Tagged With "Kaiser San Jose"
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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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Immigrant teens, parents explore ACEs, resilience in 5-week course with family doc
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family doctor in San Jose, Calif., was determined to find a way to teach ACEs science to her patients. Teens would come to the Washington Neighborhood Clinic clearly depressed by a range of problems at home that were contributing to risky sexual behavior and marijuana use, as well as preventable health problems like extreme obesity.
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In ACEs Connection webinar, physicians talk trauma, offer tips for helping pediatric immigrant patients
Dr. Raul Gutierrez, a pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he and his fellow clinicians see constant fear and its health consequences every single day among the largely immigrant and Latino population they serve. It’s all the result of anti-immigrant policies and the news cycle that feeds the fear. Dr. Raul Gutierrez “It is almost inescapable with the repercussions of immigration policy on the radio, television, social media and from friends and family,” Gutierrez told the 69...
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Interactive training on nature and health for health care providers, Oakland, Ca
October 27, 2018 8:45 AM 5:00 PM PDT Calling all health care providers! Save the date! Saturday October 27th, 2018 Join The Center for Nature and Health and Primary Care Clinic, UCSF Benioff's Children's Hospital: When: Saturday, October 27th, 2018, 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (Outdoor time included!) Where: CHORI Library, 5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, Ca Register now: www.bitly.com/ucsf- nature2018 Featured speakers: Daphne Miller, MD, Physician and author Jose Gonzalez, Founder, Latino...
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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A Conversation with Nadine Burke Harris: How Should Pediatricians Address Childhood Adversity?
Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a masterful storyteller. I learned in a conversation with her at Wheelock College before her presentation for the Brookline, MA organization Steps to Success , that before she decided to become doctor, Dr. Burke Harris wanted to be an author. Only after the smashing success of her TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime , when she was approached by a literary agent, did she find her way to writing. Her newly released book The...
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A fast, easy way for pediatricians to screen kids for ACEs...and other health issues
Last November, the California Department of Managed Care gave its stamp of approval to a new version of Whole Child Assessment 2.0 , a tool that screens for children’s adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It was recommended as part of recently passed legislation calling for trauma screening for children in California. But the Whole Child Assessment 2.0 (WCA) does more. It also queries patients about other critical safety and health issues, including whether they have enough to eat, whether...
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A Kaiser pediatrician, wise to ACEs science for years, finally gets to use it
Dr. Suzanne Frank has known about the impact of childhood adversity on young lives for decades. She’s seen the fallout in the faces of young people huddled in beds at a children’s shelter where she worked years ago. She’s seen it as the regional child abuse services and champion for the Permanente Medical Group. And she’s seen it in hospital examination rooms where, as a member of the Santa Clara County’s Sexual Assault Response Team, she’s been called in to examine shell-shocked children...
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A tough childhood has a long-term effect on health [businesslive.co.za]
US-based pediatrician Nadine Burke-Harris had a glut of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) cases at the clinic where she worked in Bayview, a poor area in San Francisco. She felt in her bones that these cases didn’t come out of the blue, and were directly linked to high levels of toxic stress in the community. Toxic stress, experienced through consistent exposure to violence, abuse and the consequences of poverty and inequality, has a lasting effect on the brain, notably in the...
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ACEs Aware Webinar: Trauma-informed practices to address stress from COVID19
How can health care providers take care of themselves, their colleagues and their patients during this COVID-19 pandemic? First and foremost is recognizing how the pandemic can stir up trauma from the past, said Dr. Alicia Lieberman, a psychologist specializing in trauma. “COVID19 is reawakening traumatic reminders in many of us and in the families we work with. And that often makes it difficult for parents to protect themselves and their children,” she noted. Lieberman, the director of the...
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ACEs, biomarkers and the cost of adversity
How useful and necessary are biomarkers in telling the story of how toxic stress from adverse childhood experiences and resilience can impact a child’s long-term health? In the introduction to an article in the journal BioEssays , Dr. Kathryn Ridout, a Kaiser Permanente San Jose psychiatrist, and her co-authors examine what is known about two biomarkers and quote data on child maltreatment and its economic burden over time that says it all. “When totaling the costs of health care, child...
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ACEs champion pediatricians talk about life and practice in a COVID-19 world
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers everywhere are changing how they care for their patients. I asked a few members of the ACEs in Pediatrics community what they’re doing differently. Dr. R.J Gillespie, pediatrician at The Children’s Clinic in Portland, OR. Dr. R.J. Gillespie Gillespie says that, as much as possible, they’re switching to virtual visits, which allows them “to comfort and reassure our patients face-to-face as much as possible without risking their...
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...
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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study: Beyond Screening in Pediatrics
The evidence is clear. When bad things happen to us as young children, we are at significantly increased risk for not only mental health problems, but also a wide range of physical health problems including asthma, heart disease, and even early death. These "bad things" all involve disruptions in caregiving relationships. A national movement directed at screening for ACEs in pediatric practices has emerged from this work. My suggestion that the implication of the Adverse Childhood...
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After 5-year journey to integrate ACEs science, Santa Rosa, CA, pediatric clinic is trauma-informed, from head to toe
Dr. Meredith Kieschnick was among the first physicians in the U.S. to hear the term, "adverse childhood experiences". That was in 1998, early on in her career as a pediatrician, when the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) published its initial findings in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine . “I attended a conference at which (Dr. Vincent) Felitti spoke,” she recalls. Felitti, at that time director of the Health Appraisal Center at Kaiser Permanente...
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After WIC Offered Better Food Options, Maternal And Infant Health Improved (scienceblog.com)
A major 2009 revision to a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and children improved recipients’ health on several key measures, researchers at UC San Francisco have found. The study is the first to analyze the health effects of the changes to the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which serves half of all infants and more than a quarter of all pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. It comes amid renewed attention to poor...
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Announcing a New Parenting and ACEs Blog from Stress Health, an Initiative of the Center for Youth Wellness
Research shows that the right kind of support and care can mitigate the impact of toxic stress in children and help them bounce back.
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As California Moves to Screen Children for Childhood Trauma, Poverty Has To Be Part of the Equation
In California, we are coming full circle in recognizing the connection between poverty and health.
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Bay Area Doctors Target Health Consequences of Childhood Trauma [sfchronicle.com]
By Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle, January 5, 2020 A screening tool developed by Bay Area pediatricians to identify adverse childhood experiences, ranging from homelessness and food insecurity to physical and sexual abuse, will now help doctors statewide address trauma affecting patients’ health. The California Department of Health Care Services approved the tool — called PEARLS, for Pediatric ACEs and Related Life-Events Screener — last month. As of Jan. 1, its use is covered by...
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Shifting the focus from trauma to compassion
photo: Rolf Schweitzer/CCO Dr. Arnd Herz, a self-described champion for ACEs science, would like nothing more than to witness a greater appreciation of how widespread adverse childhood experiences are. Herz, a pediatrician and director of Medi-Cal Strategy for the Greater Southern Alameda Area for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, would also like to encourage more people in health care to engage in a trauma-informed care approach, a change in practice that he says not only benefits...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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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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Study unearths patterns in San Jose homeless population's ACE scores
Photo by Terabass/ CC-SA-3.0 It was around 2010 that Dr. Angela Bymaster was seeing a disturbing pattern in the histories of her adult patients. She already knew that patients who saw her at the Valley Homeless Health Care Program in San Jose, CA, where she worked at the time, were homeless or recently homeless. What was most troubling to Bymaster was knowing that their current precarious existence could have been prevented. Dr. Angela Bymaster “Over and over and over again I was hearing the...
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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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Those who separate immigrant children from parents might as well be beating them with truncheons
Many people who see reports of children separated from their parents might think that, because they’re not crying, that they’ve adjusted. Or, if they are crying, they’ll eventually stop and get over it. But, the reality is that those who participate in separating children from their parents and those who are caring for them in the detainment centers might as well be beating them with truncheons.
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Toxic Childhoods [politico.com]
Often times, a pediatrician or medical professional well-versed in the effects of ACEs or toxic stress can be the initial bridge to services, support, and building resilience for children, youth and families served by child welfare. It's exciting and encouraging to read about more and more pediatricians grounding their medical practice within ACEs framework. A toddler came into my examination room recently at Bayview Child Health Center in Bayview Hunters Point, an underserved, largely...
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Trauma Informed Care for people with Developmental Disabilities Conference
Sponsored by the Family Resource Center-Parents Helping Parents May 12,2018 in San Jose,CA
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Trump Administration has Separated 900 Migrant Children Despite Order to Stop Practice [latimes.com]
By Kristina Davis, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2019 The Trump administration has separated 911 migrant children from their parents at the border since a San Diego federal judge last summer ordered an end to the systemic practice, the American Civil Liberties Union reported to the court Tuesday. The continuing separations are largely blamed on parental criminal history — an exception that U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has carved out in the ongoing litigation. But lawyers with the ACLU argue...
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UT San Antonio Researchers Pilot Ways to Help Youth Deal with Trauma [expressnews.com]
(retrieved from https://www.expressnews.com/news/education/article/UT-San-Antonio-researchers-pilot-ways-to-help-15015016.php#photo-18954339 ) Before 12-year-old Rihanna Briseño started taking classes at Good Samaritan Community Services, she was quick to dislike people and get angry. The Rhodes Middle School sixth-grader didn’t know why, but sometimes her brain told her the right thing was to beat another kid up. “I would say those things that I’m not going to say now,” Rihanna told the...
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Webinar: Cultivating Our Best Selves in Response to COVID-19 | Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT
How to use the skills of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for self and others to be the calm in the storm as we face the unknown. Free Webinar Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT Speakers: Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW Linda Grabbe, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC Zoom Webinar Registration Link: https://zoom.us/j/715837300 Additional ways to join are listed at the bottom of this post. About the webinar leaders: Elaine Miller-Karas is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and...
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Webinar Series – Putting Trauma-Informed Care into Practice: Lessons from the Field
Health policymakers and practitioners increasingly recognize trauma as an important factor that influences health throughout the lifespan. By incorporating trauma-informed approaches to care into their practice settings, provider organizations can more effectively care for patients and support efforts to improve health outcomes, reduce avoidable hospital utilization, and curb excess costs. This two-part CHCS webinar series will explore innovative strategies for implementing a trauma-informed...
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Webinar Series – Putting Trauma-Informed Care into Practice: Lessons from the Field
Learn how two leading San Francisco-based provider organizations are Implementing Trauma-Informed Care in Pediatric and Adult Primary Care Settings . View a recent webinar featuring Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, Center for Youth Wellness, and Dr. Edward Machtinger, Women's HIV Program at UCSF. The webinar is part of a series on Putting Trauma-Informed Care into Practice: Lessons from the Field hosted by the Center for Health Care Strategies and made possible by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Webinars
Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress in Medical Care: Promoting Health and Healing Through the Lifespan . Beth Grady, MD, FAAP, South San Francisco Clinic, egrady@smcgov.org. 2016.
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What the ACEs Screening Movement Can Learn from the Healthcare Hotspotting Movement
No brief intervention or short-term infusion of services is a silver bullet that will overcome the long-term harm caused by structural racism, poverty, and multi-generational trauma.
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Who's integrating ACEs?
2015 article about Children's Clinic in Portland, OR, doing ACEs history on parents of four-month-old babies. 2014 article about pediatricians taking ACEs history on ACEsTooHigh.com. Center for Youth Wellness, San Francisco,...
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Why I believe Gregory Williams, and his book, Shattered By The Darkness, will help save lives and revolutionize healthcare.
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
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Working with UCSF, California Surgeon General Aims to Cut Adverse Childhood Experiences by Half [ucsf.edu]
By Rebecca Wolfson, University of California San Francisco, February 18, 2020 Nadine Burke Harris, MD, California’s first surgeon general, has a bold goal: cut adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress in half within one generation. She spoke about her vision and her groundbreaking work to reduce adverse childhood experiences across the state during a speech at the UC San Francisco Parnassus Heights campus. The lecture at Cole Hall on Feb. 13 was part of Chancellor Sam Hawgood’s health...
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Youth-led community organizing as a tool for building resilience
It started as an answer to a youth-led campaign. Young people in arts programs in San Francisco Bay Area schools had produced spoken word videos about inequities in their communities that helped put them at risk for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Jean Junior The response by their peers was enormous, according to Dr. Jean Junior, who volunteered for the project as a pediatric resident at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). “Young people would say ‘You’ve actually gotten me interested.
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Medical Authorities with Academic Blinders look the other Way: Reject ACES
Recently a family doc published a "Viewpoint" in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting restraint and caution in using the ACEs screening tool (Campbell TL. Viewpoint, Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Primary Care: A Cautionary Note , JAMA Published Online: May 28, 2020, doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4365) because (1) there were no evidenced based treatments, (2) asking the questions would offend patients and parents, and (3) risk of labeling people with such...
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The Resilient Beginnings Network Is Taking Grant Applications!
Interested SF Bay Area safety net organizations can apply for funding to participate in this three-year program on resilience and trauma-informed care.
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'A Better Normal:' Can universal ACEs screening be equitable? -- Concerns and solutions
Can universal ACEs screening be equitable? A conversation about concerns and solutions. When: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2-3:30 pm PDT/5-6:30 pm EDT This webinar explores what it takes to ensure that equity is built into the process of screening and providing support for families who have experienced trauma and want help. REGISTER HERE Background At the beginning of this year, California, through the ACEs Aware initiative began rolling out universal screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs),...
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New California preventive mental health coverage puts ACEs science front and center
A mother, frantic with worry, brought her newborn in for a checkup at the pediatric clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby. And over the next several months, no amount of reassurance could convince the mom that her child was eating, sleeping and growing just fine. If anything, the mother’s worry led to behavior that raised alarm bells for her health care providers. Dr. Kate Margolis “[The family] wasn’t returning calls from the provider, and...
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We've got a $50,000 matching grant!
A very generous donor, who prefers to remain anonymous, has given ACEs Connection a $50,000 matching grant! If ACEs Connection’s members contribute $50,000 between now and the end of this year, our donor will match it with $50,000. "Changing the world — our culture of how we deal with people —is a huge task and takes a very large village, “ the anonymous donor says of the challenge grant. “ACEs Connection is a superb and effective leader of our village." This is our first concerted effort to...
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New nonprofit breast milk bank launches in San Diego (sandiegouniontribune.com)
San Diego — Every year, about 260 of the tiniest premature babies in California hospitals develop an often-fatal bowel disease known as necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC. Nobody knows what causes NEC, but a common factor in many cases is the use of formula to feed these very low-birth-weight babies because the mother’s breast milk is not available. Replacing that formula with pasteurized breast milk in every California hospital newborn intensive care unit could be a positive step in reducing...
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Launching Today, New ‘All In For Kids Fund’ Will Work to Prevent Childhood Adversity [futureswithhoutviolence.org]
Effort Aims to Prevent Childhood Trauma, Break the Cycle of Domestic Violence and Promote Healing During COVID-19 and beyond Genentech, Blue Shield of California Foundation Team with Futures Without Violence to Support Community-Led Approaches to Protect Children, Support Communities Virtual Event Series Kick-Offs New Initiative Today SAN FRANCISCO – Futures Without Violence today announced the launch of the All In For Kids Fund with a $5 million seed investment from Genentech and $1.5...
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Sonoma County field nurses use ACEs science to educate families
Santa Rosa, CA, resident Lisa Marden watches her 15-month-old baby gleefully play with magic markers and relays how she’s been coping with feeling anxious. (We're using a pseudonym to protect the family's privacy.) “I’m just super stressed out with everything, and as soon as I eat anything, I get nauseous, so I’ve been eating snacks instead of meals,” she explains to Liz George, a field nurse with the Maternal/Child Field Nursing team of Sonoma County, CA, who has been seeing Marden on home...
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Upcoming #SaludTues Tweetchat: "Understanding ACEs and Toxic Stress" [acesaware.org]
Our bodies are wired for survival, thanks to our biological stress system. However, without buffering protections, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as neglect and abuse, can lead to a toxic stress response. Fortunately, we know toxic stress is a health condition that is amenable to treatment. To help Californians better understand ACEs and toxic stress, we invite our ACEs Aware community to join us on Twitter on February 9 and use #SaludTues to Tweet about the lifelong consequences...