Tagged With "Child Protective Services"
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Spokane, WA, public health nurses create trauma-sensitive toolkit for parents/caregivers
Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed a 178-page toolkit -- 1*2*3 Care -- for caregivers of children. They define caregivers as parents, g randparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care...
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Strengthening Families: Increasing positive outcomes for children and families [www.cssp.org]
We engage families, programs, and communities in building key protective factors. Children are more likely to thrive when their families have the support they need. By focusing on the five universal family strengths identified in the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework , community leaders and service providers can better engage, support, and partner with parents in order to achieve the best outcomes for kids. How We Do It The Strengthening Families framework is a...
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Study Finds Foster Kids Suffer PTSD (www.thecrimson.com) & Commentary & Images
I shared the blog post below on ACEsConnection a little while ago. I keep thinking about images when it comes to PTSD and also ACEs. The cultural image of PTSD is something that still tends to be of soldiers. How do we go about changing that. I'm hoping a better understanding of ACEs, in the general public, will eventually change the images we tend to have and use as well. But what images should be shown? What images do people have of ACEs and what do we hope they (we) will have? I know even...
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Tackling Tantrums - Raising Emotionally Agile Kids
Becoming emotionally agile does not happen overnight. Attuned parenting is the key. How we, parents deal with our child's difficult behavior and tantrums plays a big role in our kids developing this skill.
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Talking to Your Teen About Mental Health and Depression (Without Saying ‘Mental’ or ‘Depression’) (heysigmund.com)
Day to day ups and downs are a normal part of adolescence, making it difficult to distinguish between normal teenage moodiness and depression. Teens might not always be able to articulate what they’re going through, and they might not want to talk about it to you, but starting the conversation will help to protect their mental well-being. One of the best things you can do for your teen in your life is to let them him or her know that you’re available to talk on their terms . Here are some...
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Tally of Children Split at Border Tops 5,400 in New Count [nytimes.com]
By The Associated Press, The New York Times, October 24, 2019 U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 1,500 children from their parents at the Mexico border early in the Trump administration, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday, bringing the total number of children separated since July 2017 to more than 5,400. The ACLU said the administration told its attorneys that 1,556 children were separated from July 1, 2017, to June 26, 2018, when a federal judge in San Diego...
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Taming the Dragons: Helping Children Cope: Ages Birth to Twelve Years
Taming the Dragons is a training manual for parents, foster parents, and kinship caregivers. It was developed out of a crisis nursery in WA state by Sue Delucchi. English and Spanish versions attached here for free downloads.
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Telling a more complete story about child welfare
A new study from Berkeley Media Studies Group found that coverage of the child welfare system omits important context and connections to other issues. Here are four steps practitioners can take to improve the news.
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Echo Parenting to incorporate ACEs into parenting classes
By Jessica LeTarte, Echo Parenting In an effort to bring the best information and tools to our participants, Echo will be introducing the Adverse Childhood Experiences ( ACEs ) survey and a corresponding resiliency survey into our parenting ...
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The Amazing Brain Series (www.instituteforsafefamilies.org)
Here's a link to several great downloads I'm adding to the Parenting with ACEs resource section. I've attached one of the five so you can get an idea of content and visuals. The downloads are all free and if you want colorful handouts those are available for purchase.
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The Angel and the Assassin by Donna Jackson Nakazawa (www.kirkusreviews.com)
Cissy's note: It's wonderful to see the press Donna Jackson Nakazawa's new book is getting. She's been a guest on the Parenting with ACEs chat series, and crucial in helping ACEsConnection to develop handouts for parents about what helps heal ACEs. Here is an excerpt from a review of her book, The Angel and the Assassin, which was recently published in the Kirkus Reviews. To read the full review, please go here .
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Serve and Return: Supporting the Foundation [developingchild.harvard.edu]
From Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, March 11, 2020 What is “serve and return”? What does it mean to have a “responsive relationship” with a child? How do responsive relationships support healthy brain development? And what can parents and caregivers do in their day-to-day lives to build these sorts of relationships? This episode of The Brain Architects podcast addresses all these questions and more! [ Please click here to listen to the podcast and for more resources .]
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Reimbursement for Parenting Education and Support Services
Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...
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Report Features Newly-Released Data to Support Positive Child and Family Well-Being
A new report produced in partnership with Casey Family Programs illuminates the importance of HOPE—Health Outcomes of Positive Experiences, a framework that studies and promotes positive child and family well-being. Balancing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) with HOPE presents newly-released, compelling data that reinforces the need and opportunity to support families and communities in the cultivation of relationships and environments that promote healthy childhood development. It also...
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Report: Solutions To Stop Sexual Violence Against Children [npr.org]
By Susan Brink, NPR.org, November 19, 2019 Sexual violence against children happens everywhere: in wealthy enclaves, in slums, in suburbs, in rural villages. Invariably, it happens in secret: in the privacy of family homes, in dark corners of schools and churches, and in murky shadows at neighborhood, community, sporting and scouting events. It happens often, and periodically groups put out reports to call attention to the issue. "That's usually where the story stops," says Daniela Ligiero,...
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Research Review: Childhood Trauma and its Effects on Mothers in Home Visiting Programs [Prevent Child Abuse America]
Each month Prevent Child Abuse America's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Dr. Bart Klika, does a quick run-down of emerging research related to child abuse and neglect prevention. In this inaugural installment, Dr. Klika walks through some of the recent research into the effects of childhood trauma and how the lasting effects of this trauma is impacting mothers who participate in home visiting programs. Watch the video here
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RESOURCE: Parent guide information
Please share the with the families you serve the attached a 2-page document for parents and caregivers about the parent guides that Yolo County Children's Alliance has produced as a project of the Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC). All of the guides are available at www.yolokids.org/forfamilies . There are some hard copies of the following guides and we would love for them to get into the hands of parents. Please let me know if you would like some of these materials!
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RYSE Center's Listening Campaign: Young people in Richmond, CA help adults understand trauma, violence, coping, and healing
"My experience with violence is very brutal...I grew up with violence as if it were my sibling." - LC participant (youth) "We know we can't run the city- it's too complex- but our experience and our voices should count, especially because we're the most effected ." - LC participant (youth) "Our city's problems are shared by us all; we are all part of the problem AND the solution. Listening is a key component to healing." - LC Share Out partici pant (adult) Three years ago, RYSE Center in...
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Serena Williams, Mark Cuban invest in company working to end black maternal mortality [The Hill]
By Marina Pitofsky, July 16, 2019, The Hill Tennis champion Serena Williams and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have both invested in Mahmee, a company working to end maternal mortality, which just ended a $3 million funding round. “I am incredibly excited to invest and partner with Mahmee , a company that personifies my firm’s investment philosophy,” Williams, who donated through her organization, Serena Ventures, said in a Monday statement from the company . “Given the bleak data...
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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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Making the Good Stuff Louder: Trauma Dad, Bryon Hamel
Byron Hamel, (AKA Trauma Dad ), is a filmmaker , children's rights and men's wellness advocate. He's also a father with "ACEs through the roof," who survived child torture at the hands of a man now on death row for infanticide. Before the Father & ACEs chat started last week (see full chat transcript ), we discussed if and how to give a trigger warning. Hamel's experienced horrific trauma during childhood. He didn't want to traumatize those on the chat but wanted to be honest.
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Marin Community Clinics in California screen babies for ACEs, provide support in effort to prevent trauma
When Marin Community Clinics (MCC) first considered screening their patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) they already had decided that if they were going to prevent children from acquiring ACEs, they had to take a radical approach.
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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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Meet Your Child’s Needs For Improved Behavior
Understanding WHY a child behaves as he/she does provides you with the answer as to what the child needs to willingly and capably improve his/her behavior. Communication is a behavior, and all forms of behavior are ways of communicating. The child who resists bedtime is communicating something, and the message goes beyond merely saying, “I don’t want to.” The same is true for the child who refuses to turn off the TV or turn away from the video game. The child who speaks to you...
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Meet Your Child’s Needs For Improved Behavior
Understanding WHY a child behaves as he/she does provides you with the answer as to what the child needs to willingly and capably improve his/her behavior. Communication is a behavior, and all forms of behavior are ways of communicating. The child who resists bedtime is communicating something, and the message goes beyond merely saying, “I don’t want to.” The same is true for the child who refuses to turn off the TV or turn away from the video game. The child who speaks to you...
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Mindful Parenting: How to Respond Instead of React (www.parent.co) by Jill Ceder
Note: I usually despise parenting advice and how-to-anything for parents. Often, it's "tap the brakes" advice as though all parents have double digit stress they need to dial back a bit to be more effective. As though tapping the brakes when going 25 m.p.h. is anything like tapping the brakes when going 100 m.p.h. When it's not. Many parents have stress that started at 100 m.p.h. in childhood and arrived to parenting having gone through life at high speeds, and not by choice. So, parenting...
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Mother's Day: Belonging to Each Other (dailygood.org)
Mother’s Day offers us opportunities to express our love and thanks to the women who have cared for us in our lives — the birth or adoptive mother, the grandmother, the teacher, or the elder friend who have helped grow us up. But it’s not all Hallmark cards and breakfasts-in-bed. This particular holiday can stir up feelings of grief and pain for some of us. We suffer for the mother we have lost or a mother we felt we never really had. And yet, perhaps we might be able to simultaneously hold...
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Mother's Day Can Be Hard: Chasing the Blues
The world has changed in many good ways. All over my newsfeed yesterday and today are posts about aching, loss, grief and divorcing from parents. Mother's Day, Father's Day and other holidays can be hard. At least that loss isn't experienced only in silence now. This year, I've seen many posts more complex than greeting cards. That wasn't always so. I'm not here to tell anyone about how Mother's Day should or might feel and if anger or forgiveness is good or bad, toxic or healthy or what...
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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 Encounter With Harvey Weinstein and What it Tells Us About Trauma
I have been watching the scandal about Harvey Weinstein emerge with great interest – in the early ‘90s, I too was one of the young women he preyed upon.
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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 Holidays Can Be Hard
The holidays can be hard for many of us parenting with ACEs. This time last year I found out my estranged father died. It was such a relief. For months, I kept thinking, "I love having a dead Dad." And I know it's not a thought most people have had. But for my whole life I carried my father's life like a question I could not answer. Even though I had not seen him regularly, for decades, I never stopped wondering about his life, his absence and his own childhood. We never stop being related...
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The Key To Good Enough Parenting - Repair The Rupture
Good enough parenting is about repairing relationship ruptures with your child. Reach out, discuss, reconnect - repair the rupture to avoid later problems
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The Mama Bear Effect & Free Downloads
One of my favorite organizations is the Mama Bear Effect . It's a few years old and is basically a bunch of grown-ups dedicated to keeping children safe - particularly from sexual abuse. Today, they posted something important on Facebook about not putting so much emphasis on teaching children to say "no" and rather expecting adults to keep children safe. I have to say that given the reality that most abusers are known to children, it's not likely that a child simply saying "no" to an abuser...
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The Mother that Never Was (www.beatingtrauma.com) & Commentary
Elisabeth Corey wrote this essay piece about her mother. It's honest, painful and difficult to read. Many will be able to relate. Our bonds with our parents can be complicated (no matter what our ACE score). But it's even more so when our relationships have been filled with ACEs and the hurt, betrayal, and scars that can accompany them. Once we survive childhood and are not dependent on our parents we may have lots to sort through. Things that are not easy to live with or make sense of. Her...
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The Nurtured Parent Revolution: Transforming Trauma through Love, Healing, and Social Justice Activism
Many family courts across the nation routinely fail the most vulnerable in our society: mothers and their children in crisis seeking a life free from abuse. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice released the Saunders Report , a study that found the standard and required domestic violence training received by judges, lawyers, and custody evaluators, does not adequately prepare them to handle abuse cases. Inadequately trained professionals tend to believe the myth that mothers frequently...
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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 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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How to Help a Child Struggling With Anxiety [npr.org]
By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, October 29, 2019 Childhood anxiety is one of the most important mental health challenges of our time. One in five children will experience some kind of clinical-level anxiety by the time they reach adolescence, according to Danny Pine, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health and one of the world's top anxiety researchers. Pine says that for most kids, these feelings of worry won't last, but for some, they will —...
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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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Intermountain Video Podcast: How Kids Navigate a Pandemic
Meegan Bryce, MSW, began her work at Intermountain with children and families as a Direct Care Counselor in 2004. She has since been a Cottage Supervisor, Child and Family Therapist, the Residential Manager and now serves as the Residential Director. Meegan is a Montana native and enjoys all the outdoor activities that Montana has to offer, especially river rafting. In this video podcast, she speaks with Development Officer Tyler Zimmer about how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the...
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Is Sexism an ACE?
Many of us have experienced sexual assault and/or abuse. The idea that our children could experience the same is terrifying to the point of being paralyzing. Even if our daughters have an ACE score of 0 they will not escape sexism. The upside of so much media coverage about sexual assault, harassment and sexism is that it gives us the opportunity to talk to our kids with a tiny bit of distance. What I mean, is that we can have conversations that are more topical and general, because we are...
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Is Your Teen Obsessed with Social Media? Here’s why that may be a very good thing.
By Sara Hare Published: July 25, 2014 When it comes to kids and social media, most of the discussion to date has been directed by parents looking for ways to stop the equivalent of a runaway train. “How do I set limits?” “What...
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It's Not Always Depression, Sometimes It's the Holidays
There are many myths and “shoulds” about how families and holidays should be: Families should love each other. Families should get along. Holidays should be fun. Reality, however, does not reflect these “shoulds.” The facts are: many people do not have happy families, happy family memories or happy holidays. Therefore, holidays and families can trigger us into states of anxiety, shame, and misery. Perhaps your parent or child is mean to you, or you have an active alcoholic uncle that makes...
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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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When Should a Child Be Taken from His Parents? (www.newyorker.com)
Excerpt from an article written by B Larissa McFarquhar. The Illustration (above) is by Anna Parini. What should you do if child-protective services comes to your house? You will hear a knock on the door, often late at night. You don’t have to open it, but if you don’t the caseworker outside may come back with the police. The caseworker will tell you you’re being investigated for abusing or neglecting your children. She will tell you to wake them up and tell them to take clothes off so she...
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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 Focus on Resilience? 2019 BPT Conference Big Idea Session with Teri Barila
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in” -Desmond Tutu. This quote captures the essence of why resilience matters. To Community Resilience Initiative, Resilience is not about “lifting yourself up by your bootstraps” or “bouncing back” from serious harm or injury. To us, Resilience is about self-discovery and self-awareness based on what the ACE Study, neurobiology, and epigenetics tell us...
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World Premiere: Stress & Resilience: How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 13, 2019 When the stress in your life just doesn’t let up, and it feels like you have no support to get through the day—let alone do everything you need to do to be the best parent you can be—it can seem like there’s nothing that can make it better. But there are resources that can help, and this kind of stress—known as “toxic stress”—doesn’t have to define your life. In this video, learn more about what toxic stress is, how it...