Tagged With "ACEs Connection"
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Engaging Parents, Developing Leaders
A Self-Assessment and Planning Tool for Nonprofits and Schools By the Annie E. Casey Foundation This publication introduces an assessment and planning tool to help nonprofits evaluate their parent engagement efforts and chart a path toward deeper partnerships with parents and caregivers. The tool spans just eight pages, with accompanying text outlining how to use it, how to assess its results and what real-world strategies and programs are already in play — and working — to boost parent...
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Escondido Union School District Introduces Trauma Informed Strategies (livewellsd.org)
The Escondido Union School District (EUSD) values its staff, students and families. The district welcomed their 1,800 employees to the 2017-2018 school year through events coordinated to connect staff to each other, develop a trauma informed school system and encourage staff wellness and self-care during events held on the first staff work days of the school year. On Thursday August 10 th , all EUSD employees attended an inspirational presentation by Dr. Dawn Griffin, Associate Professor and...
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Failing Schools or Failing Paradigm ?
Yes, money matters in Education. Money is absolutely necessary, but money is Not sufficient. A key variable has been missing from the discussions about a new Education Paradigm: Childhood Trauma. Childhood trauma is broad in scope...
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Featured Updates - New Bullying Prevention App
Download the KnowBullying App! Parents and caregivers who spend at least 15 minutes a day talking with their child can build the foundation for a strong relationship, and help prevent bullying. KnowBullying, a new mobile app by the Substance...
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For those that ordered... the trauma-informed curriculum for churches is headed out the door this week!
It's been a labor of love more than a year in the making, and it is exciting to see the curriculum come together and head out to those that will give this first version a "test drive" this spring and (hopefully) give me some great feedback so I can make improvements over the summer and make the curriculum better! It is called "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations." The study is...
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Free Webinar on Using Creative Expression to Build Resiliency in Elementary Aged Kids
Join us for a free webinar that focuses on creative expression and how it helps kids with high ACE's scores develop coping mechanisms and build SEL skills.
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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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From Trauma Informed To Trauma Transformed: Achieving Post-Traumatic GROWTH for the Youths In Our Most Disenfranchised Public Schools and Communities
Roberto Rivera was a troubled, addicted youth engaged in criminal behavior who discovered his path to transformation in the pit of his traumatic pain. He harnessed the fire of early childhood trauma to change himself from being a problem to being a solution, not just in his own life, but also in the lives of many, many other under-privileged and under-performing young people. The name of his solution is Fulfill The Dream (FTD). FTD is a unique, hip-hop(e) based, Social Emotional Learning...
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Giving Students’ Empathy Muscles a Workout (edutopia.org)
A new platform helps teachers in different countries connect their classrooms and encourage an appreciation for different perspectives. Fourth-grade teacher Jesse Ediger wants her digital learners to realize that they can tap into opportunities far beyond their hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas. “I want to draw back the curtain, show them the world, and let them see how connected they are,” she says. Some 1,500 miles south in Maninalco, Mexico, English teacher Karina Cavazos Almaguer has...
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Great Resource for Educators and Parents - New Online training from CDC
CDC has launched a new free online training to prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It includes information about the risk and protective factors and outcomes associated with ACEs and evidence-based prevention strategies. Module 1 is an ACEs overview. Module 2 is a public health approach to preventing ACEs. Additional modules for specific professions such as mental health providers and medical providers are coming soon. No cost CEs are available. ...
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Guide - Creating Trauma-Informed Policies: A Practice Guide for School and Mental Health Leadership
Author, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health lead for SAMHSA's Mental Health Technology Center Pacific Southwest http://mhttcnetwork.org/mhttc/mhttc-psw.html Creating compassionate policies is a cornerstone strategy of educational leadership. This guide provides a deep dive into developing, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed and compassionate school policies. It highlights four "choice points" for education and mental health leadership: Choice Point 1: Names &...
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Here's How To Prevent The Next School Shooting, Experts Say (npr.org)
On the Friday after the deadly shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Matthew Mayer, a professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, got an email during a faculty meeting. The email was from Shane Jimerson, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Both specialize in the study of school violence. That email led to nearly two weeks of long days, Mayer says, for some of the leading experts in the field. On conference calls and in Google docs...
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Hopkins Schools therapy dog program helps connect students with mental health resources (hometownsource.com)
Officials in the Hopkins School District have been working to create accessible mental health resources for students. One of those initiatives is partnering with North Star Therapy Animals. Through that collaboration, the district brings therapy dogs to schools for students to interact with. “Right now, the dogs are in the building one day a week, so North (Junior High) it’s usually on Mondays, West (Junior High) it’s usually on Tuesdays, at the high school we have Fridays,” said Terese...
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Houston Schools Closed: What Happens When Schools Restart?
Please plan now for when schools re-open in Houston and surrounding area. It is not enough to just open the doors again.
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Houston Students Are Heading Back — What They Find Could Change Schools Nationwide (npr.org)
Belva Parrish, the counselor at Wilson and a 25-year veteran of Houston's public schools, says the pet update on the school's Facebook page was one small way schools can help students heal. "Trauma stems from not having any control of your situation," she says. "Banding together, being a place where students feel safe and they know they have a voice to be heard, will go a long way towards helping them." Leaders are positioning public schools as the place to address students' needs from the...
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How California’s Rural Education Network Is Creating an Online Hub to Better Connect Remote Schools and Empower Teachers to Share Experiences, Strategies & Classroom Materials (the74million.org)
Educators in rural communities face unique challenges, but they also have special strengths that aren’t always found in urban and suburban schools. In California,where 60 percent of districts are in towns or rural areas, a new project is leveraging those strengths to help educators connect with one another and get the support they need. The California Rural Ed Network started in 2017 but recently launched an online resource bank that offers free informational and professional development...
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How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood [adn.com]
How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch News Extreme stress and young brains are a bad combination, something that sets in motion feelings and behaviors that can haunt us long into adulthood. And just in time for the school year, a new study may help explain why. The Duke University study used neuro-imaging to look at the biological effect of childhood stress on the adult brain. It's important research, because it parallels existing knowledge...
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How Creative Writing Can Increase Students’ Resilience [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
Many of my seventh-grade students do not arrive at school ready to learn. Their families often face financial hardship and live in cramped quarters, which makes it difficult to focus on homework. The responsibility for cooking and taking care of younger siblings while parents work often falls on these twelve year olds’ small shoulders. Domestic violence and abuse are also not uncommon. To help traumatized students overcome their personal and academic challenges, one of our first jobs as...
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How Facial Expressions of Adults Affect Children
Karen Murphy, who is principal at Free Orchards Elementary School where I work, is a champion of trauma awareness and is working hard to lead our school in the direction of trauma sensitive practices -and away from the policies & procedures that have historically made well-intentioned school districts part of the "pipeline to prison". One of her sayings is "fix yer face", which means simply to put a warm expression on your face, consciously and regularly.
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How kids learn resilience [theatlantic.com]
In 2013, for the first time, a majority of public-school students in this country—51 percent, to be precise—fell below the federal government’s low-income cutoff, meaning they were eligible for a free or subsidized school lunch. It was a powerful symbolic moment—an inescapable reminder that the challenge of teaching low-income children has become the central issue in American education. The truth, as many American teachers know firsthand, is that low-income children can be harder to educate...
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How School Closures Can Strengthen Your Family (greatergood.berkeley.edu)
Here in the U.S., millions of families are dealing with school closures. The number of students around the world whose education has been interrupted by the coronavirus is approaching 400 million, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. As closed schools ramp up for online learning, we can retool in our families, too. Here are three practical ways families can cope—and even thrive—despite school closures, event cancellations, and a whole lot more...
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How to Create Learning Opportunities For Kids on the Bus (kqed.org)
Over the last two years, Google piloted its Rolling Study Halls program, providing grants to help equip school buses with Wi-Fi and stripped-down laptops. Priscilla Calcutt, director of instructional technology for the Berkeley County School District in South Carolina, says the students who live in the more high-poverty areas of her district ride the bus for 90 to 120 minutes each direction. For them, “the Wi-Fi has been a great tool.” The district has filters in place that block certain...
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How to Make the Benefits of a School Garden Meaningful in a Child's Life (kqed.org)
Amid the litany of education reforms that emphasize innovation and new methods, school gardens stand out as a low-tech change. In an era where kids' lives are more sedentary, and where childhood obesity has risen dramatically, gardens support and encourage healthful eating as a key component of children's physical wellbeing, which can aid their academic and social success, too. And as the consequences of food deserts and poor nutrition on life outcomes become starker, advocates say that...
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In Search of the Missing ACEs...
I remain forever grateful that my long felt and seeming innate knowledge ( actually garnered from personal experience, work with traumatised animals and people ) has been evidenced and validated by the amazing work of Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda. They created the peg I, we, can hang our experience and expertise on and work to best apply our skills to assist others. With ACEs I am now able to communicate my knowledge with clients, colleagues and communities with the additional confidence...
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Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit
The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs. This toolkit provides an overview of colleges and universities that have courses in trauma-informed practice and ACEs science. Most of the toolkit comprises content for a course on...
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Integrating ACEs science and trauma informed practices in your school district - what role does the administrator play?
Schools are the best opportunity to address ACEs on a large scale. Other than time at home, school is the place where children spend the majority of their time. And if a child's home life is full of strife, school might be the only place where the child feels safe. ACEs are common, and yet, it can be difficult to know which students need extra support. And rather than create additional programs that single out anyone or any group of students, and potentially having students fall through the...
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Schools’ Most Untapped Resource (ssir.org)
Green Schoolyards America connects ecological innovation with education, equity, and community engagement. What are we growing in our garden?” Wanda Stewart asks a class of third graders at Hoover Elementary School in Oakland, California. The room erupts with a garden medley: “Watermelon!” “Cherries!” “Spinach!” “Eggplant!” Then someone yells, “Mangoes!” and Stewart, Hoover’s gardening teacher, holds up her hand. “Can we grow mangoes in California?” she asks. “Mangoes need to grow in a...
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Sesame Street's Traumatic Experiences Website / First 5 CA Care, Cope Connect Resource
Thanks to Alejandra Labrado from First 5 Sacramento for providing the links to these resources! Sesame Street's Traumatic Experiences: https://sesamestreetincommunities.org/topics/traumatic-experiences/ When a child endures a traumatic experience, the whole family feels the impact. But adults hold the power to help lessen its effects. Several factors can change the course of kids’ lives: feeling seen and heard by a caring adult, being patiently taught coping strategies and...
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Sesame Workshop and BTC Team Up to Help with Big Scary Feelings during the COVID-19 Crisis
Caring for Each Other: How to Use Sesame Street in Communities Resources for Health Emergencies with Families Now Wednesday, April 1, 2020 @ 3 PM ET We're all in this together, and that's why we're all coming together. Sesame Workshop and the Brazelton Touchpoints Center are partnering on a webinar series, beginning April 1st, to share online resources that can help us handle the sudden changes in our lives when we face health emergencies like the one that confronts us today. As a result of...
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Setting the Wheels in Motion - Becoming a Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive School
I recently wrote a blog post about how to take the first step in creating a trauma informed care model (TIC) in your school. The first step, Establishing a Baseline, is necessary because it fuels future steps in the process. In the blog post "Is Your School Ready to be Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive," I also listed the key components of a TIC model. I am adding them here as well, because I don't want you to have to keep going back to the other blog as you are working on this process.
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Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Starting This Week! School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays - Connect • Reflect • Support
From our friends at the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (A SAMHSA funded TA center for the mental health field) School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays! In times of uncertainty, there is one thing we do know: educators and school mental health leadership are resilient, creative, tenacious and…needing support to provide support. The context of our schools is changing, and the context of our work is changing. In times of uncertainty, unpredictability, and...
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Superkid Power Guidebook
In Southern Oregon, Janai Mestrovich, MS, Early Learning & Child Development, labels her curriculum Empowering Superkids. The focus is on pre-K and Kindergarten kids and teaching them to know her/himself and tap inner resources of mind/body/emotions/breathing and have skills to make good choices and feel like a SUPERKID. Teaching self awareness, self respect and communication/collaboration are essential towards resiliency. Janai has developed and taught the Superkid Guidebook over a 40...
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Talking to Students About Grief (edutopia.org)
Grief is universal. It is in the kindergarten classroom when a class pet dies, the sixth grade that reads A Bridge to Terabithia , and the college history seminar in which students and teachers parse texts from the Holocaust. Research suggests that seven out of 10 teachers have a student in their classroom who is bereaved or actively grieving, and teachers carry their own losses too, yet mortality is often left out of discourses surrounding social and emotional learning and teacher training.
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Teaching 6-Year-Olds About Privilege and Power (kqed.org)
On a sunny day in April, I drove to Head-Royce School in the hills of Oakland, California, to join circle time in Bret Turner ’s first-grade classroom. I had asked Turner if I could sit in on some lessons after reading an article he wrote describing how he teaches about some surprising topics -- like race and class -- in an elementary school classroom. I wanted to see what that looked like and what kind of conversations first-graders at this private school would have around such complicated...
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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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 federal Handle with Care Act is designed to connect children who experience trauma to trauma informed school resources
Click here for the full press release: Proposed Federal Legislation: Handle with Care Act KAINE, MANCHIN, CAPITO INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO CARE FOR CHILDREN IMPACTED BY OPIOID ABUSE Thursday, April 26, 2018 Bristol Virginia Public Schools Superintendent: this bill ‘will equip us to better achieve our vision of enabling all students to thrive’ Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) introduced the Handle with...
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Michigan Trauma Informed Education
We are working with PESI, a leader in professional development, to offer a full day training in trauma informed education. This content follows the content of our book on Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. We will be in Michigan April 19, (Sterling Heights) 20, (LIvonia) and 21 (Ann Arbor) See the attached brochure If this goes well they will continue to offer this next year. Hope to see you there
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Mindfulness, SEL: ‘Something Uniquely Human About That Ability to Connect and to Care’ [YouthToday.org]
Rick Alleva is a field specialist at the University of New Hampshire and co-author of a curriculum called “ Courage to Care ,” which promotes empathy for middle schoolers. He has been researching and promoting positive youth development and the use of mindful learning as well as social and emotional learning (SEML) for many years. After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in psychology, he traveled cross-country, coming across many teenage runaways. That later heightened his...
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Modernizing Career and Technical Education (edutopia.org)
“Young people used to follow a path right out of school to the factory with just a little bit of job training, [but] those jobs are not there anymore,” said Neil Ridley, director of the State Initiative at Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce . “High school shouldn’t be seen as just a pipeline anymore; it’s a building block.” Sprawled across 65 sun-drenched acres, Skyline High School is an anomaly in the relatively affluent and white neighborhood where it resides.
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Resources -- Training
Training programs oriented for an entire school or school district. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment in this blog post with a link and/or information.
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More Popular Than Gmail, Facebook and Instagram: The Education App That Hit #1 on the iOS Chart (edsurge.com)
Gmail. Instagram. YouTube. Chances are you’ve opened up one of those apps today on your phone (and perhaps spent more time on them than you might like to admit). But earlier this week, one educational app reigned over all in the endless galaxy of apps. According to both Apple and App Annie , a website that tracks the popularity of mobile apps by number of new downloads, Remind , a school communications platform, took the #1 spot on the chart of free iOS apps. Remind’s app allows educators,...
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Navigating the Holidays for Students with ACEs
Over the last few weeks, I have had countless conversations with schools about the uptick of behavioral issues this time of year. Many educators are recognizing that students with ACE’s have a tough time around the holidays, but very few people know what to do about it. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, below are the top three pieces of advice I have been sharing. Avoid some of the most common holiday traditions: When we have negative experiences, our brain latches on to everything...
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New Guidance on Trauma Screening in Schools
In partnership with the Defending Childhood State Policy Initiative and the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, new guidance has been released on trauma screening in schools. Importantly, this document lays out a series of important considerations when determining whether trauma screening is indicated in each context, and how to go about collecting and utilizing the data generated from the process. Please feel free to share input.
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New Resource Guide for Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Prevention
Greetings, ACN Community! I wanted to share this fantastic new resource guide developed by one of the work groups from the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. This guide provides background on best practice, principles of prevention, identifying resources for the classroom, developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. It is really quite thorough and is full of excellent ideas...
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Now available: recording of Chris Blodgett's talk on trauma-informed communities
Dr. Chris Blodgett spoke on Thursday, Nov 3rd at the Anchorage Loussac Library to a room of nearly 140 people and 60 more online. His talk "From ACEs to Action: How Communities Can Improve Well-Being and Resilience" was approximately two hours long. Access the webinar video, audio file, and slides here.
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Nowhere to Hide: The Elephant in the [Class]room
We are trying to scoop water out of a boat which has gaping trauma-holes in the bottom.
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Nowhere to Hide the Elephant in the [Class]room
Developmental trauma changes the architecture of the physical brain, ability to learn and social behavior. It impacts two out of three children, but I didn’t even know what it was…