Tagged With "parenting support"
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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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Jail & Prison Resources
Addressing Correctional Officer Stress: Programs and Strategies Source: NCJRS Description: A guide to assist corrections administrators is addressing employee stress. Link: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183474.pdf Art Behind Bars...
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James Fox and the Prison Yoga Project (dailygood.org)
James Fox M.A. is the founder and director of the Prison Yoga Project , (PYP), an organization dedicated to establishing yoga and mindfulness programs in prisons and rehabilitation centers worldwide. Since 2002, Fox has been teaching yoga and meditation to prisoners at San Quentin Prison as well as other California State prisons. The Prison Yoga Project helps incarcerated men and women build a better life through trauma-informed yoga with a focus on mindfulness . It helps prisoners make...
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Job center at women’s reentry facility opens (workforce.org)
Opened in October, the center, managed by grant sub-recipient Second Chance, started enrolling participants, with the goal of offering trauma-informed reentry services to 400 women pre-release and to 100 of those 400 post-release. Enrollment of voluntary participants is based on three criteria. The individual must: be a resident of the facility be within 180 days of release have not been convicted of a sexual offense other than prostitution Though the goals are similar for both men and women...
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Juvenile Law Center (advancing the rights and well-being of children in jeopardy)
Trauma and Resilience: A NEW LOOK AT LEGAL ADVOCACY FOR YOUTH IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE AND CHILD WELFARE SYSTEMS While rates of trauma are high for all youth, they are particularly high for youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. This...
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Kids with Families in Prison/Jail (www.sesamestreetincommunities.org) & Note
Cissy's Note: One of the things that worries me about technology is that parents might not be watching so much Sesame Street anymore. As a parent with a whole lot of ACEs, I find the gentle and warm tones of adults on Sesame Street so soothing, On especially hard days this gentle warmth can make an actual difference. When my daughter was young, we'd cuddle on the couch and watch together. The content is always so basic and clear and because it's geared towards and for kids, I never felt...
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LA County Supes Seek Better Care And Outcomes For Pregnant And Post-Partum Incarcerated Women And Girls And Their Babies (witnessla.com)
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to identify ways to better support pregnant women and girls in the county’s jails and juvenile lockups. The motion, authored by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn, directs the Department of Health Services and the sheriff’s department, in coordination with other relevant county departments to report back to the board in 90 days with data on the number of pregnant women and girls in sheriff’s department or probation custody,...
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Law Enforcement & Corrections Resources
Cops, Kids, and Domestic Violence Source: National Child Traumatic Stress Network Description: Law enforcement training DVD and support documents (which can be used independently). Link: Video – ...
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Life After ‘17to Life [nytimes.com]
STOCKTON, Calif. — In California, known for decades as one of the nation’s most avid jailers, the trajectory of law and order is shifting. Through litigation, legislation and a series of ballot initiatives, the state’s prison population has dropped 25 percent over the past decade. The photographer Joseph Rodriguez has been documenting crime and punishment in California for years and recently focused his gaze on the migration home, in Stockton — a barren outpost in California’s Central...
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Making Prison Visitation Programs Trauma Informed
While reading the Trauma Informed Oregon newsletter I came across Shannon's story - so powerful! Please read ... From Shannon Turner, MSW, LCSW At the time of writing this blog, there are two million, two hundred-twenty thousand, three hundred adults currently incarcerated in the US. In thirty-five states analyzed in a study, one in every ten inmates has served at least ten years in prison. My brother is one of the over two million inmates currently incarcerated in the US. Outside prison...
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Massive jail expansion is finished. Can the programs change the lives of inmates? (modbee.com)
Stanislaus County leaders said a new minimum security jail facility, now complete at the Public Safety Center, is designed for programs to change the criminal patterns of inmates and ensure fewer come back after their release. Public tours of what’s called the REACT center held this week touted the classrooms in each housing unit, a family reunification room and sitting areas with multimedia screens. So far, the array of programs to assist inmates with addiction, behavioral issues and the...
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Surviving all the way to college: Pathways out of one of America’s most crime ridden cities [Journal of Interpersonal Violence]
photo: Daniel Case/ CC "The purpose of this study is to better understand the factors and processes related to resilience of youth who are among the most at risk for academic failure and involvement in the criminal justice system. To address the research questions about resilience and risk, in-depth interviews were conducted with a racially and ethnically diverse sample ( N = 146) from one of the “most dangerous” cities in America. To obtain an objective assessment of risk, crime data were...
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‘Survivor strong’: Resilience follows trauma [Recordnet.com]
STOCKTON — Life goes on and you can have a positive impact on the world after a traumatic loss. That’s the message many survivors and family members of violent crime victims shared Monday at the Stockton waterfront as they walked or ran a 5-kilometer course to remember a loved one lost to homicide. Roshan Campos never misses the opportunity to support victims and family members. The mother of Carlitha Villalobos, who was 19 when she was shot to death with two other young people in north...
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The law said an ex-felon couldn’t be a nurse. So this single mom got the law changed. (washingtonpost.com)
When Lisa Creason was a 19-year-old single mom, she robbed a Subway shop. Or, at least, she tried to. One evening in 1993, she walked in without a plan, without an ultimatum, and demanded money from the cash register. When she was denied, she took off. That spontaneous decision, which she said she made out of desperation to provide for her baby girl, would cost her for the next two decades. But it never defined her. On Thursday, Creason, now a 43-year-old mother of three and a nursing school...
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The Unfinished Business of Juvenile Justice [JJIE.org]
Lawmakers in New York, North Carolina, Missouri and Texas are currently debating proposals that would move 16- or 17-year-olds (or both) out of the adult criminal justice system and into the juvenile court. This development comes after seven states raised their age of jurisdiction over the past decade. In those states, as a result, half the number of youth who were previously automatically sent to adult courts now appear before a juvenile court judge — an outcome that increases the...
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Toxic Stress: Issue Brief on Family Separation and Child Detention [immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...
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Trauma informed education in juvenile justice settings
Jane Stevens contacted me about posting our presentation delivered at the correctional educators conference this last spring. We have been delivering online professional development to all of the educators in the Ohio Juvenile Justice setting in order...
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Trauma Informed Services to End Mass Incarceration [ACLU N CA]
Sammy A. Nuñez was born into deep poverty in an abusive household. One of his earliest memories includes waking up to his mother’s blood dripping on his face as his step father beat her. This life of fear, anxiety, and trauma would form a child full of anger who would go on to replicate the violence that he had witnessed at home. The education system failed to step in and counsel a child in pain , and instead Sammy was pushed out from school and further down the road toward incarceration.
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Trauma-informed training for Lancaster County corrections and parole officers seeks less use of force [LancasterOnline.com]
Police in a northwest Pennsylvania town responded about six years ago to a disturbance at a mental health center. The officers confronted an upset client. When he became combative, he was cuffed and spent five years in prison, said Audrey Smith, a psychologist in Meadville, Crawford County. Not long ago, the man returned to the center and became agitated. Back came the police. But this time, officers took a gentler approach. “They let the guy have a smoke,” Smith said, “and got him to an...
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Virginia Suburb Shows That Diversion, Victim-centered Agreements Work [jjie.org]
Over the last several years, the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (JDRDC) of Fairfax County, Va., has been working on transformative efforts around juvenile justice in an effort to keep low-risk youth from entering the system and address disparities for youth of color. One large area targeted by these efforts was the diversion programming and Juvenile Intake Office. In Virginia, intake officers are decision-makers. It is their responsibility to review charges from petitioners...
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We Need to Understand How to Provide Trauma-Informed Care [JJIE.org]
The philosophy of trauma-informed care is becoming more and more embedded in the philosophies and practices of child-serving agencies. When a child experiences a single traumatic event and is fortunate enough to be surrounded by supportive and nurturing adults, that trauma can generally be assessed and usually treated effectively with the help of parental support. When a traumatized child responds with internalized distress such as sadness, depression or anxiety, our systems appear to...
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Who’s Helping The 1.9 Million Women Released From Prisons And Jails Each Year? [witnessla.com]
By Wendy Sawyer, Witness LA, July 30, 2019 Given the dramatic growth of women’s incarceration in recent years, it’s concerning how little attention and how few resources have been directed to meeting the reentry needs of justice-involved women. After all, we know that women have different pathways to incarceration than men, and distinct needs, including the treatment of past trauma and substance use disorders, and more broadly, escaping poverty and meeting the needs of their children and...
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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...
Ask the Community
2 generation approaches for re-entry
Hi everyone, I've been doing some research looking for trauma informed two generation approaches to helping formerly incarcerated parents re-enter, develop and share strategies for coping with trauma, and develop skills and strategies to reconnect...
Ask the Community
Confused
I suffered constant physical and mental abuse and a child and witnessed my brother being abused (often the abuse occurred with us both at the same time). It got to the point of having enough around the age of thirteen. I rebelled in a constant state of rage, venturing into alcohol and drugs, crime, violence. At the age of seventeen I was arrested and sentenced to serve the rest of my life in prison. Resilience: Early in my prison term I had a spiritual awakening. Turned my life around.
Calendar Event
International Prisoner's Family Conference (Dallas, TX)
Comment
Re: Trauma Informed Education in Juvenile Justice
Here is the powerpoint I delivered. The presentation when well. Lots of interest. I am working with a professional development organization called PESI. They are a non-profit corporation that delivers a lot of professional development. I have my original course on supporting and educating traumatized students submitted to them and it should be available in less than two weeks
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Re: Trauma Informed Education in Juvenile Justice
Jennifer Thank you for your interest in our work Hi Robert, I'd like to hear more about this effort -- specifically, when you say 'educators' do you mean staff who teach within the detention facility? Most of the individuals who took the training are direct teaching staff. Many counselors and administrators took the training as well. And, were any of the detention staff trained in TI as well? What do you mean by TI? No no detention staff were trained. The focus was on improving teacher...
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Re: Proposition 47: A failure to learn history’s lesson (sacbee.com)
Anna, I'm saddened to hear of this gentleman's pain and our systems not supporting his healing. Every "system" should intentionally focus on supporting who they serve heal. Every professional who supports humanity should have their system support their own well being with compassion. Every individual deserves hope... I'm uplifted knowing all of our 12,000 + ACEs Connection members, and many others, are on the front line of systems change and creating cultures of caring. We've come a long...
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Re: Banning in-person jail visits is foolish and needlessly cruel (latimes.com)
Thank you Patricia for highlighting the Department of Justice's best practice recommendation; "N one of these benefits have been shown to be true for video visitation, which is why the DOJ report concludes that “Traditional, in-person visiting is a best practice that should continue in all correctional settings when possible." Yet, The revised regulations require that local detention facilities provide access to in-person visiting, except for facilities that are in design, construction or...
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Re: Banning in-person jail visits is foolish and needlessly cruel (latimes.com)
Yes... absolutely concurring with you Rick. Individuals who are incarcerated need opportunities to heal, within the system and when they return to their community. It's heartbreaking to realize how many sons and daughters are treated as caged animals. Knowing there are pockets of hope and healing with the criminal justice system, my hope is all of our collective synergy and momentum will support the transformation of the justice systems (juvenile and adult, courts, jails, prisons, detention...
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ACEs Connection launches Cooperative of Communities
The ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities launches today. We want to continue to contribute to the ACEs movement for as long as it takes to create a worldwide healing-centered culture based on ACEs science. We want that to take hold in this world in the same way electricity has — we only notice it if it isn’t there.
First, a clarification: Nothing on ACEsConnection.com changes! Membership remains free! Everything our current 300+ communities use stays free, and remains free for new ones.
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Mass Decarceration, COVID-19, and Justice in America [ssir.org]
(Free to be collage by Ekua Holmes/www.ekuaholmes.com) By Deanna Van Buren & F. Javier Torres-Campos, Stanford Social Innovation Review, June 9, 2020 With the highest incarceration rate in the world, US prisons and jails are drivers for the catastrophic outbreak of COVID-19. Because of dense living conditions, limited soap and hand sanitizer, poor access to quality healthcare, and an increasingly elderly population, the outbreaks we’ve seen so far may be just the beginning. It’s no...
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Stepping Up: A National Initiative to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails
The Stepping Up initiative recently celebrated 500 counties joining the national movement to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails. Four years ago, The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center , the National Association of Counties (NACo), and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APA Foundation) launche d Stepping Up in response to a public health crisis: the disproportionate number of people in jail who have mental illnesses. The human toll of this...
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New episode of Transforming Trauma! Compassion Prison Project: Bringing Trauma-informed Care into the Prison System with Fritzi Horstman
Transforming Trauma Episode 017: Compassion Prison Project: Bringing Trauma-informed Care into the Prison System with Fritzi Horstman In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our host Sarah Buino is joined by Fritzi Horstman, Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project . Through her work, Fritzi aims to bring trauma-informed care to a population in high need of trauma healing and not likely to receive it: men and women in prison. Sarah and Fritzi discuss Adverse Childhood...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...
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Police Reform Should Include Implementing ACEs Science
When I first learned about ACEs science, I was working for the local police department as the Director of a crime prevention program. This program was aimed at reducing drug related and violent crime by strengthening community partnerships. Our efforts yielded 19 crime prevention programs implemented by 35 community agencies. Together we reduced crime by 40% in one neighborhood, and pioneered a first probation program of its kind in Tennessee to reduce recidivism. At the end of the grant in...
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New Resource: Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic One-Pager (English & Spanish!)
English: The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , ACEs Connection , and the Yolo County Children’s Alliance have co-created a newly developed resource, “Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in both English and Spanish. This material is intended for Californian families experiencing the severe...
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After her incarceration ‘broke’ son, this woman created non-profit to support children of offenders (AI.com)
By Roy S. Johnson, December 4, 2020, AL.com. Danielle Lacey Chavers rolled the dice. Though she didn’t fully grasp the depth of the consequences. Not even as she rounded the corner inside a gated Trace Crossings community in Hoover and saw a fire truck leaving the cul-de-sac where her family lived. Or as she saw an ambulance and a phalanx of police cars in front of their home. Or realized it was a drug raid. The oldest of Chavers’s two sons, Jeremy, a teenager who had picked his younger...