Tagged With "Child life"
Blog Post
Hillary Clinton’s Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health [The Briefing—Fact Sheets]
The first bullet under Early Diagnosis and Intervention of today’s release of Hillary Clinton’s mental health agenda is titled “ Increase public awareness and take action to address maternal depression, infant mental health, and trauma and stress in the lives of young children.” It states “We also know that infant mental health depends on children forming close and secure relationships with the adults in their lives, and that too many children are growing up in environments that cause them...
Blog Post
Home Gun Safety Queries in Well-Child Visits [jamanetwork.com]
By Carole H. Stipelman, Greg Stoddard, Kyle Bata, et al., JAMA Pediatrics, October 28, 2019 Firearms are a leading cause of death in US children, and the rate of suicide by firearms in people aged 10 to 19 years has increased since 2008.1 In the United States, 4.6 million children (approximately 7%) live in households with at least 1 gun that is stored loaded and unlocked.2 Safe storage of guns and ammunition may decrease the occurrence of self-inflicted or unintentional firearm injury to...
Blog Post
How chapters are addressing pediatric mental health crisis [aappublications.org]
Approximately one in five youths ages 13-18 experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. For children ages 8-15, the number is 13%. The AAP Arizona, California 3, Florida, New Jersey and Virginia chapters received Healthy People 2020 grants to develop programs to empower families, the media and/or communities to address the mental health crisis in children and youths. Following is an overview of each chapter’s...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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,...
Blog Post
How Does Trauma Affect a Person’s Interaction with Their Child? (www.nicabm.com) & Commentary
Has anyone seen this video posted on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICAMB) blog? "According to Dr. Ruth Lanius, a parent's experience of trauma can impact their ability to form a close, intimate relationship with their child." Ruth Buczynski, PhD Those of us Parenting with ACEs sure know that's the truth. Developmental trauma impacts our ability to form close and intimate relationships with ourselves, other adults and our children. The video was...
Blog Post
How to Be More Resilient [nytimes.com]
As a psychiatrist, I’ve long wondered why some people get ill in the face of stress and adversity — either mentally or physically — while others rarely succumb. We know, for example, that not everyone gets PTSD after exposure to extreme trauma, while some people get disabling depression with minimal or no stress. Likewise, we know that chronic stress can contribute to physical conditions like heart disease and stroke in some people, while others emerge unscathed. What makes people resilient,...
Blog Post
HOW TO CALM SIBLING SQUABBLES (Futurity Research News from Top Universities)
PENN STATE (US) — New research suggests intervention strategies that can cultivate healthy and supportive sibling relationships. The relationship between brothers and sisters is critical for learning life skills that...
Blog Post
Hundreds Attend ACEs Town Hall Featuring California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris (with video) [northcoastjournal.com]
By Iridian Casarez, North Coast Journal, November 22, 2019 The Sequoia Conference Center on Humboldt County Office of Education’s campus was at capacity, 448 people had landed a seat — while at least another 100 watched from a live stream in a separate room. The draw was a conversation among California’s first Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris and a panel of locals spearheading Humboldt County’s efforts to alleviate the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences, also known as ACEs. “Thank...
Blog Post
I’m Sick of Asking Children to Be Resilient [nytimes.com]
FLINT, Mich. — A baby born in Flint, Mich., where I am a pediatrician, is likely to live almost 20 fewer years than a child born elsewhere in the same county. She’s a baby like any other, with wide eyes, a growing brain and a vast, bottomless innocence — too innocent to understand the injustices that without her knowing or choosing have put her at risk. Some of the babies I care for have the bad luck to be born into neighborhoods where life expectancy is just over 64 years. Only a few miles...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
Immune Biomarkers of Early-Life Adversity and Exposure to Stress and Violence - Searching Outside the Streetlight [jamanetwork.com]
By Nicole R. Bush and Kirstin Aschbacher, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Evidence of an association between early-life adversity and heightened risk of chronic disease in adulthood has been found, but the optimal biomarkers for identifying vulnerable or resilient individuals remain unclear. Global trends, including widening socioeconomic disparities, the refugee crises, and climate change, increasingly sculpt trauma exposure and call for scalable early-risk identification and treatment...
Blog Post
Researchers share learned lessons from screening for adverse childhood experiences in pediatric clinics
What are the reasons that parents or caregivers do not fully disclose their own or their young children’s ACEs when asked to fill out an ACE screening form in their child’s pediatrician’s office? That was one of the many questions raised in a recent webinar entitled Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Pediatric Primary Care Setting: Practical Considerations and Lessons Learned . Dr. Kavitha Selvaraj, an attending physician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s hospital...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Integrating Healthcare and Early Childhood Systems Requires Capacity and Expertise [chapinhall.org]
By Angeline Spain, Angela Sander, and Amanda Brownd, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, 2020 Pediatric well-child visits represent a critical, often untapped opportunity to ask families about unmet social care needs and connect them with early childhood and other community services. Innovating in this space to address social determinants of health, early childhood organizations are increasingly building healthcare partnerships with the goal of increasing family access to services and...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Interim report of the President’s opioid commission says its final report will address early intervention strategies for children with ACEs
On August 8, President Trump spoke to the opioid crisis in this country and declined to declare a national emergency as recommended by the “President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.” Instead, the President emphasized the law and order aspects of the problem and the importance of preventing drug use in the first place since addiction is so hard to overcome. The Commission will make a final report in the fall. The recently released interim report makes eight...
Blog Post
43 Amazing Benefits of Child-led Free Play
Self-directed free play is vital for the healthy development of children. Here we see 43 science-backed benefits it brings.
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
A National Agenda to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences
What are ACEs and Why Do They Matter? In 2016 1 , nearly half of U.S. children – 34 million kids – had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) and more than 20 percent experienced two or more. The new brain sciences and science of human development explain how ACEs can have devastating, long-lasting effects on children’s health and wellbeing. These events resonate well beyond the individual child to have far-reaching consequences for families, neighborhoods, and communities. ACEs...
Blog Post
A plethora of journal articles on ACEs science
As the community manager of ACEs in Pediatrics, I comb the web looking for pertinent studies and information that may be of interest to ACEs in Pediatric members. In the last several days the journals Pediatrics, the North Carolina Medical Journal, Child Abuse & Neglect and the Journal of Women's Health have published a number of articles on ACEs science. Here is a list of some of the articles and commentary featured in each journal: ACEs and Pregnancy: Time to Support All Expectant...
Blog Post
AAP: Trauma-informed pediatric provider course set for April
The American Academy of Pediatrics just released the agenda for its 2018 trauma-informed pediatric course, which will be held in Houston from April 5-8. Among the participants are Boston-based pediatrician, social epidemiologist. community advocate and founding director of Vital Village , Renee Boynton Jarrett . She will convene a breakout session on early life trauma. RJ Gillespie , a pediatrician who has surveyed parents and children for ACEs and analyzed the data at the Portland,...
Blog Post
Abused as a small boy. Now what? [BridgeMI.com]
When the fidgety, anxious, 5-year-old boy from northern Michigan came in about a year ago to see pediatrician Tina Hahn, it was soon apparent to her this was a case medication alone would not solve. “He was trying to hide under the chair. He looked panicked and overwhelmed. He was in that fight or flight mode,” said Hahn, who was then in practice in Alpena. The boy, she learned, had been taken away from his mother when he was 3, from a home rife with drug use, alcoholism and severe physical...
Blog Post
ACE-Aha Moments & Parenting: Meet Aprel Phelps Downey
Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...
Blog Post
ACE Fact Sheets to Give Your Doctors, Patients & Beyond (free downloads)
I was first inspired to create a fact sheet summarizing the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) after reading a comment in “Got Your ACE score?” A reader wished she had a form to give her doctor that documented the vast body of evidence explaining how early trauma increases risk for chronic physical and mental health conditions and much more.
I could relate.
Blog Post
ACEs and resilience research roundup: Paternal ACEs, family resilience, reforming health care
CC by SA 3.0 Parental Adverse Childhood Experiences and Pediatric Healthcare Use by 2 Years of Age EA Eismann, AT Folger, NB Stephenson… - The Journal of Pediatrics , 2019 … ACEs and several child outcomes,8, 9, 10, 11, 12 but less is known about the intergenerational impact of paternal ACEs .7, 13 The … 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, and 24 months of age, based on Bright Futures and the American … Adverse childhood experiences ( ACEs ) are associated with forced and very early sexual...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
ACEs Community Spotlight Series: Dr. Richard Honigman, Central Nassau Pediatrics
For our second community spotlight interview, I spoke with Dr. Richard Honigman, a pediatrician at Central Nassau Pediatrics in Levittown and infant mental health advocate. We discussed the importance of addressing childhood adversity and the relevant work he is doing both inside and outside his practice. Please note that responses have been adjusted for length and clarity. Dr. Honigman is also the first recipient of the 2019 Ed Tronick Award for Distinguished Contribution to Infant-Parent...
Blog Post
ACEs Community Spotlight Series: Dr. Richard Honigman, Central Nassau Pediatrics
For our second community spotlight interview, I spoke with Dr. Richard Honigman, a pediatrician at Central Nassau Pediatrics in Levittown and infant mental health advocate. We discussed the importance of addressing childhood adversity and the relevant work he is doing both inside and outside his practice. Please note that responses have been adjusted for length and clarity. Dr. Honigman is also the first recipient of the 2019 Ed Tronick Award for Distinguished Contribution to Infant-Parent...
Blog Post
ACEs Research Corner — February 2020
Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs science. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Kambeitz C, Klug MG, Greenmyer J, Popova S, Burd L. Association of adverse childhood experiences and neurodevelopmental disorders in people with fetal alcohol...
Blog Post
ACEs Research Corner — January 2020
Research papers this month include links between ACEs and bullying, dropping out of high school, adult disability, and the effects of countering ACEs.
Blog Post
ACEs Research Corner — July 2019
[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! — Jane Stevens] Wang X, Maguire-Jack K. Family and Environmental Influences on Child Behavioral Health: The Role of Neighborhood Disorder and Adverse Childhood Experiences . J Dev...
Blog Post
ACEs Research Corner — March 2020
Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs science. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Brown SM, Bender K, Orsi R, McCrae JS, Phillips JD, Rienks S. Adverse childhood experiences and their relationship to complex health profiles among child...
Blog Post
ACEs Research Corner — November 2019
[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Jackson DB, Chilton M, Johnson KR, Vaughn MG. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Household Food Insecurity. Am J Prev Med. 2019 Nov;57(5):667-674. PMID: 31522923...
Blog Post
ACEs research roundup: Toxic stress biomarker, mitigating ACEs in Scotland, ACEs and diabetes and more
Using hair cortisol to examine the role of stress in children's health inequalities at 3 years MHE Bryson, F Mensah, S Goldfeld, AMH Price - Academic Pediatrics , 2019 [HTML] How community resources mitigate the association between household poverty and the incidence of adverse childhood experiences A Blair, L Marryat, J Frank - International Journal of Public Health Developing an Indicator System to Measure Child Well-Being: Lessons Learned over Time KA Moore - Child Indicators Research,...
Blog Post
ACEs Screening
This is a collection of resources regarding screening for ACEs . This list aims to give a broad overview and is not all-inclusive. We welcome suggestions; if you have any, please comment below! This resource list is organized in alphabetical order. Pediatric Campus in Santa Rosa ACEs screeners, 2019 Description: ACEs screeners for 4m-11y and 12y-18y in English and Spanish are in the attachments below. Whole Child Assessment (WCA) , 2019 Description: The Whole Child Assessment (WCA) is a...
Blog Post
Adverse childhood experiences increase risk of mental illness, but community support can offer protection [medicalxpress.com]
People who have experienced abuse, neglect and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as living with domestic violence during their childhood are at much greater risk of mental illness throughout life. Findings from a new national study across Wales found adults who had suffered four or more types of ACE were almost 10 times more likely to have felt suicidal or self-harmed than those who had experienced none. The study by Public Health Wales and Bangor University also found that...
Blog Post
Adverse Childhood Experiences Run Deep: Toxic Early Life Stress, Telomeres, and Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number, the Biological Markers of Cumulative Stress [BioEssays]
" This manuscript reviews recent evidence supporting the utility of telomeres and mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) in detecting the biological impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and outlines mechanisms that may mediate the connection between early stress and poor physical and mental health. Critical to interrupting the health sequelae of ACEs such as abuse, neglect, and neighborhood disorder, is the discovery of biomarkers of risk and resilience. The molecular markers of...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
An Early Childhood Development Expert Explains How Trauma and Stress Can Derail a Kid’s Life [sarasotamagazine.com]
By Cooper Levey-Baker, Sarasota, December 19, 2019 Mimi Graham has spent her life fighting for kids. She began her career in the late 1970s as a Head Start administrator before moving into the world of academia to study child development and advocate for public policies that improve the health of mothers and children. Today, she’s the director of Florida State University’s Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy, a position in which she advises government agencies and...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
Association of behavioral health factors and social determinants of health with high and persistently high healthcare costs [Preventive Medicine Reports]
Editor's note: A common interest among ACEs in Pediatrics members is finding research that shows how ACE scores correlate with high cost health care utilization. This study in Preventive Medicine Reports looks into that correlation. " To our knowledge, no other studies have examined the e ff ects of ACEs on utilization and cost, independent of medical condition acuity. ACEs exposure emerged as the sole factor independently associated with both initial and persistent high-cost status, aside...
Blog Post
BABY ACES: When we consider the traumas that qualify as ACEs, babies need their own list.
Babies are obviously very different from older children developmentally, including their ability to understand and process trauma. Indeed, a baby may be completely unaware of an actual ACE— say, the incarceration of their father— which a middle schooler would be painfully aware of. Yet at the same time, the baby could be much-more-acutely impacted by the secondary effect of this same ACE: a sad, stressed, and distracted mother. Similarly, if a parent dies in a car accident when a child is in...
Blog Post
Baltimore uses trauma research to improve life for poor parents and their children [WashingtonPost.com]
One day, when she was 14 and feeling ill, Daylesha Brown’s mother took her to a Baltimore hospital and did not return for her. Child Protective Services (CPS) placed her in a group home and she was forced to move to other homes for the next three years. “My mother, she pushed me away,” Brown, now 23, said softly. “I was always getting in trouble with my mother.” So last year when Brown discovered her daughter, Sa-Maji, had lead poisoning, a lingering problem in Baltimore where the rate of...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Sitler: Managing Depression and Anxiety in Children [newarkadvocate.com]
By Penny Sitler, Newark Advocate, March 1, 2020 There’s much conversation about mental health in children and youth these days. At Welsh Hills School, local pediatrician Dr. William Knobelach recently spoke about depression and anxiety in school aged children to a standing room only crowd at a parent education event. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES), which looks at the impact of childhood trauma on health and well-being later in life, frequently comes up in talks about mental...