Tagged With "Care of Our Patients"
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CA to reimburse for only one of three ACEs screeners
California health care providers will soon begin to learn how many of the 13.2 million California children and adults in the state’s MediCal program have been exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). But the state’s proposed decision to reimburse only one of three recommended options for screening children has drawn mixed reactions from pediatricians. “If we have mandated legislation that only looks at one screening tool, it really limits the opportunity to improve that screening...
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California ACES Learning & Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC) - Opportunity to be a part of the Learning Collaborative!
Apply to be a part of ACEs Aware's California ACES Learning & Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC) In partnership with the UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Healthcare and other key partners, we'll select 15 organizations across California to participate in this 18-month learning collaborative to support clinics in screening for and responding to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children and adults. This is a challenging time, and we know that many of our health care...
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California healthcare providers adapt ACEs screening from in-person to virtual environment
Dr. Amy Shekarchi, a pediatrician based in Los Angeles, CA, was helping to lead the rollout of ACEs screening among 50 health care providers at six clinics affiliated with the L.A. County Department of Health Services when the COVID-19 pandemic hit—days before she was set to launch the effort. “We had trained everybody in doing face-to-face [ACEs screening], and when COVID-19 happened we thought, let’s not throw the screening out. Everybody was ready,” says Shekarchi, who is the pediatric...
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California Looks To Lead Nation In Unraveling Childhood Trauma [witnessla.com]
Imagine identifying a toxin so potent it could rewire a child’s brain and erode his immune system. A substance that, in high doses, tripled the risk of heart disease and lung cancer and reduced life expectancy by 20 years. And then realizing that tens of millions of American children had been exposed. Dr. @Nadine Burke Harris, California’s newly appointed surgeon general, will tell you this is not a hypothetical scenario. She is a leading voice in a movement trying to transform our...
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California unveils ACEs Aware initiative to screen for trauma
Will screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in California be mandatory? No, but it’s recommended. Will there be training for physicians and staff on how to screen? Yes. Who will be reimbursed for screening patients in California? Physicians who serve patients in the state’s Medi-Cal program — for now. For more answers to these and other questions that surfaced during a Dec. 4 webinar introducing Californians to a new statewide initiative, read on. Come January 1, California will...
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Can We Harness Pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton's Message of Hope?
Photo courtesy of Brazelton Touchpoints Center As our nation mourns the passing of renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, hearing his voice through the outpouring of articles, video clips, and conversations on social media feels like a balm for the soul. In these trying times, his simple shift from learning "what's wrong" to listening for "what's right" in a child and family seems very much needed. In his 50 years practicing pediatrics, he saw up close the ways parents can struggle. With...
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Caring adult relationships can make the difference for children in trauma [register-herald.com]
Social workers, law enforcement officers and other children’s advocates gathered Wednesday for the first day of the West Virginia Children’s Justice “Handle With Care” Conference to learn more about child trauma, intervention and ways to help children become successful. In a state that leads the nation for opioid overdose deaths and babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, West Virginia children are often witnesses to and victims of trauma. The West Virginia Defending Childhood...
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Chicago healthcare providers start center for ACEs science education; aim to reach all medical, health students by 2025
In 2017, Dr. Audrey Stillerman and three other women from the Chicago healthcare community founded the THEN Center . Its goal is lofty: By 2025, it wants every graduating student in medical and health sciences across the United States to apply core concepts of childhood adversity, neurobiology, resilience and health equity into their work. Dr. Audrey Stillerman Today, the THEN Center (The Collaborative Study of Trauma, Health Equity and Neurobiology) is well on its way. Its founders are...
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Child Sexual Abuse: Talking Points in the Office [AAPPublications.org]
Pediatricians are experts at prevention dialogue in practice settings: from fevers, car seats and safety gates, to locking up medications, toxins and guns — and everything in between — keeping kids safe and promoting healthy development is core to our commitment to families. Surveys have shown, however, that dialogues about preventing child sexual abuse often are a challenge, with the most common barriers to providing guidance being lack of time, training and uncertainty about how to...
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Children and US Federal Policy on Health and Health Care Seen but Not Heard
Children account for 73.5 million Americans (24%), but 8% of federal expenditures. Data on health and health care indicate that child well-being in the United States has been in decline since the most recent recession. Childhood poverty has...
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Colorado Launches Two Generation Approach to Family Services [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Colorado is testing a new approach to providing services to struggling families in an effort to address the intergenerational cycle of poverty, incarceration and foster care. Two Generation (2Gen) is a new initiative by the state recognizing that children and their parents are best served by recognizing the needs of the entire family unit. “CDHS embedded the 2Gen approach into all of our services, recognizing that our clients only succeed when their providers or children also get the support...
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Commentary: Pediatricians called to address racism, intolerance to achieve health equity [AAPPublications.org]
As pediatricians, we champion the need to address social determinants of health, such as poverty and food insecurity, in an effort to achieve health equity. We emphasize screening for toxic stress. In our conversations about equity, we include data about racial and ethnic disparities. Because of our commitment to work for the health and well-being of all children, pediatricians are uniquely positioned to consider and address the needs and concerns of the at-risk communities for whom we care.
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Connecting with Families During Quarantine: Virtual Support and Telehealth
The New Jersey Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics Healthy Spaces program offers this webinar to provide strategies for health care providers to provide trauma-informed care during virtual patient encounters. Drs. Nicole Leopardi and Ruth Gubernick will share guidance on outreach messaging, stress management, and positive discipline. Participants will also engage in thoughtful reflection on how to implement small tests of change to adapt patient care and support connections with families...
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Conversations about Emotional Health AAP
The AAP developed 2 promotional ads — Mom! Dad! Ask the doctor about my emotional development, too! — to promote the importance of mental health as part of a health supervision visit. - See more at: ...
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Cover Story November Issue of Journal of Family Practice: Childhood Adversity and Lifelong Health
I was honored to have my review article, “Childhood Adversity and Lifelong Health: from research to action”, chosen as the November 2018 cover story of the Journal of Family Practice . Here is a link to the article. Access is free after registration with the journal and retrievable directly by anyone who has Medline PubMed access. https://www.mdedge.com/jfponline/article/178388/pediatrics/childhood-adversity-lifelong-health-research-action Highlights from the article include: - recognition...
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COVID-19 and our dialogue with death
[Editor's note: Dr. Cristian Zanartu, an internist and palliative medicine specialist, is currently volunteering at Bellevue Hospital during the pandemic.] I was angry. So angry. How come the smartest country in the world is acting like the dumbest? Why aren’t health authorities giving us clear guidelines now, before this starts? Like: how to quarantine, how to quarantine from a symptomatic loved one in the same household (we knew by late February from Chinese data that most spread happened...
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Cultivating Deliberate Resilience During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic [jamanetwork.com]
By Abby R. Rosenberg, JAMA Pediatrics, April 14, 2020 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is affecting our health care community in unprecedented ways. As a pediatric oncologist who studies resilience in the context of illness, I started thinking about what this pandemic means for our professional resilience a few weeks ago, when the first US patient with fatal COVID-19 died in my home city of Seattle, Washington. Promoting resilience among health care workers and organizations starts with...
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CYW's Provider Training Courses now available online
In response to an overwhelming demand for information about ACEs science, screening tools, and guidance on how to implement ACEs screening, CYW has developed a suite of online courses in order to make our training more accessible to a broader audience. Developed by a team of pediatricians, research scientists, public health experts, and clinical quality improvement experts, these courses are the first of four online courses that will aid medical providers/practitioners in understanding and...
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CYW's Provider Training Courses now available online
In response to an overwhelming demand for information about ACEs science, screening tools, and guidance on how to implement ACEs screening, CYW has developed a suite of online courses in order to make our training more accessible to a broader audience. Developed by a team of pediatricians, research scientists, public health experts, and clinical quality improvement experts, these courses are the first of four online courses that will aid medical providers/practitioners in understanding and...
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Daddy, Papi, Papa, or Baba: The Influence of Fathers on Young Children’s Development - Zero to Three
In this podcast, Dr. Kyle Pruett talks about the important and unique role fathers play in the lives of young children. Dr. Pruett is clinical professor of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and is a past president of ZERO TO...
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Developing Healthy Minds: It’s Never Too Early to Start! [Blog.SAMHSA.gov]
The human mind is one of the most complex structures in the universe. Even in early infancy, it is capable of taking in a wide variety of inputs. Still, in our early years, we’ve only unlocked a small portion of its potential. Our brains actually continue to develop into our twenties . Accordingly, the U.S. Government embraces a definition of youth that continues until we turn 25. Nurturing the development of young minds to stay healthy through adulthood is a primary goal of SAMHSA’s Project...
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Developmental Delay Referrals Improve With QI Plan
Children with developmental delays stand a better chance of getting the early-intervention services they need if clinicians take the time to document screening efforts and follow-up with a simple telephone call, investigators say. When a...
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Docs: Kids to Suffer Under Trump's Tough Immigration Policies [Consumer.Healthday.com]
U.S. pediatricians are taking President Donald Trump to task after he issued executive orders Wednesday that -- the doctors said -- will make the country a much less welcoming place for immigrant children. Not only will refugee children be harmed by the new policies, but children of immigrants already living in the United States will become frightened for their family's safety, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "Children do not immigrate, they flee," AAP President Dr.
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10 Nature Activities to Help Get Your Family Through the Coronavirus Pandemic [childrenandnature.org]
By Richard Louv, Children & Nature Network, March 16, 2020 If the coronavirus spreads at the rate that experts believe it will, schools, workplaces and businesses will continue to close. Here’s a thread of silver lining. We’ll have more time for each other and nature. And, at least so far, nature’s always open. Getting outside — but at a safe distance from other people — can be one way to boost your family’s resilience. If you spend too much time indoors, “your vitamin D level goes...
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12 Things I Wish My Doctor Understood About Childhood Trauma
It doesn’t happen that often anymore, but one place where I almost always get triggered with my Childhood PTSD symptoms is when I visit the doctor. I could never even put this into words before. But now that I’m mostly healed from my Childhood PTSD symptoms, I want to express what I wish my doctors – all the doctors of my life – had understood about the effects of Childhood trauma, about me. Note: This is one of my most personal posts ever. Unless you’re someone who really prefers text, I...
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2019 Aspen Forum on Children and Families (livestream) Feb. 26-27
As state and federal lawmakers prepare for the year ahead, there is tremendous momentum for bold ideas that move families toward opportunity. The second Aspen Forum on Children and Families , held this week on February 26-27, will bring together national leaders – policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and philanthropists – to surface big ideas for investing in the full potential of children and families, two generations at a time. While in-person registration for this convening is...
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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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Investment in a social pediatrics initiative
(Cissy's note: grateful for all our Atlantic Canada Community is sharing with us all!) MONCTON (GNB) – The provincial government is investing $350,000 in the establishment of a social pediatrics demonstration site. “Social pediatrics promotes a multisectoral, interdisciplinary approach that takes into account the 12 determinants of health simultaneously to meet a variety of needs of children and their families,” said Health Minister Benoît Bourque. The demonstration site will be located in...
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Iowa project aims to have all pediatricians, family docs screen for ACEs
Dr. Amy Shriver is on a mission: to convince every pediatrician and family doctor in the State of Iowa to screen children for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Dr. Amy Shriver The Des Moines-based Blank Children’s Hospital pediatrician is not alone. She’s part of Central Iowa ACES 360, a regional cross-sector coalition formed in 2011 that is working toward that ambitious goal. And they’re making substantial inroads. Central Iowa ACES 360 has just developed a one-hour trauma-informed...
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JAMA Forum: Building Blocks for Addressing Social Determinants of Health [newsatjama.jama.com]
Our health care system is waking up to the fact that the health of individuals and families does not depend solely on good coverage and good medical care; it also requires us to address social and other factors that are major contributors to a person’s physical and mental well-being. That’s why more and more clinics are screening incoming patients for challenges in areas ranging from housing conditions, nutrition, access to transportation, and even their ability to afford utilities . It’s...
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January 2019 NPPC Announcements
The NPPC team at the Center for Youth Wellness is excited to share details about our second cohort of Pilot Sites, our ACEs webinar series with OptumHealth education and our new podcast series: ‘Voices from the Field’. Read on to find out more. Apply for the National Pediatric Practice Community Pilot Site Cohort 2! The National Pediatric Practice Community(NPPC) is pleased to open the application process for NPPC's second cohort of pilot sites. Participation will not only support your...
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Kaiser family medicine clinic launches 4-question ACE survey pilot for adults
In July, medical residents in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose, CA, began screening adult patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). But it’s an ACE survey with a twist: it’s shorter, not the 10-question survey of the original CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , according to Dr. Kathryn Ridout who is leading the pilot along with Dr. Francis Chu and Dr. Alec Uy . Why a shorter ACE survey? Dr. Kathryn Ridout “When we were doing our initial discussions with stakeholders in...
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Leaders in SF public housing deal with their own and community trauma head on
Sengthong Sithounnolat, Jeris Woodson, Donald Greene, Ashley Blanco On a recent Saturday, 10 people gather around a table at the offices of Trauma Transformed in Oakland, Calif., where quotes from figures like Frederick Douglas, Nelson Mandela, and Coretta Scott King grace one wall as light streams in from a skylight above. The group is known as the Resident Warriors, which meets weekly. One participant talks of her recovery from addiction and her mother’s murder. Another mentions being...
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Lesson learned integrating ACEs science into health clinics: Staff first, THEN patients
Nearly two years ago, a team of colleagues at LifeLong Medical Clinics jumped at the opportunity to integrate practices based on ACEs science to prevent and heal trauma in their patients when it joined a two-year learning collaborative known as the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC). A few months after training began, the staff realized they had to put on the brakes.
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Little kids and 'toxic stress': we can solve this [cnn.com]
All children have incredible potential, most with parents, teachers and other adults in their lives who want the best for them. Unfortunately, many schools, particularly those that serve children with the greatest need, face obstacles that limit children's educational success -- rote curriculums, insufficient support for teachers and scant extracurricular options, to name a few. Educators, parents and policymakers have long acknowledged such obstacles, but we now know that there is another...
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Love in the Time After Covid-19 [positiveexperience.org]
By Dr. Robert Sege, positiveexperience.org, April 23, 2020 A lot has happened in the month since we first published “ Love in the Time of Coronavirus ” in this blog space. We are now publishing regularly and have featured the perspectives of Drs. David Willis , Danielle Laraque-Arena , Heather Forkey, and Moira Szilagyi . We have also established our own community at ACEs Connection , and post contributions there frequently. Visit our blog to read all posts, our publications page for media...
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Love in the time of Coronavirus: HOPE-informed thoughts for parents
This has been quite a week, and we are now facing major disruptions in our own family lives. There is no doubt that the events of this winter and spring will be memorable for children. In that spirit, here are a few ideas to help make those memories (at least somewhat) happy.
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Love in the TIme of Coronavirus: Inequities and Supporting Children
This blog is re-posted from positiveexperience.org/blog/ Link there for associated resources, and for the other blogs in the series. Having safe, stable, and equitable environments to live, learn and play forms the second of the 4 Building Blocks of HOPE. Children need homes where they feel safe and secure and have their basic needs met. Children thrive in an environment that encourages curiosity and provides opportunities for learning to play and interact with other children. Today’s blog...
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Managing Post-Traumatic Stress in a Pandemic: Practices & Resources Updated Regularly
[Ed. note: Cissy posted this in the Practicing Resilience community, and it's cross-posted here to make sure everyone sees it. We don't want anyone to miss out on these resources!] Are you looking for new ways to get connected, supported, or to manage stress while managing post-traumatic stress during this pandemic? I am. No matter what our past or present life circumstances, it's safe to say a whole bunch of us are feeling more stressed and if we live with chronic post-traumatic stress to...
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Marin Community Clinics in California screen babies for ACEs, provide support in effort to prevent trauma
When Marin Community Clinics (MCC) first considered screening their patients for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) they already had decided that if they were going to prevent children from acquiring ACEs, they had to take a radical approach.
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Maternal Depression and Intimate Partner Violence: Impacts on Children [aappublications.org]
Among the many adverse childhood experiences, one must consider are the effects of maternal depression and of mothers being the victim of physical or sexual violence. What is the toll of these on children? Neamah et al. ( 10.1542/peds.2017-3457 ) decided to evaluate this by looking at the strength of such an association on the cognitive development as well as physical growth of over a thousand toddlers between 18 to 36 months living in Tanzania. These children underwent developmental testing...
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Medical students' ACE scores mirror general population, study finds
A national survey published in 2014 revealed a disturbing finding. Compared to college graduates pursuing other professions, medical students, residents and early career physicians experienced a higher degree of burnout. Citing that article, a group of researchers at University of California at Davis School of Medicine wondered whether medical students’ childhood adversity and resilience played a role in their burnout, said Dr. Andres Sciolla, an associate professor of psychiatry and...
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MIndful Healthcare Speakers Series: Resources for Healthcare Workers_Begins May 19
As healthcare workers continue to support us in the most crucial ways, it is our hope that we can support them as well at this time. If you or somebody you know is a healthcare professional, please check out our new free initiative, The Mindful Healthcare Speaker Series . We've created this series, in partnership with Mindful.org, to support healthcare workers during this challenging time. Please help make a difference by letting those you care about know that this free resource is available...
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Montefiore Integrated Pediatric Behavioral Health Training Institute, May 14 & 15, 2018
Monday, May 14, 2018 Albert Einstein College of Medicine Michael F. Price Center 1300 Morris Park Center, 4th Floor Bronx, NY 10461 PROGRAM DESCRIPTION Learn about our model of Integrated Pediatric Behavioral Health Services, including HealthySteps for children birth through age 5, and our evidence-informed, short-term, modularized treatment protocols for school age and adolescent: • Anxiety • ADHD • Trauma • Depression • Conduct Problems One full day of training, including electronic and...
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Montefiore Medical in Bronx screens 12,000+ kids for ACEs
Creative Commons/Flickr/Family drawing by Meggy ____________________________________ Since 2016, more than 12,000 children beginning at the age of 1-years-old have been screened for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York, according to Miguelina German, the director of Quality & Research in the Pediatric Behavioral Health Integration Program and project director of Trauma Informed Care at the center. Parents of infants are asked to fill out...
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Montefiore to test out lower ACE score cut-off in pediatric patients
photo/ CCO 1.0 Screening their pediatric patients for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) showed researchers at Montefiore Medical Center that their cut-off score of 4 for referring children and families for help was too high, says Dr. Dana Crawford, a pediatric psychologist and the director of the Trauma-Informed Care Program at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, NY. Dr. Dana Crawford Their analysis of the results not only confirmed what pediatricians had suspected, it helped them...
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“Motherless Children Have the Hardest Time”: Epigenetic Programming and Early Life Environment [pediatrics.aappublications.org]
The Blind Willie Johnson blues song “Motherless Children” highlights the maternal bonds that we all know are critical to emotional and cognitive development. Authors of previous work looking at infant stress response have found that these bonds begin in utero and can be influenced by both maternal and paternal influences and across multiple generations. 1 The observations of Barker et al 2 on the Dutch famine birth cohort of World War II were perhaps the first published observations of this...
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Mr. Rogers, Trauma-Informed Care, and the Limits of Information
Fred Rogers, in his 1969 testimony before the Senate subcommittee on communications in defense of public television, transforms a clearly skeptical Senator Pastore from, "Alright Rogers you've got the floor" to, "Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars." How does he accomplish this transformation? One line from Senator Pastore gives us some insight. Several minutes into Mr. Rogers testimony he says, "This is the first time I've had goosebumps in the last two days," to which Rogers...
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Nadine Burke Harris debuts "The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity" in Philadelphia
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris debuted her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity , at the Philadelphia Free Library this evening in a talk and book signing. This first stop in an ambitious book tour that crisscrosses the country reflects a mission that Burke Harris has pursued for nearly a decade: to spread the knowledge about the science of adverse childhood experiences, and about how people can use this knowledge to help solve our most intractable problems.
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Nadine Burke Harris' new book, The Deepest Well, weaves ACEs science and personal stories
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, FAAP/Courtesy of Center for Youth Wellness In this short interview , pioneering pediatrician and author Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based Center for Youth Wellness , discusses her pivotal new book The Deepest Well. In the book Burke Harris weaves together the hard science behind adversity and trauma with personal stories. It was a particular patient, Burke Harris explains, that led her to shift her research and practice.