Tagged With "Professional Development"
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The 'Brain' in Growth Mindset: Does Teaching Students Neuroscience Help? (edweek.org)
Teaching students the science of how their brains change over time can help them see intelligence as something they can develop, rather than innate and unchangeable, finds a new analysis of 10 separate studies in the journal Trends in Neuroscience and Education . Teaching students the concept of neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to make new neural connections as a result of experience—is a common tactic in helping students develop a so-called "growth" rather than "fixed" mindset. But...
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The Brain Science Is In: Students' Emotional Needs Matter (edweek.org)
Teachers, like parents, have always understood that children’s learning and growth do not occur in a vacuum, but instead at the messy intersection of academic, social, and emotional development. And they know that students’ learning is helped (or hindered) by the quality of students’ relationships and the contexts in which they live and learn. Working to weave those threads, skilled teachers often have yearned for schools—and policy approaches—that understand this complex reality. Such...
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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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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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New Elementary and Secondary Education Law Includes Specific “Trauma-Informed Practices” Provisions
Legislation to replace the 14 year-old No Child Left Behind law—The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama on Dec. 10—was widely praised by the administration, legislators of both parties in the House and Senate, and the organizations concerned about education policy from the NEA to the Education Trust. The consensus is that the bill is not perfect but provides a needed recalibration of federal authority over the states in education policy while protecting...
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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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Non-white teachers have increased 162 percent over the past 30 years, but they are also more likely to quit [HechingerReport.org]
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that the U.S. teaching force is mostly white but the students in our classrooms are now mostly black, Hispanic and Asian. Although the latest federal data shows a dramatic surge in the number of black and Hispanic teacher hires, these same teachers continue to be among the most likely to leave the profession, with many churned out soon after they are hired and before they have a chance to develop strong teaching skills. “No, we don’t have...
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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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Be part of a breathtaking tipping point !
. Education Equity for trauma-impacted children: from failing funding to fair funding. Be part of the solution! Background A heartfelt tip of the hat to the Basic Education Funding Commission...
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Becoming A Trauma Sensitive School: One California District's Commitment
Susan Jones, a member of Resilient Sacramento and Behavior Specialist at San Juan Unified School District, spent the day of the Becoming a Trauma Sensitive School conference, overjoyed. This conference has been Susan's long term goal with the district, and the day she planned for the convened administrators, teachers, and school staff members was an phenomenal success.
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Brain Development and Academic Achievement
"As much as 20% of the gap in test scores could be explained by maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes. ... The influence of poverty on children’s learning and achievement is mediated by structural brain development. To avoid...
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Building a Resilient Community (United Way of East Central Iowa)
ACES: Building a Resilient Community Childhood trauma has affected the majority of people in our community. Specific family problems as well as child abuse and neglect (summarized as Adverse Childhood Experience, or ACEs) have been shown...
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Building Blocks for Learning [TurnaroundforChildren.org]
This framework develops skills that children need for success in school and beyond. Each element represents a set of evidence-based skills and mindsets that have been proven by research to strongly correlate to, and even predict, academic achievement. The framework draws from research in multiple fields to suggest movement from lower-order to higher-order skills. Overall, it provides a rigorous perspective on what it means to intentionally teach the whole child – to develop the social,...
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California Mulls Guidelines for School Telemental Health Programs (mhealthintelligence.com)
California lawmakers are pushing a bill to develop a statewide policy for telehealth and telemedicine that will give students remote access to mental health services. AB 2315 , which is now headed to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, calls on the California Department of Education and Department of Health Care Services to develop connected care guidelines within two years for the state’s public schools, including charter schools. The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and State Assembly. “For...
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Camp for Educators to Build Capacity for Self-Regulation
THE REGULATED CLASSROOM: “BOTTOM-UP” TRAUMA-INFORMED INSTRUCTION 3-Day CAMP Intensive When educators learn about the devastating impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), childhood trauma, and toxic stress on a child’s developing body, brain, and behavior, they often remark, “Well..what do I do now?” The Regulated Classroom answers that question. In this three-day intensive camp experience, educators will deepen self-awareness and capacity for self-regulation through a new approach to...
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‘Change in culture’: New California guidelines aim to help teach social, emotional skills [Press Democrat]
The nation’s schools long ago broadened their missions beyond the teaching of academic subjects and participation in extracurricular activities. Educators have for decades been entrusted to teach students a wider range of life skills, including those that touch on emotions, empathy and relationships with other people. Now, a new state guide , released Wednesday, offers a slew of resources for teachers and administrators seeking to bolster kids’ social and emotional development. “Science...
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Child Welfare Ideas from the Experts #7: Moving Toward Trauma-Informed Schools [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Ixchel Martinez, 28,...
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Issue Brief 55 - Addressing Students' Mental Health Needs [CHDI.org]
In 2014, following a series of student suicides and an increase in the number of students experiencing suicidal ideation and hospitalization, Stamford Public Schools recognized an urgent need to better identify students with mental health concerns and connect them to services. School personnel were reporting a higher number of students who had experienced trauma, including among refugee students. Prior to 2014, Stamford developed various strategies and initiatives designed to improve mental...
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It’s Mental Health Month. Check Out These Schools That Are Making Mental Health Services a Priority [EducationWorld.com]
It’s Mental Health Month. Check Out These Schools That Are Making Mental Health Services a Priority It’s Mental Health Month. Check Out These Schools That Are Making Mental Health Services a Priority Statistics say that 50 percent of students battling mental health issues drop out of school. That’s why more and more schools and districts are recognizing the very real need to improve the kinds of mental health services offered to students in need. Massachusetts District Embarks on Journey to...
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It's Time to Reframe How We Think About Education and Health [RWJF.org]
My sister, Katy, and I grew up in a family of teachers. My mother, my father and my aunt all dedicated themselves to educating, inspiring, encouraging and supporting each student who came through their classrooms. While I chose to go into public health, Katy followed in their footsteps and is a fifth-grade teacher. Many of her students experience challenges at home that no child should have to face. So in order for her students to be engaged in learning, not only does she need to know her...
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Job Opportunity! Social Emotional Health Content Managers to support the national Resilience in School Environments (RISE) Initiative in partnership with Kaiser Permanente
Location: National (with preferences in Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, CA, WA, CO) We will be hiring up to 5 content managers from this position. All application questions are required and any application without adequate responses will not be considered. JOB SUMMARY The Content Manager is responsible for designing and delivering technical assistance and professional development and developing and sharing resources to schools that participate in the national Resilience in School Environments (RISE)...
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Job Posting: Assistant Director/Lead Coach Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative, Deadline to apply 4/13/17
The Assistant Director position is a two-year grant funded position, with the potential for extension, with Los Angeles Education Partnership. This project is designed to support and implement a trauma-informed school environment in selected K-12 schools both within and outside of California through a partnership with Kaiser Permanente. A central component of this project’s approach to a trauma-informed school environment is to embed practices at each school that prioritize the wellness of...
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Join the Trauma-Sensitive School Movement
Are you ready to change the temperature of your school’s behavioral climate? Are you prepared to implement new strategies to help your staff connect with students and their families? Are you looking to empower your team to effectively de-escalate classroom problems before they become crises? Make your school a place all children can learn and thrive with the skills you develop through the National Council’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community . Connect with experts and professionals...
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journal article: Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools
Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am . 2012 January Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools Sheryl Kataoka, MD, MSHS, Audra Langley, PhD, Marleen Wong, PhD, Shilpa Baweja, MA, and Bradley Stein, MD, PhD The prevalence of trauma exposure among youth is a major public health concern, with a third of adolescents nationally reporting that they have been in a physical fight in the past twelve months and 9% having been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Studies have...
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Jubilee Leadership Academy: Using ACEs Science to Transform School Culture
Students at JLA are reminded that change starts with themselves In 2004, after nearly a decade as program director at Jubilee Leadership Academy (JLA), a Christian alternative boarding school for troubled boys ages 13-18 in Prescott, WA, Rick Griffin decided to take a job in Phoenix, AZ, to work with adults with developmental disabilities. There, he began to see similarities between the issues they were having and what he saw in the kids at JLA. “There was a cognitive reason these adults I...
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Landmark Trauma-Informed Education Bill Passes in Oregon
A landmark trauma-informed education bill to address “chronic absences of students” in the state’s public schools has passed the Oregon legislature and awaits the Governor’s signature. The bill, H.B. 4002 , requires two state education agencies to develop a statewide plan to address the problem and provides funding for “trauma-informed” approaches in schools. While the $500,000 funding level in the bill falls vastly short of the original $5.75 million request for five pilot sites in an...
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Learn4Life Conducts Level 1 Trauma-Informed Training to “Train-the-Trainers”
Learn4Life is taking an organization-wide approach to educational service delivery grounded in understanding trauma, its consequences and promoting healing and resilience. To help staff better understand the approach, training was recently conducted for Learn4Life leaders including teachers, counselors, and administrative staff. The training is designed to increase understanding of proactive, practical, trauma-informed approaches to create cultures of inclusivity. The goal is the have all...
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Learn4Life Staff Learns De-Escalation Techniques
At a recent Professional Development (PD), staff and teachers at Learn4Life resource centers throughout the San Fernando Valley and Northern Los Angeles County, learned about de-escalation techniques. The PD provided the staff with resources designed to equip them to organize their thinking and calmly respond to and effectively de-escalate situations to avoid a potential crisis. The techniques they learned included: Defining the behavior and how to approach a situation QTIP! (Quit Taking It...
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Letter of the Week: Healing from adverse childhood experiences [www.kansascity.com]
Kansas City Star, Letter to the Editor Keith Martin Overcoming abuse As a pediatric resident physician, I treat kids whose problems extend beyond the diseases I learned about in medical school. Often, helping children and families requires looking into root causes hidden outside of doctors’ offices. One such problem is toxic stress endured by children who have had adverse childhood experiences such as child abuse, neglect or family dysfunction. In the late 1990s, a landmark study of 17,000...
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Loud and Proud Fan of Compassionate Schools!
Consider the premise that to take "compassion to scale" it will take all of us being ambassadors of compassion. The most recent high profile events involving prominent athletes in the NFL have garnered widespread attention that transcends all the...
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Making Good Ideas Go Viral (ssir.org)
A less-traveled path to education reform: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is catalyzing three social forces to create an epidemic of best practice . Ashoka founder and CEO Bill Drayton recently wrote about his vision for a “changemaker world”—a place where problems can’t outrun solutions. He told a story about Ali Raza Khan, an entrepreneur in Pakistan, who tasked 6,000 poor students with starting successful ventures. He explains how, with little more than hearty encouragement, the...
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Making SEL More Relevant to Teens (edutopia.org)
Three social and emotional learning activities that are designed to address high school students’ need for status and respect. According to a 2018 survey , current and recent high school students don’t believe their schools have done enough to help them develop socially and emotionally, and most graduates don’t feel prepared for life after high school. Researcher David Yeager and his colleagues argue that it’s important to address teens’ need for status (“How do others treat me?”) and...
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Maya Soetoro-Ng: Ceeds of Peace (dailygood.org)
By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama. But Maya says we can't leave conflict resolution up to governments: resilience will come from ordinary people, not from centralized, powerful institutions or well-tested solutions alone. "It's imperative that we start...
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The Focus Room: A Calming, Welcoming Space to Restore Receptivity and Readiness to Learn
As part of the Trauma Informed approach to instruction, the staff at Learn4Life Innovation High School recently created a Focus Room at the National City resource center. The Focus Room provides a space to facilitate restorative processes for students who need a break to refocus or who are not meeting school expectations. In this space, staff assist students and guide them to redirect, recover, and/or return to an internal state conducive to learning. Students can request to use the room or...
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The Importance of Physical Activities, Yoga, and Mindful Based Practices for Young Children
The topic of this blog post is the importance of physical activity for children. In terms of physical activity, I chose to focus on yoga practice for young children. I believe that children are a big part of our society and their health is a reflection of their surroundings, which is why children’s health is so important. I researched three unique and professional studies that show how yoga builds resilience, self-awareness, self-image, self-esteem, quality of life, and dramatically reduces...
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The Importance of Quiet Time (dailygood.org)
The destruction of our inner selves via the wired world is an even more recent, and more subtle, phenomenon. The loss of slowness, of time for reflection and contemplation, of privacy and solitude, of silence, of the ability to sit quietly in a chair for fifteen minutes without external stimulation — all have happened quickly and almost invisibly. A hundred and fifty years ago, the telephone didn’t exist. Fifty years ago, the Internet didn’t exist. Twenty-five years ago, Google didn’t exist.
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The Importance of Training Teachers to Better Understand Their Native Students [yesmagazine.org]
"Native American students make up 1.4 percent of the students in Washington state public schools. And they have the lowest graduation rate of any ethnic group, with just 56.4 percent earning a high school diploma in four years. “I was that young person, I dropped out of school. I was one of those statistics of Native women dropouts,” says Dawn Hardison-Stevens, who is a member of the Steilacoom Tribal Council. Hardison-Stevens, who at the time was a young mother with a 3-year-old and a...
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The Journey From Me to We: The Walla Walla Way
“We’re all humans and we’re all going through the same things,” Kelsey Sisavath explains. “It’s important for everyone to know. It can change your perspective on how you see yourself, how you see others, and how you see the world.” The “it” Kelsey is talking about is trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) . She has a unique perspective on the topic given her range of experiences throughout her 19 years of life. The story...
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The National Council for Behavioral Health - 2018-2019 Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community
The National Council for Behavioral Health is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2018-2019 Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community. This one-of-akind opportunity connects leadership from schools from across the nation as they implement, sustain and spread trauma-sensitive approaches to promote a fundamental change in education culture. Throughout this year-long initiative, National Council trauma experts will help you develop and implement a...
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The Purpose of Education—According to Students [theatlantic.com]
Radio Atlantic recently examined a question that underpins many, if not most, debates about education in the U.S.: What are public schools for? Increasingly, it seems, American parents expect schools to first and foremost serve as pipelines into the workforce—places where kids develop the skills they need to get into a good college, land a good job, and ultimately have a leg up in society. For those parents, consistently low test scores are evidence that the country’s education system is...
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The Regulated Classroom: Camp for Educators
When educators learn about the devastating impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), childhood trauma, and toxic stress on a child’s developing body, brain, and behavior, they often remark, “Well...what do I do now?” The Regulated Classroom answers that question. In this three-day intensive camp experience, educators will deepen self-awareness and capacity for self-regulation through a new approach to trauma-informed teaching. The Regulated Classroom: Bottom-Up Trauma-Informed Teaching...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Candida Rodriguez is Creating Community Through the Power of Conversations That Matter
Candida Rodriguez is my mentor, while she may disagree with that statement and say it is the opposite, it is the absolute truth. My respect, admiration, and amazement at the depth of her knowledge, talent, and compassion astound me every time we work together. Candida serves her complex and ever-changing community with dedication, skill and a relentless pursuit of coordinating care for her students and families. We are partners in the Community Cafe Initiative that began in 2015 after I...
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The Relentless School Nurse: When the Health Office Pass Includes Emotions
The collaboration between school counselors and school nurses creates safe spaces for students at school. Building a coalition between school counselors and school nurses creates a safety net for our most complex and challenging students while benefiting the whole school community. Promoting connections through intentional relationship building, and ensuring a school environment that is physically, emotionally and psychologically safe changes the culture and climate. Read about an amazing...
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To Build a "Trauma-Informed Community" Start With Babies (www.psychologytoday.com) & Dr. Claudia Gold
Cissy's note: This article was written by the same @Claudia Gold who was the featured guest in one of our Parenting with ACEs chats . Here are excerpts from her article published in Psychology Today.
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Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation: Trauma-Invested Practices for Fostering Resilient Learners (ascd.org)
In this stirring follow-up to the award-winning Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall take you to the next level of trauma-invested practice. To get there, they explain, educators need to build a "nest"—a positive learning environment shaped by three new Rs of education: relationship , responsibility , and regulation . Drawing from their extensive experience working with schools, students, and families throughout the country, the authors Explain how to create...
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Relationships That Heal: Building a Community to Combat Childhood Trauma
“I just wish I had an adult to talk to.” That was the response of over 80 percent of teenagers in a survey commissioned by Laura Porter when asked: If you could have one helpful thing in your life, what would it be? Porter, a former county commissioner in Washington state is now the co-founder of ACE Interface , an organization that provides schools and communities with the tools to combat childhood trauma. The survey was part of her research to get a handle on what was happening with young...
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Resource List - Activities & Tools
This is a list of activities and tools for children K-12. 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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Resource list - Articles on ACEs/trauma-informed schools
Articles about how schools integrate trauma-informed practices, and the outcomes of doing so. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment with a link and/or information.
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Resource list -- Practices & Frameworks
All of these practices and frameworks are -- or should be -- informed by the new knowledge about the unified science of human development, aka ACEs writ large, or NEAR science. This encompasses the epidemiology of adverse childhood experiences (ACE studies), the neurobiology of toxic stress, the biomedical and epigenetic consequences of toxic stress, and resilience research. Frameworks and Models Attachment, Self-Regulation and Competency (ARC) Source: The Trauma Center at the...