Tagged With "cultural strengths"

Gatineau, Quebec: July 18, 2016 – On July 21, more than 100 high school and university students from across Canada and around the world come together in Ottawa to begin a two-week expedition to the Canadian Arctic and Greenland with Students on Ice (SOI). They are led by an expert team made up of 80 scientists, artists, Inuit leaders, dignitaries and polar explorers on this life-changing journey of discovery, reconciliation and adventure. Expedition dates are July 21 – August 5, 2016.

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.

They began with a song and ended with a poem. In-between, there were photographs and giant graphic renderings, movement exercises and a “human pulse” formed when 90 people stood in a circle and squeezed each other’s hands. At a June summit in Whatcom County, Washington, titled “Our Resilient Community: A Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity,” the arts played a starring role. Kristi Slette, executive director of the Whatcom Family and Community Network, one of two Washington sites...

Physical well-being depends on more than keeping our bodies fit. Emotions and the people who come into our lives matter just as much! For more information click on the Yes! magazine article

Seward is a thriving and warm community, full of people who care and want to nurture one another. Even so, the fact remains that we don’t all start with the same opportunities and that early childhood trauma can have a lasting impact on people’s lives. This is the concept that has broken into the field of child development over the last few years. The new way of talking about this concept of unequal starts is known as ACES. According to the national Prevention Institute “Adverse Childhood...

Please find attached the 2016 booklet for the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project, including Alaska and the other 13 communities that have been selected to participate in this 2 year learning collaborative. This is a great summary of the work happening in all 14 communities across the country. I look forward to working with you all in Alaska!

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...

On the heels of a state policy victory , grassroots advocacy led by the Alaska Resilience Initiative continues to move toward the goal of systemic change by publishing a brief for people who occupy strategic positions across the state. While Alaska Senate Bill 105 builds a framework for changing the system, that's only a beginning. A new document, “ Toward a Trauma-Informed, Resilient, and Culturally-Responsive Alaska ,” authored by Andrea Blanch, is designed to help elected officials,...

The Alaska Mental Health Board and the Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse have explored these questions and found that childhood trauma has profound costs. A national study demonstrates that costs of childhood trauma begin immediately ( $48,000 during childhood for every substantiated report of harm ), and those costs continue for decades into the future. The report,  Economic Costs of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Alaska , takes an initial look at potential savings with...

Thanks for posting this, Laura. I'm looking forward to reading the detailed proceedings. Cheers, Jane

Five years of convening Newark’s ACE Impact Team has taught Keri Logosso-Misurell a crucial lesson: Fight the urge to reinvent the wheel.