Tagged With "Georgia Reads"
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Expectation vs. Reality (www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org)
Excerpts from a post by Lorraine Fuller published on the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN) blog . You don’t have to be fine
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Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills in Schools Could be Traumatic for Students [npr.org]
By Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, and James Doubek, National Public Radio, November 10, 2019 A regular drumbeat of mass shootings in the U.S., both inside schools and out, has ramped up pressure on education and law enforcement officials to do all they can to prevent the next attack. Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they...
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Exposure to Household Pet Cats and Dogs in Childhood and Risk of Subsequent Diagnosis of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder [journals.plos.org]
By Robert Yolken, Cassie Stallings, Andrea Origoni, et al., Plos One, December 2, 2019 Abstract Background Serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been associated with environmental exposures in early life. Contact with household pets such as cats and dogs can serve as a source of environmental exposure during these time periods. Methods We investigated the relationship between exposure to a household pet cat or dog during the first 12 years of life and...
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Facing a suicide crisis in his country, this African psychiatrist enlisted grandmothers to step in (washingtonpost.com)
On any given afternoon in a discreet area outside health clinics in the capital of Harare, and surrounding cities, an elder woman can be found on a bench listening intently to another person’s stories. She’s affectionately called a “grandmother,” an appropriate term for her role offering comfort, encouragement and a ready ear. But she’s no one’s grandmother, at least not of the people who sit with her on the bench. Rather, she’s one of 300 older Zimbabwean women who have been trained to...
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Facing Postpartum Depression: The Honesty, Courage and Support It Takes to Seek Help for PPD
“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the Yellow Wallpaper, 1892 It is wonderful to see the birth of a child greeted with warm enthusiasm and support. We celebrate the joy of a growing family, and the excitement of a new life. Relatives and friends often provide gifts and extra help. But for some new moms, motherhood brings on many complex emotions besides the happy ones. While we may greet a new baby with happiness and delight –...
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Families in Limbo: Coronavirus Hobbles Reunifications from Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback and John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 16, 2020 This week was supposed to be a triumphant one for a Northern California mother of two, a 39-year-old home health aide. Soon after a long-scheduled court date at the Sonoma County Hall of Justice this week, she imagined she would soon be able to gather her 1-year-old daughter in her arms at last and end what has been the most terrifying experience of her life: the seven months her toddler has spent in foster...
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Family Separation: It’s a Problem for U.S. Citizens, Too (www.nytimes.com)
Excerpts from article written by Shaila Dewan . To read the rest of this article in the New York Times by Shaila Dewan, go here .
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Family Triggers: 3 Mindful Techniques To Help You Respond With Skill and Wisdom Instead of Reacting Impulsively (by Robert Oleskevich) (heysigmund.com)
A trigger is a reaction that is more instinctive and immediate, lacking our typical skill or thought, that has ties to our conditioning of the past. At the point our conditioning takes over, our amygdala amps up, which is the little almond in our brain that detects danger and tells our fight or flight reactions to kick in. Our amygdala comes in very handy at times, however, it’s not the best at determining when danger is real or not. So, let’s use three mindful approaches with roots in...
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Farm Country Feeds America. But Just Try Buying Groceries There. [nytimes.com]
By Jack Healy, The New York Times, November 5, 2019 John Paul Coonrod had a banana problem. The only grocery store in his 1,500-person hometown in central Illinois had shut its doors, and Mr. Coonrod, a local lawyer, was racing to get a community-run market off the ground. He had found space in an old shoe store, raised $85,000 from neighbors and even secured a liquor license to sell craft beer. But then his main produce supplier fell through. The stakes of failure were huge. Farm towns like...
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Father and Son – Two Grown Men Saying Goodbye (upliftconnect.com)
James Blunt wrote and filmed the song for his father who is dying of cancer and does not have long to live. He asked his father to be in the video. The words, ‘You’re not my father, I’m not your son. We’re just two grown men saying goodbye.’ astound me. The spiritual significance in these words is monumental. The dignity and the honour that is imbued in these words is so humbling. I interpret those words as: beyond our assigned Earthly roles of father and son, as equals on this spiritual...
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Father's Day for the Rest of Us
How do you manage Father's Day as an adult? How did everyone do on Father's Day? It's one of those holidays that can be so complicated for many of us. Maybe there's angst, anger or ambivalence? Maybe there's appreciation too. I wrote about how it has shifted for me since I found that my father died. I didn't expect to feel so much relief. I love having a dead dad. For the first time in my life I know where he is on Father’s Day. He is not homeless, alcoholic, absent or violent. He is no...
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Father Sues Child Protective Services for ‘Kidnapping’ His Kids As Black Children Are Disproportionately Placed In Foster Care (www.atlantablackstar.com)
Excerpt from article by David Love.
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Fathering as a Survivor (www.triggerpointsanthology.com)
We don't hear enough from men who have been abused as children. Byron Hamel is helping to change that. This is an interview done with Hamel by the Trigger Points Anthology website . It's the first in a series they are running about fathering as a survivor of childhood abuse. If you can't read the entire thing, and you should, please read this: I honestly think most people believe an abused boy is inherently going to become an abusive or neglectful dad. I gotta call bullshit on that one,...
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Fatherlessness is harder on Father's Day, but 'father figures,' other role models fill in (usatoday.com)
More than one in four fathers in the United States who have children 18 or younger now lives apart from their children, according to Pew. A movement is growing toward shared parenting or at least collegial “co-parenting” that recognizes the importance of having two parents in children's lives. And in states like Virginia and Kentucky, legislation was recently passed to encourage joint custody. At the same time, federal health officials, educators, doctors, social workers and researchers are...
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Fathers: Powerful Allies for Maternal and Child Health [nichq.org]
NICHQ . “Maternal and child health programs and professionals have become increasingly more cognizant of how fathers, specifically, affect their children’s health and development,” says NICHQ President and CEO Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP. “Moving this conversation forward, and highlighting strategies that support father engagement and involvement, is a critical opportunity to improve children’s health outcomes in the decades to come. This is not because fathers matter more than any other...
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Fearing Coronavirus, Many Rural Black Women Avoid Hospitals to Give Birth at Home (PEW TRUST)
By April Simpson, April 18, 2020, PEW Trust Black women are two to three times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy than white women, regardless of income or education. Black midwives could be part of the solution, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, but restrictions on midwifery make it difficult to practice in many states. Pregnant women in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi have been calling nonstop to CHOICES Midwifery Practice in Memphis, but the center is...
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Fed Up With Deaths, Native Americans Want to Run Their Own Health Care [nytimes.com]
By Mark Walker, The New York Times, October 15, 2019 When 6-month-old James Ladeaux got his second upper respiratory infection in a month, the doctor at the Sioux San Indian Health Service Hospital reassured his mother, Robyn Black Lance, that it was only a cold. But 12 hours later James was struggling to breathe. Ms. Black Lance rushed her son back to the hospital in western South Dakota, where the doctors said they did not have the capacity to treat him and transferred him to a private...
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Five Effective Ways to Respond to Tantrums and Meltdowns (by Melissa Benaroya) (heysigmund.com)
Our children are going to replicate our behavior and emotional state because that’s how our brains are wired. The idea isn’t to change your children but to change how you show up and communicate with them. You know how yawning is contagious? Or how watching someone sip an icy cold lemonade suddenly makes you thirsty? That’s because of nerve cells in our brain called “mirror neurons”. We humans are social animals and connect through shared emotions and experiences. So when our children are...
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Five Things You Wish Your Community’s Early Childhood Programs Knew [CitiesSpeak.org]
By NLC Staff on May 10, 2019 Cities, towns, and villages are places of innovation and solution finding. If you want to improve early childhood wellbeing—local leaders are key partners. The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Learning Community is a program of Boston Medical Center’s Vital Village. The learning community’s goal is to support local early childhood coalitions and build their capacity to work together with the broader community to improve the wellbeing of our...
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For low-income children, relationship with parent key to health (scienceblog.com)
Educators, health care providers and researchers have known for some time that low socioeconomic status is connected to poor health, including in children, but a new study led by a San Francisco State University psychologist has shed light on what can be done to protect young people from negative outcomes. The keys? A more positive parent-child relationship as well as the child’s own ability to manage his or her response to stressful situations, according to research published last month in...
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Foster Care Entries for Parental Drug Use Surge [usnews.com]
By Katelyn Newman, US News & World Report, July 15, 2019. INCIDENTS OF CHILDREN entering America's foster system as a result of their parents' drug use have surged since 2000, new research shows, coinciding with the country's recent opioid crisis. Using case data from the federally mandated Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, researchers from Cornell and Harvard universities found that 1,162,668 – or nearly 24% – of 4,972,911 entries of children into foster care...
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Francine Shapiro, Developer of Eye-Movement Therapy, Dies at 71 [nytimes.com]
Laura's Note: I realize that an obituary is not typical of the type of posts we share here, but because Francine Shapiro's work has influenced and benefited so many people on this site, it seems fitting. Shapiro died in June 2019. One spring afternoon in 1987, a psychology student trying to shake off an upsetting memory took a stroll through a park in Los Gatos, Calif., distracting herself by darting her eyes back and forth. The sting of the memory quickly faded, and the student, Francine...
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FREE COVID-19 RESOURCE: Fighting the Big Virus: Trinka, Sam, and Littletown Work Together
This story was developed in collaboration with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to help young children and families talk about their experiences and feelings related to COVID-19 and the need to stay inside. In the story, the virus has spread to Littletown causing changes in everyone's lives. The story opens doors to conversations about family and community strengths, challenges and feelings related to COVID-19, ways grown-ups help children keep safe, and our gratitude for...
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Free play is great for kids. Now pediatricians say so (sacbee.com)
The award for best line ever in a medical report: “Play is not frivolous.” It’s not new, the idea that free play helps children develop in remarkable ways. Multiple studies have found that play builds social skills and creativity and develops the ability to solve problems and to collaborate. What is new is that a clinical report published in August by the American Academy of Pediatrics specifically calls on pediatricians and family doctors to start taking play, well, seriously – in fact to...
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From One Survivor to Another, Helping Survivors of Human Trafficking Escape and Stay Safe [sandiegotribune.com]
By Lisa Deaderick, The San Diego Tribune, December 22, 2019 Marjorie Saylor remembers a woman who was looking for help leaving her trafficker. The woman was pregnant and waiting for a bed at a shelter to open up, but she had to wait on the street, alone and in the cold. Her trafficker found her and took her with him. “I never heard from her again. She only had a week left to go before her bed opened up, but the two weeks she toughed it out waiting on the street kept her in harm’s reach,”...
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From Promise to Practice: Aligning Housing and Services to Support Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence [howhousingmatters.org]
Historically, approaches to ending homelessness and those for ending IPV have operated, at best, in parallel. Despite evidence that domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women , youth, and families and that abuse and its impacts continue long after survivors leave relationships, very few survivor-centered housing options exist . But this is beginning to change. Ending homelessness for families and youth is now a national priority. In response to this shift, several IPV...
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From Trauma-Informed to Asset-Informed Care in Early Childhood [brookings.edu]
By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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Healing Youth With Nature and Connection: an Interview with Peter Mayfield (madinamerica.com)
Gateway Mountain Center in Truckee, California provides nature-based therapeutic mentoring for youth. Gateway's program, ‘ Whole Hearts, Minds and Bodies ’ is the first nature-based therapeutic program in California to achieve full-service partner contracts with County behavioral health departments and certification as a MediCal provider. Peter Mayfield, founder and Executive Director, spoke with James Moore of Mad In America. To read the interview or listen to the podcast, go to ...
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Health Care's Role in Meeting Patients' Needs [rwjf.org]
By the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, July 11, 2019. Purpose The purpose of this call for proposals is to identify grantees who can lead an effort to provide: Part I: Clear Principles that set a high standard for the health care sector to provide equitable care that fully addresses people’s physical, emotional, and social needs; and Part II: Guidance for implementing care delivery that is fully responsive to patients’ goals, needs, and life circumstances, using maternal morbidity and...
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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...
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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...
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Helping A Child Whose Parent is Struggling with Addiction [npr.org]
By Kavitha Cardoza, National Public Radio, February 6, 2020 What can you do if you're a teacher, a neighbor, a churchgoer, a coach ... and you suspect a child is being impacted by a parent's addiction? Maybe you're thinking, "I'd love to help but it's not my business." Or "I want to reach out but I don't know much about addiction." Remember that episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where he tells children to "look for the helpers"? You can be that helper simply by being present for the...
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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.
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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...
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Helping Children Take a Mindful SEAT to Calm Down (mindful.org)
A simple mindful exercise to help older children manage feelings of overwhelm, stay in the present moment, and not get caught up in strong emotions and thoughts. Our thoughts are often racing off to the past and future, overwhelming us with emotions , or distracting us. But we can teach ourselves and our kids to check in to the present moment by getting in touch with our senses and emotions, thoughts and the actions that we want to take, and then learn how to manage that anxiety more...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 . . .
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How a bench and a team of grandmothers can tackle depression (bbc.com)
Zimbabwe is pioneering a groundbreaking mental health programme with stunning results – and the rest of the world is taking note. Globally, more than 300 million people suffer from depression , according to the World Health Organization. Depression is the world’s leading cause of disability and it contributes to 800,000 suicides per year, the majority of which occur in developing countries. No one knows how many Zimbabweans suffer from kufungisisa, the local word for depression (literally,...
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How a Men's Group Helps Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
By Bert Pepper MD., March 18, 2020, Psychology Today How a men's group helped survivors deal with secrets of the past. When I was a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam veterans traumatized by what happened to them, what they had seen, and what they had done. As I treated these veterans and studied PTSD , I realized that what I was learning could apply to help women. The first rape crisis units and shelters for battered women opened in the 1970s, at which time we also began learning...