Tagged With "Children's Defense Fund"

NAMI Basics is a class for parents and other family caregivers of children and adolescents who have either been diagnosed with a mental health condition or who are experiencing symptoms but have not yet been diagnosed. A nationally-developed program taught by trained volunteers who have lived experience with children. The duration is 6 weeks. The cost is Free. Foster parents successfully completing all 6 sessions will receive CEU credit. Course Topics include - The biology of mental illness...

Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand and Chloe Yang, 10/14/20, positiveexperience.org/blog A growing body of work recognizes the important health effects of highlighting and creating positive childhood experiences. Today’s blog post makes the scientific case for this, based off of an interview with Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology at Stanford School of Medicine. Below, Dr. Anand details how positive childhood experiences buffer against adverse ones and explains the biological...

Californians have experienced an alarming epidemic of adverse childhood experiences. Between 2011 and 2017, 60 percent of Californians reported experiencing at least one type of childhood adversity; about 16 percent experienced four or more. People who experience four or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease, 1.9 times as likely to have a stroke, and 3.2 times as likely to have asthma as people who have experienced no ACEs. (For more information about ACEs and ACEs science,...

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...

Child maltreatment is well recognized as one of the most significant contributors to pediatric morbidity and mortality throughout the world. 1 , 2 The effect of child maltreatment on morbidity and mortality in older adults has been documented for >20 years as demonstrated by the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study. 3 The impact of maltreatment on teenage suicide and other mental health diagnoses is also well known. 4 , 5 To date, however, a direct relationship between maltreatment...

NO GOING BACK: Providing Telemental Health Services to California Children and Youth After the Pandemic, is the first in a series of briefs outlining how technology can make mental health more accessible with concrete recommendations based on providers’ perspectives, and lessons learned during the pandemic. Read the Report When the shelter-in-place mandate started, California’s mental and behavioral health providers quickly pivoted to telehealth delivery for children and adolescents. Recent...

California can support children and youth by tackling the state’s — and the country’s — legacy of White supremacy and replacing it with a trauma-informed approach of love, empathy, and support.

There is unprecedented momentum to tackle the mental health crisis affecting our children. The universally felt isolation and suffering caused by the pandemic are helping to strip away the stigma of mental illness. In its place is an energized movement, led by advocates, that is transforming the way California provides mental health services for its most vulnerable children—the majority of whom are black and brown. This movement has captured the attention of state and local policymakers,...

We recently sat down with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s first surgeon general, and Dave Ellis, the first executive director of the Office of Resilience at the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. A pioneering voice on prevention, early identification, and treatment of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Dr. Burke Harris gained national prominence with her viral 2015 TED talk on this topic. Dave Ellis made his name as a national leader in providing trainings and...

Immigration can be complex. It may have different repercussions for families and individuals, especially children. Some immigrant families have the money to consult third-party advisers for their move to another country. But most immigrant families have experienced hardships, such as financial difficulties, social inequality, cultural barriers. These factors affect different generations of their family (1) . The individuals most susceptible to mental issues are the children. Even though...

Among PACEs Connection initiatives around the country, it’s well known that our social network is something like a bustling, giant town square where people share ideas, resources and any number of conversations about how to prevent childhood adversity and promote positive childhood experiences. On May 14, PACEs Connection assembled a virtual town square gathering of PACEs initiatives in California, where we have 58 initiatives sparking action all across the state. Speakers at the gathering,...

As a primary care pediatrician, I spend most of my days talking about things that are hard for families. Parents ask what to do when their child won't poop on the potty. Or how to get their baby to sleep longer or how to get their teenager to wake up earlier. They ask how to get their child to sit in the car seat or what to do when they get car sick on long rides. And over the years I have developed a list of problem-solving strategies to help. But the one that has recently become my...

Ben David, co-chair of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Task Force on ACEs-Informed Courts, shares plans to sustain the work done during the two-year term of the Task Force, to "care for our own" speaking of North Carolina's children, youth, families, communities, victims of crimes, members of law enforcement, the judiciary and court officers and staffers. He also shared Chief Justice Paul Newby's hopes of "getting ACEs-informed courts" into the culture, and said a national conference for...

(This is a review of what I believe is an important new resource for the PACEs [for positive and adverse childhood experiences] science movement. Opinions expressed are my own, and are shared as a parent, advocate, author, and longtime student of trauma, healing, and prevention. Thoughts are also shared through my lens as someone who believes, deeply, in the incredible importance of and value in building healthier, more compassionate communities to support and nurture pregnant and new...

Foster care is a crucial system designed to provide temporary homes and care for children who are unable to live with their biological families. While foster care aims to offer stability and support, the experience can be emotionally complex for children. One emotion that often plagues foster children is guilt. Guilt can arise from a range of circumstances and can significantly impact a child's emotional well-being and overall development. This article delves into the various sources of...

The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...

Christina Bethell, Ph.D, MBA, MPH, founder of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), principal author of the groundbreaking study on positive childhood experiences, and creator of the free Well Visit Planner, among other innovations. Two internationally-respected leaders and innovators in complementary aspects of early relational health and childhood and maternal health equity recently launched a partnership they believe will benefit everyone from newborn babies and...

Emotion has an enormous impact on imprinting memory in our brains. I had an experience when I was 6 years old that included emotion and I have the memory of it all of these many years later. It was a 6 year old birthday sleepover party. There were 7 girls invited that lived near each other and played together most days. A girl new to the neighborhood was invited only due to the requirement of the birthday girl’s mother. I was also invited. I lived a block away but did play with these girls...