance for Teachers and Counselors to Help Kids at Risk at Home
People are beginning to be aware that one result of the increased stress around COVID-19 is the tragic fact that child abuse and neglect is increasing, but the safety net provided by schools is no longer in place. Teachers and counselors can continue to be a hero to students in this time of crisis, and can help mitigate the negative impact of traumatic events and stress. Caregivers might not be able to do it alone. We (Dr. Rachel Gilgoff, a child abuse pediatrician and trauma expert, and...
Blog Post
Guilt vs. Shame (www.nicabm.com)
There's a blog post by Ruth Buczynski, PhD on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine website that links to a great infographic explaining the difference between guilt and shame. It's worth checking out. What I found most helpful though is something I've never really heard of or understood - irrational guilt. Irrational guilt is defined as "a feeling of psychological discomfort about something we've done against our irrationally high standards." Who knew? I...
Blog Post
Happy Halloween
Goblins and ghosts don’t scare me. What scares me is what scares many grandparents across the U.S., a grandchild at risk. Recently I was talking with a friend about my situation as guardian of my grandson, and she confided in me. She told me she’s scared every time her grandson goes back home with his mom. My friend “helps out” when her daughter finds herself in a tough spot. My friend worries there’s enough for her grandson to eat when he’s home with his mom. She worries he’s safe from the...
Blog Post
Listening to Ebony Stewart's Voice: The Complexity of ACEs (www.youtube.com)
Ebony Stewart doing spoken word about her father and her mother and childhood from an adult perspective. Ebony Stewart doing spoken word about adverse childhood experiences and adverse community experiences as lived. Ebony Stewart speaking about speaking up and silence and using her voice and the experience of being threatened and silenced. Too often, when we talk about ACEs we aren't speaking in first person or about the complexity of real-life experiences. Often, we're speaking in general...
Blog Post
Happy Mother's Day! Remembering The Greatest Generation of Moms...
“I waited.
And waited…
And then…I waited some more.”
Blog Post
Harvard Infographic on ACEs and Toxic Stress
This was just posted by Harvard. I thought all of us could use access to it, for use in our schools and the settings we work in. The full image is on the attached PDF.
Blog Post
Having-a-baby.com / Ann Douglas
Few things challenge my attention span more than sleep deprivation or anxiety. Combine both with with parenting babies or toddlers and retaining anything at all is unlikely. It's why I love videos. I discovered some short, warm and accessible ones today done by mother and author, Ann Douglas, on the www.havingababy.com website. Her videos are only a minute long and geared towards parents of infants, toddlers and kids in grade school. I would have loved these when my daughter was younger.
Blog Post
Healing ACEs
I am writing you this post as a past president of the Michigan Association of School Psychologists and adoptive father of two foster children with special needs. My wife, Barbara, and I have written two books concerning educating and raising abused and abandoned children. Because these books will be helpful to both parents and teachers I am posting this letter to education and parenting pages. They are: Some Way Home – A Memoir in a Myth and Crossing Infinity – Healing Our Children Ourselves...
Blog Post
Healing Developmental Trauma
Last week I posted an article about the Harvard study on happiness, which found that strong social connections are the primary driver of happiness. No surprise there. What struck me, however, is how these findings relate to ACEs. I had just finished reading Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship , which addresses this very issue. From the back cover: “Although it may seem that people suffer from an endless number...
Blog Post
Healing From Childhood Trauma — AVAIYA University online course, July 29 - Aug. 6
AVAIYA University is hosting a free online class, Healing From Childhood Trauma, July 29 - August 6, that features 18 physicians, therapists, psychologists & more who share life-changing strategies to heal from childhood trauma. Featured in the course are Dr. Dan Siegel on "Trauma & Mindfulness", Dr. Jamie Marich on "Healing the Wounds of Childhood Trauma", and Ann Kelley and Sue Marriott on "U nderstanding Unresolved Attachment to Heal From Loss & Trauma." I'm doing a session on...
Blog Post
Healing from Codependency and the Freedom that Awaits
There is no healing without recognition of that which needs to be healed. Someone who has clogged arteries cannot heal those clogged arteries if they are unaware they have clogged arteries. To heal mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, or cognitively first requires an acknowledgment of some kind of deficit or wound. In order to acknowledge a wound one must become conscious or self-aware of such wound.
Blog Post
Healing in place: Game on to flip the COVID19 threat into a positive experience for our children
As I was considering the children sheltering-in-place this morning and reflecting on lessons from my own childhood, I wondered: Can we heal-in-place too? I was born after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, another collective trauma affecting everyone. Yet, it was nevertheless passed on to me by the adults in my life in the form of constant reminders that the U.S. could be blown into bits any second. When I started school, there were constant “hide under the chair” earthquake drills I took to be...
Blog Post
Healing Is Possible
I devoted half of my book, Childhood Disrupted , to science-based interventions on how individuals can heal from the effects of ACEs. Here are some of the basics. H ere are some really important healing steps we can all take – which the science shows can help reverse the changes to our brains and DNA that might have occurred, growing up with ACES Writing to heal. Research shows individuals who write about emotional upheavals and stressful experiences for 20 minutes each day, over a period of...
Blog Post
Healing Our Ghosts Podcast Debuts (www.wrestlingghosts.com)
Healing Our Ghosts is a new podcast created by filmmaker, Ana Joanes who describes it as follows: Cissy White Victor Lee Lewis, MA Elizabeth Kemler Joyelle Brandt
Blog Post
Healing Our Ghosts Podcast Series in 2019 (www.wrestlingghosts.com)
Ana Joanes, the Director of the film, Wrestling Ghosts has a new podcast series and it's fantastic. If you are hungry for honest conversations about developmental trauma, healing, how ACEs impact children and the adults we become, you will want to tune in. The most recent guest is Sebern Fisher, author of Neurofeedback for Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain . It's one of the best interviews I've heard with Sebern (and I've listened to lots). There are interviews with varied...
Blog Post
Healing through Trauma through Writing & Peer Support (www.grassgetsgreener.com)
I was interviewed by Melissa Wilson for The Grass Gets Greener podcast. She's interviewed over 100 survivors and I was honored to speak about developmental trauma, PTSD and the healing process - and even a little about ACEs and this group. It's a little bit embarrassing to share here because I have not exactly been speedy when it comes to healing. The process, which started in my early 20's, had been slow and isolating. However, I know I'm not unique and in general, there's still too little...
Blog Post
Health Care System Fails Many Transgender Americans (npr.org)
In the basement of Casa Ruby in Washington, D.C., transgender men and women in their late teens and 20s, mostly brown or black, shared snacks, watched TV, chatted or played games on their phones. Many of them, said Corado, are part of the 31 percent. That's 31 percent of transgender Americans who lack regular access to health care. The finding comes from a new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Corado pointed to one crucial word...
Blog Post
Health Starts at Home
Hello, I thought I would post a little bit about the Health Starts at Home project we have began in West Virginia and some of the tools we are providing to parents. Our project is in a federally qualified health center and is aimed at screening for ACEs in children and prenatal patients. We are hoping to capture patients and children who have experienced 4 or more ACEs and provide information, education and resources to alleviate the effects of the toxic stress ACEs cause. In terms of...
Blog Post
Healthy Spaces December 2019 Webinars
Healthy Spaces: Promoting Healthy and Resilient Communities December 2019 Webinars Funding provided by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families The New Jersey Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (NJAAP) believes that all children deserve to feel safe and secure in their home, at school, and while at play. The Healthy Spaces program aims to address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) through partnerships with pediatric/family healthcare teams, schools and communities.
Blog Post
Helicopter vs. Free-Range Parenting: How The Child-Rearing Techniques Affect Kids' Adult Lives [MedicalDaily.com]
Parents often say that raising a child is one of the most rewarding and important roles you'll ever play. While there is no clear “best” way to raise a child, recent survey results from Kobe University in Japan have revealed the lasting effects that different rearing techniques can have on children’s personalities, wealth, and overall happiness after they’ve left the nest. For the project, the researchers surveyed 5,000 women and men about their relationships with their parents during...
Blog Post
Helping children from going limbic (www.fatherhoodchannel.com)
Cissy's note: Excerpts from the most helpful article I have read so far about parenting during COVID-19 are below, from the Fatherhood Channel. It reminds me that my curiosity, interest, and ability to offer a safe space are most important even if my inclination is to want to know what to say and to do. It's an article that helped me exhale instead of feeling guilty - and that alone is a relief.
Blog Post
Helping Children in Emergencies: Keep Your Child’s Developmental Stage and Temperament in Mind
By Karissa Luckett, RN, BSN, MSW Common reactions to stress will fade over time for most children. Let’s be honest: Your exploring, tactile toddler won’t suddenly start keeping their hands to themselves. Your continually forgetful preschooler won’t suddenly start hand-washing properly just because you’ve told them it’s important. Depending on their ages, stages and temperaments, some children will require more reassurance or more time to shift than others. This situation is unique, and so is...
Blog Post
Helping Children Succeed—Without the Stress [TheAtlantic.com]
In the now-famous “marshmallow” experiments, researchers at Stanford tested preschoolers’ self-control and ability to delay gratification by sitting them in a room alone with a tempting treat and measuring how long they were able to wait. Years later, those kids who resisted temptation the longest also tended to have the highest academic achievement. In fact, their ability to delay eating the marshmallow was a better predictor of their future academic success than their IQ scores. Further...
Blog Post
Helping Dads Support Their Kids’ Health and Development (rwjf.org)
Research shows that children and moms benefit when dads are actively engaged in their kids’ health and development. A new study examines barriers that make it difficult for some fathers to be involved and how to overcome them. This Sunday, families around the country will celebrate Father’s Day and pay tribute to the special caregivers in their lives. It’s a time when I find myself feeling especially grateful for all the positive ways my own father has influenced my life and the crucial role...
Blog Post
Helping Families Stay Regulated during a Pandemic
As our communities struggle to do what is needed to keep people safe and families work to find a new a “normal” while caring for and educating children at home full time – it can be a lot to handle. Child psychologist and trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry offered 8 tips for helping children stay regulated in this recent article from Psychology Today . Dr. Perry was also a part of this video resource for parents, Staying sane while Parenting with Shelter-in-Place! For service providers who would...
Blog Post
Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
In an unprecedented global shutdown, many of us, especially without the noise and distraction of everyday life, are facing intensified, often destabilizing feelings. And that includes kids—whether they’re able to say so or not.
Blog Post
Helping New Parents Make Room for Uncertainty
A new program for parents and infants, thanks to generous support from Mill Town Capital , is coming to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Hello It’s Me Project shines a spotlight on these tender new relationships, investing resources around the birth of a baby with the long-term goal of building a healthy community from the bottom up. When world-renowned child development researcher Dr. Ed Tronick spoke in the spring of 2018 for an audience of a wide variety of practitioners in Berkshire County...
Blog Post
Helping Parents Develop Positive Relationships with their infants to toddlers (National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence,NPEIV).
Zero to Three Resource- extracted from website and with discussion text by Karin Hecht (September 14, 2018) Bonding activities between parent and child can be a great way to help a child’s development and strengthen the relationship. The Zero to Three website has great resources for child-centered activities to help little ones learn and grow. One particularly useful resource for parents and care providers are a collection of stage-by-stage age-based tips and what to expect as your baby...
Blog Post
Helping Someone with PTSD: Helping a Loved One While Taking Care of Yourself (www.helpguide.org/)
"PTSD can take a heavy toll on relationships. It can be hard to understand your loved one’s behavior—why they are less affectionate and more volatile. You may feel like you’re walking on eggshells or living with a stranger. You may have to take on a bigger share of household tasks, deal with the frustration of a loved one who won’t open up, or even deal with anger or disturbing behavior. The symptoms of PTSD can also lead to job loss, substance abuse, and other problems that affect the whole...
Blog Post
Helping Young Children Exposed to Trauma: A Systems Approach to Implementing Trauma-Informed Care [chdi.org]
By Alysse Loomis, Ph.D. Kellie Randall, Ph.D. Jason Lang, Ph.D., CHDI, June 2019. This IMPACT provides a summary of the research on the effects of early trauma exposure, discusses what Connecticut is doing across systems to support young children who have experienced trauma, and outlines a framework to expand Connecticut's robust system of trauma-informed care for older children to include younger children. There are more than 228,000 children under the age of six years old in Connecticut,...
Blog Post
Hijacked by PTSD (www.parentingwithPTSD.com)
This was written by Joyelle Brandt. She is one of the co-editors of the Trigger Points Anthology which is being expanded and re-branded under the name Parenting with PTSD in June. Joyelle and co-editor Dawn (member of this group), will be joining us for a Parenting with PTSD & ACEs chat on June 13th. We'll get to talk more about their website, book, parenting and lives. Anxiety hijacked my day today. It showed up out of the blue this morning, this frantic, anxious feeling that hounded me...
Blog Post
Hillary Clinton’s Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health [The Briefing—Fact Sheets]
The first bullet under Early Diagnosis and Intervention of today’s release of Hillary Clinton’s mental health agenda is titled “ Increase public awareness and take action to address maternal depression, infant mental health, and trauma and stress in the lives of young children.” It states “We also know that infant mental health depends on children forming close and secure relationships with the adults in their lives, and that too many children are growing up in environments that cause them...
Blog Post
Holding Space for Our Kids?
This is an excellent article about "holding space" published a few days ago in Uplift . The visuals are exceptional. It's making me think about 'holding space' as it pertains to parenting. For me, it can be harder for me to drop my "I'm in the mom teaching role" and just hold space, as a parent. To listen rather than advise. To be with rather than make better. To offer myself rather than impose myself. To accept where my kid is at in a moment and be with that moment - and her - at the same...
Blog Post
Home Gun Safety Queries in Well-Child Visits [jamanetwork.com]
By Carole H. Stipelman, Greg Stoddard, Kyle Bata, et al., JAMA Pediatrics, October 28, 2019 Firearms are a leading cause of death in US children, and the rate of suicide by firearms in people aged 10 to 19 years has increased since 2008.1 In the United States, 4.6 million children (approximately 7%) live in households with at least 1 gun that is stored loaded and unlocked.2 Safe storage of guns and ammunition may decrease the occurrence of self-inflicted or unintentional firearm injury to...
Blog Post
Home nursing visits provide wide-ranging benefits for mothers, young children (edsource.org)
Children born to low-income, first-time mothers who received home nursing visits showed increased mental health, stronger social and emotional development and academic gains, according to researchers who analyzed the impact of the Nurse-Family Partnership program, one of the largest home visiting programs in the country. The research team that conducted the analysis was led by James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate in economics and professor and director of the Center for Economics of Human...
Blog Post
HOPE, Engagement, and COVID19
As children grow and develop, engaging with the larger community around them provides a sense of “mattering” — a sense that their participation in the community really does matter. The emergency conditions now in effect provide numerous opportunities to children and teens to pitch in. Here are a few ideas . . .