Blog

July 23rd 12:00pm - 3:00pm at Cuddy Family Midtown Park in Anchorage. This is a great opportunity to spend time with your children and build resiliency. To learn more about this free community event visit their event page of Facebook or the Alaska Business Monthly article.

In May, the Alaska Resilience Initiative partnered w/ First Alaskans Institute & the Native Village of Chickaloon to convene a gathering of Alaska Native and Native American people from every region of Alaska who work on issues of child & intergenerational trauma. The goal was to seek input that would be used to guide the Alaska Resilience Initiative, the training-of-ACEs/Resilience trainers and the curriculum used to present on ACEs, and the overall framing & approach to this work.

Last Thursday, the first statewide meeting of the Alaska Resilience Initiative was held. Over 80 people from different regions in Alaska who work in different sectors, organizations, schools, tribes, etc. gathered around the same goal of building healthy families and communities and moving beyond trauma and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Participants rolled up their sleeves and got to work on how to structure this collective impact initiative so that it is inclusive,...

http://bessel.kajabi.com/sq/41611-the-body-keeps-the-score

The link below provides helpful phrases which are recommended to use when speaking with a young child who is anxious. With just a little tweaking the phrases can be very helpful and relevant with teenagers and adults, too. 49 Phrases To Calm An Anxious Child

We’ll start to populate the new Resource Center next month. One of the sections lists ACE surveys that have additional questions. The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study revealed that ACEs contribute to most of our major chronic health, mental health, economic health and social health issues. It measured five types of abuse and neglect: physical, verbal and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect. And five types of family dysfunction: a family member with mental...

President Obama signed a new act to amend the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act by enacting certain requirements for foster care placements in Indian Country. Known as the Native American Children’s Safety Act [ LINK HERE ], the new law places some stringent requirements that may actually harm tribal efforts to implement the Indian Child Welfare Act. It’s tough to argue against efforts to protect our children, and the imposition of tough requirements for that...

During opening remarks for the Juneau Suicide Prevention Coalition’s conference, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Suicide,” Alaska Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott talked about the challenging and traumatic experiences he and his family experienced. “My mother — a full-blooded Tlingit lady — her entire experience of life was that of adversity. Her mother was born, and living at the time that missionaries came to our community and changed our world forever,” he said to an audience of more than 200...

On May 18th, the Alaska Resilience Initiative, First Alaskans Institute's Alaska Native Policy Center, and the Native Village of Chickaloon hosted a gathering of Alaska Native and Native American people from across the state to discuss ACCCEs (adverse childhood, cultural, and community experiences) and resilience.

This video is about 2 years old, but I just came across it last week and wanted to share with you all. It is a powerful statement by the students at Leadership High School in San Francisco, CA. They speak about the ongoing adversity and toxic stress in their daily lives and in their community, all through the power of music. The youth voice is so important as we work to bring trauma-informed and resilience building practices to communities. Link to video: Toxic Stress, Toxic Streets

In my last column , I wrote about how getting lost in a good book can help students hang on to academic advances they made during the school year. What I didn't talk about then is how reading offers an equally crucial benefit to young people by developing what are known as "soft skills" — the emotional intelligence we need in life to feel confident, make good decisions and endure bad things. This is especially critical in Alaska, a state where too many children are victims of society's dark...

The Alaska Department of Health and Human Services recently released a new batch of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) indicator reports , and the latest findings offer the closest look to date at how the state is coping with childhood trauma in its cities and boroughs. Taken together, the 12 indicator reports focus on a broad range of traumatic experiences, from neglect to abuse to mental illness. Research has shown that the presence of ACEs in households contributes to serious health...