Tagged With "A Better Normal"
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SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach
Years in the making, this important piece of the trauma-informed pie is on the table! Check it out.
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Learning To Care For My Newborn Was A Humbling Experience [npr.org]
Wen is an emergency physician and the health commissioner of Baltimore City. Two months ago, my husband and I welcomed our baby son, Eli, into the world. Hearing his first cry and getting to hold him were the happiest moments of our lives. When he was placed on my chest and I could see and touch him, I felt like I knew him already. The doctors told us he was healthy and well. I couldn't wait to start our lives together as a family. The night we arrived home, Eli wouldn't stop crying. Crying...
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Love in the time of Coronavirus: HOPE-informed thoughts for parents
This has been quite a week, and we are now facing major disruptions in our own family lives. There is no doubt that the events of this winter and spring will be memorable for children. In that spirit, here are a few ideas to help make those memories (at least somewhat) happy.
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Maternity Group Home Program Funding Opportunity. Applications Due 07/25/2019 [Admin for Children & Families]
Funding Opportunity Application Due Date: 07/25/2019 Maternity Group Home Program *See attached pdf for more info. Description: The Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families' Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) announces the availability of funds under the Transitional Living Program’s Maternity Group Home (MGH) grant program. The purpose to provide safe, stable, and appropriate shelter only for pregnant and/or parenting youth ages 16 to...
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Mothering at the Edge
Life has been so sweet of late and that, for me, has been emotional. I feel a mixture of joy and disbelief. This time of mothering a teen as a parent with ACEs. I sit the edge of my bed sorting socks and memories. A middle-aged mother in so many kinds of transition. Some mornings, I hear her feet soft on carpeted stairs, see her long hair rolling down her back almost touching the hips. I remember when she did not have hips. The years I gathered her up each morning, carrying her down the...
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My son was hospitalized and now he has PTSD
“Grant, do you remember when you were in the hospital?” “Yes… they came to take the blood and I turned into a werewolf.” Original Post It happened quickly. A year ago my three year old had a collarbone fracture, it became infected and within 24 hours the situation was emergent. A week long hospital stay, one month with a PICC line and two months on oral antibiotics. Finally, the labs finally came back normal. The X-Ray was clean. Gillette Children’s Hospital closed our case. But the healing...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The "F" Words: Fear & Forgiveness
“If your parent is the bear in the living room, it is biologically impossible to run to that parent when they are either over or under reacting. If your parent is scary you can’t run to them. And you also can’t run away from them because you are a child, you can’t function in the world on your own. You can’t make it out there." Donna Jackson Nakazawa We can get so lost in theory, data and facts that our language about trauma, abuse and adverse childhood experiences can become clinical and...
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The Legacy of Untreated Secondhand Drinking-Related ACEs
I am the child of an alcoholic. My mom didn’t stop drinking until age 79. She died at 84. There was no warning, no lingering illness. She died two days after an unsuccessful emergency surgery. But we had five years during which she did not drink, after forty-five years during which she did. You see, my mom knew she had a drinking problem. So did we, the rest of her family. There were times when she fought mightily to stop or control it. There were times when the rest of us fought mightily to...
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The Powerful Role of Parents in Tackling Bullying
Parents also have the power to prevent bullying by changing family dynamics. They may not know it, and they may not know how to do it.
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The Problem with ACEs Implementation
The Adverse Childhood Experiences study was ground-breaking in its recognition that childhood trauma impacts individuals across their lifespan. This was the big take-away, that adults are living with unrecognized and thus untreated physical, mental and emotional consequences that have massive detrimental impacts on their quality (and quantity) of life. And yet, when we see the research and programming that has been implemented following the ACE study, the consensus seems to be that the...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Candida Rodriguez is Creating Community Through the Power of Conversations That Matter
Candida Rodriguez is my mentor, while she may disagree with that statement and say it is the opposite, it is the absolute truth. My respect, admiration, and amazement at the depth of her knowledge, talent, and compassion astound me every time we work together. Candida serves her complex and ever-changing community with dedication, skill and a relentless pursuit of coordinating care for her students and families. We are partners in the Community Cafe Initiative that began in 2015 after I...
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The Relentless School Nurse: The Text Message No Parent Wants to Get - An Active Shooter is at School
Many blog readers know that my niece Carly is a survivor of the Parkland shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You may know that my father also survived a mass murder, and like Carly, hid in a closet until the police arrived. Almost 70 years separated the two tragedies. Our guest blogger this week is my sister Merri, Carly's mom. Merri shares her first-hand account of what happened the afternoon of February 14, 2018, when Carly sent this text, “Mom don’t freak out but we are on...
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The Rise of the Trauma-Informed Mothers
The next generation is less likely to wear predisposed shackles of trauma because as trauma-informed parents we are re-wiring the traumatically stressed DNA that was passed down to us.
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How to Help Teenage Girls Reframe Anxiety and Strengthen Resilience (kqed.org)
Sometimes anxiety and stress reach levels that impede a girl’s ability to navigate life effectively. Dr. Lisa Damour has tips for parents and teens to help manage these situations. Damour, a psychologist and author of the new book "Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls," has spent decades working with adolescent girls and their families. In recent years, she has noticed a change in how society views stress. “Somehow a misunderstanding has grown up about...
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How You and Your Kids Can De-Stress During Coronavirus [pbs.org]
By Deborah Farmer Kris, Public Broadcasting Service, March 13, 2020 A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter made a glitter jar for my students: “Tell them that when their brain has a glitter storm, they can shake this up and take deep breaths as the glitter falls.” We could all use some help settling our glitter right now. If you are feeling stress about the COVID-19 pandemic, your brain isn’t misfiring. Stress is a normal, healthy biological response to perceived threats and challenges.
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I’m not cured, but I am healing
I wanted every individual suffering from chronic illnesses to understand the emerging science on not only how early adversity can lead to adult chronic illness, but how we can heal.
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Immigrant teens, parents explore ACEs, resilience in 5-week course with family doc
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family doctor in San Jose, Calif., was determined to find a way to teach ACEs science to her patients. Teens would come to the Washington Neighborhood Clinic clearly depressed by a range of problems at home that were contributing to risky sexual behavior and marijuana use, as well as preventable health problems like extreme obesity.
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Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
Earlier this year @Dawn Daum wrote to us when she was ready to share ACEs science with people in the organization she works in to make a case for moving towards more trauma-informed care for the benefit of the staff and those they serve. She was frustrated because almost all the training and resources she found were geared towards schools, clinical staff or to organizations working with children and families rather than ACE-impacted adults in the workplace and who are...
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Is it a Parenting with ACEs Thing or Just a Parent Thing? Why Is It So Hard to Just Stop?
I have a friend going through a rough patch. She was physically sick with a back to back virus which is no fun for anyone but brutal for a single mother with young children. She got herself and the kids bundled up and out for a full fall day on Saturday and Sunday left her utterly depleted and unable to do much of anything. So she was now not only sick and exhausted but deflated and feeling guilty for not being a better mom, for her kids having a boring day, for not being more fun or active.
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When Parents Fear "It's All My Fault"
Many of my colleagues in the field of early childhood mental health work with what are termed "high risk" populations. Children of drug addicted parents, victims of child abuse, and families in abject poverty. While the challenges these families face are daunting, I find myself feeling some envy for my colleagues whose clients are in such obvious distress that the need for intensive treatment of parent and infant is not in question. In my rural, small-town population things are not so clear.
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Who Decides if ACEs Science is Shared? We Do!
Hi Parenting with ACEs Community: There's always a lot of discussion about if, how, when and where the ACEs survey should be shared with people and it's an important topic. I get that it's sensitive. How medical providers share, is of course, an important discussion for medical providers to have (and ideally WITH patients, staff and medical providers guiding each other about what works best and is trauma-informed for all). IF medical providers share about the ACEs study and research, on the...
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Why Parents Need a Little Self-Compassion (greatergood.berkeley.edu)
Some parents misunderstand self-compassion and dismiss it as being self-centered, indulgent, or lazy. They fear it might lead to self-pity or that, if they aren’t tough enough, their kids will slack off and won’t be motivated or disciplined. But a growing body of research by Kristin Neff and her colleagues suggests that self-compassion is an antidote to self-pity. It helps us cope with tough situations like divorce and trauma, keeps us motivated, and helps us be more supportive and caring in...
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Why Parents Need to Know About ACEs
If we are lucky enough to be healthy, we probably don't worry all that much about health. If we are sick, we think about health issues all of the time. If we are lucky enough be wealthy, we probably don't worry all that much about money. If we are poor, we think about money stuff a lot. If we aren't hurt by racism or sexism or one of the many "isms," we might not even be aware these inequities exist. But if "isms" have hurt us, made life more difficult and less fair, we're probably acutely...
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Women With Past Adverse Childhood Experiences More Likely To Have Ovaries Removed, Study Shows [HuffingtonPost.com]
Mayo Clinic researchers report that women who suffered adverse childhood experiences or abuse as an adult are 62 percent more likely to have their ovaries removed before age 46. These removals are for reasons other than the presence of ovarian cancer or a high genetic risk of developing cancer, says the new study published today in BMJ Open. In previous studies examining the effects of removing the ovaries of younger women, the research team has demonstrated a myriad of health risks...
Ask the Community
Books to Support Parenting with ACEs?
Let's create a list of resources useful for parenting ourselves and children. These can be books about child development or self-help books or a work of fiction that had important wisdom. If there's a title that's helped you or someone you know, love or work with as it relates to parenting, please share. For me, my absolute favorite is this: There's Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate , Cheri Huber This book is not about parenting. It's not about how-to parent I should say but it...
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New Toolkit Issued to Help Providers Measure Trauma With ACES Survey [youthtoday.org]
A new toolkit is out that aims to help services providers give a survey about traumatic childhood experiences that are linked to negative effects on health and well-being. The toolkit, developed by The National Crittenton Foundation , offers recommendations about the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey, including how to talk to children and parents about the survey, track results and use the data for public education and policy advocacy. The toolkit also includes a sample protocol, case...
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 23, 2020 — Education Upended, continued
Please join us for the ongoing discussion of 'A Better Normal- Education Upended'. Last time we just scratched the surface!! Our current capacity is 100 participants, so please join us on time and we will enter people until we reach capacity. These will be recorded and available on the ACEsConnection website. Zoom meeting info below.
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 24, 2020: Using the Community Resiliency Model to self-regulate during the pandemic
Dave Granlund Friday, April 24, 2020 — Elaine Miller-Karas is founder of the Trauma Resources Institute and one of the key creators of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM). CRM is an ACES-science based model to help people become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. She will join ACEs Connection SE regional community facilitator Carey Sipp in an informal conversation with the ACEsConnection community. Elaine will discuss how to use the CRM for...
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 7, 2020 — Tian Dayton
Therapist and author Dr. Tian Dayton, who first started writing about ACEs science more than 20 years ago, will address grief and maintaining emotional sobriety during COVID-19. Carey Sipp, Southeast community facilitator for ACEs Connection, will host this community conversation, and Alison Cebula, Northeastern regional community facilitator, will moderate.
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: Tuesday, April 28, 2020 — Health equity and historical trauma
There are two "Better Normal" community discussions this week, on Tuesday and on Thursday. On Tuesday, Ingrid Cockhren, ACEs Connection community facilitator and DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) expert returns to continue the discussing health equity during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, Lara Kain will lead another education "Better Normal".
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Pam Wessel-Estes: Member Spotlight & Amazing Video about Parenting with ACEs
I spend a good amount of my time begging people to let me share details about the work they have done and are doing. I don't mind because there's so much that needs to be shared. Like the work of Pam Wessel-Estes, one of our own Parenting with ACEs group members. Please check out this You Tube video she produced with her son, entitled, Personal and Parental Reflections on Adverse Childhood Experiences. It's fantastic. It has all the personal warmth of a personal video but all the sound and...
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PARENTING GUIDES: Please share to support parents
During this challenging time, parents need more resources than ever. Please let parents know about the following guides from the Yolo County Children's Alliance and the Yolo Child Abuse Prevention Council. All guides are available at www.yolokids.org/forfamilies , and I have attached a summary of the guides if you would prefer to share that. Please note that we will be releasing our positive discipline guide on 4/1/20 ( Handling Your Child's Challenging Behaviors at Every Age ). The guides...
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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, Menopause & ACEs After-the-Chat Summary: Carey Sipp
Have you talked with friends, siblings or co-workers about Parenting with ACEs while going through the change? Do you have any fascinating facts to share about how your OBGYN prepared or supported you when thrown by midlife, hormonal shifts and emotional residue from traumatic stress? Me either. And it's a shame. A lot of people parent, go through menopause, and have survived a bunch of ACEs. Conversations and information shouldn't be so hard to find. But they are. T hat's the reason we...
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Parenting, PTSD & ACES / Live Chat Event from Parenting with ACEs Series
Our next online chat event is fast approaching. All are welcome. Date: Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 (10 AM PST / 1 PM EST) Topic: Parenting, PTSD & ACEs. Guests: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Brandt are parents, writers, advocates and trauma survivors. Together, they edited the forthcoming Parenting with PTSD anthology and created an online community for parents recovering from childhood abuse. They educate mental health, human service and other professionals about the challenges and lived...
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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 with PTSD Book Cover
I can't wait to read this book. The cover is beautiful and tender. This parenting (with ACEs, with PTSD) is sacred, hard and important work. We need all the resources and support we can get. This book has more than a new cover. While the Trigger Points Anthology had honest essays from those of us parenting after abuse, this one has that plus new chapters and expanded and in-depth resources. There's lots more about ACEs, as well, and s Some of the new chapters are written by our own ACN...
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Parenting with PTSD Workshop: Getting to the Source of the Cycle
It took aging in to a very restless soul before I went looking for and found others like me ; women convinced they were “over” or “through” the ripple effects of childhood abuse, only to be blindsided by flashbacks, panic attacks and dangerous levels of hopelessness after becoming mothers. What I discovered and now aim to help others understand is how absolutely normal it is for a parenting survivor of childhood trauma to be triggered by her own child, and by doing basic acts of parenting...
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Permission to be actual humans during a pandemic, please
I have a single mom friend who is caring for a baby, a 16-year old, and working full-time. Her name is Heidi. This is the same friend, with an ACE score of 10, written about here a few years ago. This is what she posted on Facebook (and gave me permission to share) the day after Governor Charlie Baker announced the schools in MA will be closed, at least, until early May: The numerous and immediate comments and responses went something like this: I sighed in relief when I read Heidi's post. I...
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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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Precarious Work Schedules and Population Health [rwjf.org]
By Kristen Harknett and Daniel Schneider, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, February 14, 2020 What’s the Issue? Work has become more precarious in America over the past half century as employers have transferred more of the risks and uncertainties of doing business onto workers and households. As part of this shift, many workers have experienced an erosion of job quality—reductions in the real value of their wages; a loss or cutback of fringe benefits such as retirement plans and health...
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Protecting Our Children's Mental Health During the Pandemic
Our physical health is not the only form of health that is in jeopardy right now. The emotional health of our families is also at risk, and it can help to take proactive steps now to mitigate psychological damage to your children and prevent a silent aftermath of this outbreak.
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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...
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Re: 9 Signs You Need Better Self-Care and May Be a Trauma Survivor
Robyn: I shared this in Parenting with ACEs because it's so important for those of us who are parents. I always appreciate your work and how generously you share. This list is helpful. It's great to see what an ideal is and what many trauma survivors do instead - as you said - for good reason. I know for me, this is a lot of what my adult learning has been. 1)What I did as a kid. 2)What people who don't grow up with trauma do (so I can help teach that to my kid) And also, I get irked at the...
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ACE-Aha Moments & Parenting: Meet Aprel Phelps Downey
Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...
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After Oprah’s Speech: Questions, Courage & Quotes from Clarissa (www.healwritenow.com)
We were so moved and energized by Oprah’ s speech . Now what? What do we do with all that motion and momentum now that the red carpets and cameras have been rolled up and put away? I started a survivor blog fewer than four years ago because I couldn’t find ANY other person writing, thinking and talking about life after a childhood full of trauma. I wasn’t looking for stories about child abuse or trauma but about how adults manage life, love, and parenting after surviving. I didn’t meet, see...
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Beyond Trauma: Building Resilience to ACEs (brochure)
Wish you had a fairly easy and short way to share all about ACEs? Wish it was in-depth enough to share with teachers, doctors, nurses and therapists but not so long or jargony it puts family and friends to sleep? Here's the perfect thing to share when you've been all up in the faces with ACEs and want to back up your words before, during or after. This brochure is comprehensive but not so long that it remains in the "I'll get to it later," pile. Please feel free to print, forward, download...
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Call for Abstracts for 2017 National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence in SF, CA
2017 National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence Call for abstracts is now open! Due Friday, January 13, 2017. Pre-Conference Institutes: Tuesday, September 26th, 2017 Two Day Conference: September 27th-28th, 2017 Marriott Marquis, San Francisco, California Every two years the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence hosts the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence. The conference highlights the latest research and promising practices to advance the health...
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Can Psychotherapy Reverse Post-Traumatic Epigenetic Changes? [psychologytoday.com]
By Grant H. Brenner, Psychology Today, October 29, 2019 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition affecting a subset of people exposed to traumatic experiences. Not all people who endure traumatic experiences will develop PTSD as most people are resilient due to biological, psychological, and social factors. Most responses to trauma are normal, including short-term stress responses, sleep disturbances, fears of trauma happening again, and related reactions, but they resolve after...