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Mental Health Workshop Series When: April 17th – June 5th, 2019 Time: 7:00pm-8:30pm Address: 5200 W South St, Orlando, FL 32811. Hosted by: The Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Larry G. Mills, Pastor. Sessions are not exclusive but primarily focus on the minority community and include: Session 1: It’s OK Not to Be OK Wednesday, April 17th & 24th (7:00pm to 8:30pm) This two-part session will examine the history of mental illness in our community, faces of mental health,...

Following the lead from the Wisconsin Public Health Association, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and County Board Vice Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson, proclaim racism is a public health crisis, and are actively taking steps to achieve racial equity throughout Milwaukee County.

Thank you for your attendance and participation in Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing 2019. Please enjoy these video highlights of the conference.

RADICAL GRACE – WHAT I LET GOD SEE AND ACCEPT IN ME ALSO BECOMES WHAT I CAN SEE AND ACCEPT IN MYSELF. AND EVEN MORE, IT BECOMES THAT WHEREBY I SEE EVERYTHING ELSE. ~ RICHARD ROHR For the past three months, I’ve been driving through various parts of Florida witnessing events and gatherings of communities committed to creating safe, loving, trauma informed, and trauma healing spaces. On Friday February 22nd, I was in Tarpon Springs, attending the monthly gathering of Robin Saeger’s...

If building healthy relationships is the healing balm of human existence and human suffering, then the Principles for How We Treat Each Other are practices that move us toward strengthening those bonds in our lives and in the community. These Principles for How We Treat Each Other help support inclusive, caring, and safe environments where individuals learn how to listen deeply and without judgment and communicate honestly and respectfully. The Principles for How We Treat Each Other have...

The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...

How does epigenetics relate to child development? New resource from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child explains. Science tells us that the interactions between genes and environment shape human development. “Epigenetics” is an emerging area of scientific research that shows how environmental influences—including the experiences we provide for children—actually affect the expression of their genes. This means that the old idea that genes are "set in stone" has been disproven. Nature...

In the past few weeks, we tragically lost two Parkland mass shooting survivors—Sidney Aiello and Calvin Desir—to suicide . Around the same time, Jeremy Richman , whose daughter was killed in the Newtown mass shooting, died by suicide too. These heart-wrenching losses have prompted public discussion about connections between suicide and trauma . What is PTSD ? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) defines trauma as exposure to actual or threatened...

What's Your ACE Score? (and Your Resilience Score?) There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study. Five are personal -- physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who's an alcoholic, a mother who's a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment. Each...

Photo by James Encinas Raising yellow “Visions & Commitments” cards, 550 attendees at yesterday’s Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing Conference pledged their enthusiastic support to create a more resilient Central Florida. The standing-room-only crowd heard Dr. Vincent Felitti deliver a morning keynote address detailing the findings of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) . He also shared moving testimonials of people who are...

Welcome to ACEs Connection Central Florida! For a copy of the program for our conference, Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing, please check the resources below.

When Tiffany Harris and her two children emerged from their hotel after Hurricane Michael roared past, her 3-year-old son pointed to a sea of fallen trees and shattered buildings. "It's broken. It's broken, Mommy, fix it," she recalls her little boy Amari begging. Harris, who lives with her boyfriend, two children, plus her sister and her four children near Panama City, soon learned their town house was uninhabitable. Everything was a total loss after Michael powered inland across the...