Tagged With "Healing Collective Trauma in the Time"
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$2 Million Grant to Help Address Trauma in Oakland Public Schools
"The C alif ornia School-B ase d Health Alliance (CSHA) received a $2 million grant July 14 from The San Francisco Foundation to support trauma-informed care in 15 school-based health centers in Oakland Public Schools. The grant will...
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2016-17 CA County Scorecard of Children's Well-Being
Do you want to know how kids in your area are really doing? Then the 2016–2017 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being is the tool for you. The Scorecard evaluates children’s well-being across California’s 58 counties, and organizes the data into categories of health, education, and child welfare and economic well-being. The Scorecard has a number of features that local leaders find particularly useful, including: The County Comparison , which allows for county-to-county...
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2018 "4CA" California Policymaker ACEs Education Day
The second annual 4CA Policymaker Education Day on May 22, brought together 75 community members across California to visit 81 legislators or their staff members and educate them about ACEs, trauma and resilience.
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2018 Community Stories from across the state
Thank you everyone for your help to create community stories highlighting the efforts happening to raise awareness about ACEs from across the state for 4CA’s 2018 Policymaker Education Day ! Attached find a 2018 version of the community stories detailing information about community ACEs initiatives from across the state. Please download and share. And see HERE for a list of CA ACEs Connection communities from across the state.
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2019 Economics of Child Abuse in Mendocino County
Mendocino recently shared 2019 data related to the economic impacts of child abuse. The attached documents are in a printable format.
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2019 Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL) Webinar Series
ACEs Connection presents, "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL)" , an interactive webinar training series focused on developing existing and potential online community managers and IRL ACEs champions. If you are not a current online community manager, please know that ALL are welcome. This series is dedicated to providing insight into creating sustainable and effective online & IRL ACEs intiatives. "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities:...
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2020 California Children’s Report Card
The 2020 California Children’s Report Card – the whole child report on children’s health, education and well-being in our state – is available now. This year’s Report Card grades California on 31 key children’s issues – and includes new sections on Family Supports, Adolescents & Transition Age Youth and Connected Cradle-to-Career. It also shines a spotlight on the impact racism, poverty and immigration threats have on our kids. Despite recent progress, this year’s grades show the urgent...
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2020 Sex and Perinatal Mental Health Conference
Sex & Perinatal Mental Health Conference on January 13th and 14th, 2020 at The California Endowment. This dynamic training will delve into areas such as postpartum sex, birth trauma, cultural attitudes about sex, gender and sexuality, gender affirming care, personal stories and more. We have an amazing lineup of speakers and wanted to introduce you to a few over the next couple of weeks. Two day training that will explore how sex and sexuality impact and interact with mental health...
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37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium Recap
"Speak Out! Confronting the Culture of Child Sexual Abuse and Secrecy" was the theme of Santa Clara County's 37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium which featured a Keynote conversation with Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast and current UCLA Assistant Gymnastics Coach Jordyn Wieber. Jordyn, and other athletes and survivors of former USA Gymnastics team doctor and serial child sex abuser Larry Nassar, earlier spoke to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee about a “culture of silence” more...
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4CA 2019 Year in Review - CA children’s state policy advances.
On behalf of the CA Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) backbone team (Center for Youth Wellness, Children Now and ACEs Connection), we want to give a hearty thank you to the advocates and champions across the state for advancing child-friendly policy and legislation in California in 2019. Here are some examples of what was accomplished this year: More than 730 organizations signed on to the Family Urgent Response System (FURS) budget letter in support of a 24/7 statewide hotline...
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4CA Campaign Statement on ACEs Screening in California
Please read and share this 4CA statement on ACEs Screening in California.
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4CA Policymaker Education Day is Back!
We're back!! Join us for Policymaker Education Day 2019 on MAY 1!
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4CA POLICYMAKER EDUCATION DAY JULY 11, 2017 - REGISTER BY JUNE 1 - Link Below.
Join 4CA in Sacramento on July 11 for Policymaker Education Day on Childhood Adversity! Our lawmakers need to hear from you about how childhood adversity affects your community and what they can do to help. Join with allies from across California to engage your elected officials on this important issue. (Bonus! lunchtime pep talk by Senator Holly Mitchell!) Who: 4CA Policymaker Education Day is designed for California residents who care about preventing and mitigating the effects of...
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6th Annual Merced County Parent Institute - Dream Big Conference
Accomplishments start with dreams, and dreams start with inspiration. When it comes to inspiring children to dream big, it all starts with parents. That was the message heard by more than 500 people who attended the sixth annual Merced County Parent Institute Conference, a turnout that helped make Saturday’s event the most successful yet in its six-year history. The free event, organized by the Merced County Office of Education, the Merced Union High School District and the state Child Care...
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8 Myths About Screening For Adverse Childhood Experiences
I’d like to take this opportunity to address some of the objections to screening for ACEs that I have come across. It is true that some areas of research are still emerging, such as protocols, but in other ways we are twenty years behind using the information we have to make a positive difference in our patients lives and in training new physicians to be more comfortable addressing social and experiential determinants of health.
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8th Annual Foster Care Youth Conference- 3/21
Registration is now open for the 8th Annual Foster Care Youth Conference! The conference is open to all foster care and transitional aged youth (ages 14-24) in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano or Yolo counties. The conference will provide approximately 150 foster care/kinship and transitioning youth with an opportunity to participate in workshops covering resumes and interviewing, communication, trade demos, hair and barbering, fashion, art and sports. Eligible youth will receive a stipend for...
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9 Big Questions as California Starts to Screen Kids for Trauma, ACEs [salud-america.org]
By Amanda Merck, Salud America!, February 12, 2020 Early childhood adversity like abuse and divorce is a root cause of many of the greatest public health challenges we face today. But doctors don’t even screen children for exposure to adversity. That’s changing in California, thanks to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and other child advocates. As of Jan. 1, 2020, almost 100,000 physicians in 8,800 clinics will be reimbursed for routinely screening Medi-Cal patients for adverse childhood experiences...
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A 2014/2015 Visionary of the Year nominee continues to reshape the conversation about childhood [SFGate.com]
Since her nomination for the Visionary of the Year award in 2015, pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris has remained steadfast in her goal to broaden the conversation about the link between childhood trauma and health. In a world where many still believe mental and behavioral health is disconnected from physical health, Burke-Harris’ continues to make a compelling case for how the two are synchronous. “The definition of trauma is changing. Trauma used to be mental and behavioral...
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A "Better Normal" Community Discussion - Trauma Sensitive Yoga for Embodiment and Agency
TCTSY (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga) is the practice of bringing our bodies into the present moment to integrate and recover from the harmful effects of adverse life experiences. This evidence-based method focuses on the felt sense of the body, also known as interoception. Exercising interoception helps inform one’s choice-making and allows participants to restore their connection of mind with body and cultivate a sense of agency that is often compromised as a result of trauma. Dion...
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A Black Immigrant Woman Is Now the Most Powerful Health Official in California [vice.com]
By Richard Morgan, Vice, July 18, 2019. It was an early summer morning at the San Ysidro Health Center, situated on the Mexican border. A flu outbreak gripped a nearby ICE detention center, where a larger humanitarian crisis continued to unfold, threatening the future of hundreds of children. In a small conference room, brimming with 20 or so of the San Diego area’s most diverse academic and activist minds, Nadine Burke Harris sat at the head of the table. The 43-year-old pediatrician from...
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A California Court for Young Adults Calls on Science [NYTimes.com]
On a cloudy afternoon in the Bayview district, Shaquille, 21, was riding in his sister’s 1991 Acura when another car ran a stop sign, narrowly missing them. Both cars screeched to a halt, and Shaquille and the other driver got out. “I just wanted to talk,” he recalls. But the talk became an argument, and the argument ended when Shaquille sent the other driver to the pavement with a left hook. Later that day, he was arrested and charged with felony assault. He already had a misdemeanor...
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A college education in prison opens path to freedom (calmatters.org)
Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative is the state’s only public bachelor’s degree program sending professors to teach behind bars. College programs like it were once far more common, and today advocates are hopeful the political winds have shifted enough to bring public dollars back to prison education. Federal legislation that would make grant aid available has bipartisan support, and in California, a bill to open the state’s financial aid program to incarcerated students is headed...
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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...
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A Guide to Creating “Safe Space” Policies for Early Childhood Programs [CLASP]
From the Center for Law and Social Policy Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current immigration policy climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll. Providers can take steps to protect families’ safety and privacy by implementing policies that designate their facilities as a safe space from immigration enforcement. This guide explains federal agency guidance related to...
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A Guide to Increase Mental Health Services for Students - Project Cal-Well, CA Dept of Education, 2018
This guide is created by Project Cal-Well, with input from the Student Mental Health Policy Workgroup, to assist schools and districts to build capacity to better address mental health challenges among students. Learn about Project Cal-Well See Guide attached.
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A Health Problem and An Opportunity: Screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences [medium.com]
By Dayna Long, Medium, May 19, 2020 A consensus of scientific research demonstrates that cumulative adversity, especially when experienced during critical and sensitive periods of development, is a significant contributing factor to some of the most harmful, persistent, and expensive health challenges facing our nation. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are highly prevalent, experienced in all communities, and are likely to increase during the COVID-19 emergency [i] [ii] [iii] [iv] [v].
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A ‘hidden crisis’: Local leaders [Eureka, CA] call for collaboration to combat child poverty, trauma [Times-Standard.com]
A packed town hall meeting in Eureka on Thursday night called for greater collaboration by state and local agencies to address an issue that contributes to many challenges Humboldt County faces today — childhood poverty and trauma. North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who hosted the meeting, said that despite California being the sixth largest economy in the world, childhood poverty rates have actually increased since the Great Recession began in 2007. In this way, he called...
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'A hidden health crisis': Toxic stress driving up Kern death rates [The Bakersfield Californian]
An invisible disease has been killing middle-aged white people throughout the southern San Joaquin Valley at higher rates than ever before. The disease can’t be detected by a blood test or remedied with a prescription. It’s been referred to as one of the country’s greatest unaddressed public health crises and a rising “epidemic of white death.” The disease is toxic stress, a result of childhood trauma and other environmental stressors like poverty, food insecurity and basic living needs not...
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A Message to California Health Care Providers About COVID-19 and Toxic Stress [acesaware.org]
By Nadine Burke Harris and Karen Mark, ACEs Aware, March 30, 2020 Our global community is facing confusing and uncertain times. As the unprecedented novel coronavirus continues to spread, the health and safety of our nearly 40 million Californians is the number-one priority for our state, the Office of the California Surgeon General, and the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS). This includes the physical, mental, and psychological well-being of all individuals. As the crisis deepens,...
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A MUST WATCH: Addicts Among Us - a hopeful documentary about ACEs and addiction in Humboldt County, California (YouTube Video)
I want to share this important documentary from Humboldt County with you and encourage you to make the time to watch it and share it with others in your organizations and spheres of influence. It is 52 minutes long, but well worth your time. The associate producer of the video, James Faulk - one of the central interviewees of the film - attended First 5 Humboldt's Town Hall on Adverse Childhood Experiences where the connection between early childhood adversity, mental health struggles,...
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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...
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A New Mother’s Dilemma: The Challenges Of Returning To Work [KPBS]
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Taylor is on the right track. The agency recommends that all babies be exclusively breast-fed for the first six months. On average, however, California women aren’t coming close to that goal. In fact, surveys show the rate of exclusive breast-feeding takes a big dive when babies hit the three-month mark. That’s about the time when many women have to return to work. Read the entire article HERE
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A New Program Helps Foster Kids in Orange County Avoid Homelessness when They Age Out of Public Care [ocregister.com]
By Theresa Walker, The Orange County Register, December 20, 2019 For three years after he aged out of foster care, at age 18, Christian was homeless. During that time, he was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was in a coma for six months and his speech and memory were affected. Over most of the last year he’s lived at The Link, a homeless shelter in Santa Ana. This week, Christian, now 22, moved into his own one-bedroom apartment, in Tustin. That change is the result of...
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A Pathway to Prevention: Understanding root causes to help break the cycle of domestic violence [Blue Shield of California Foundation]
From Foundation Program Manager Jelissa Parham: Recently, I was in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood when I heard a couple fighting across the street from me. As I looked on, the man lunged toward the woman and began to choke her while her young toddler watched the entire scene, clutching a small toy. Instinctively, before I had time to process the possible consequences, I called out: “No! Stop! Don’t touch her!” The man released his hold, and I briefly thought the incident was over. But I...
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A Public School That Not Only Keeps Children Safe, But Heals [nonprofitquarterly.org]
After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida earlier this year, schools are at the epicenter of national debates on gun violence and mental health. How can teachers and administrators deal with troubled students? And how can they make schools safer for all? It’s not the first time that schools have been asked to address social problems that originate far outside their hallways. In a nation where more than 40 percent of kids are from low-income families, school teachers and...
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A South LA high school's journey back from the brink (edsource.org)
Claudia Rojas had a regular routine she followed most days during the 2012-13 school year, the year she took a job as one of three principals at the newly opened Augustus F. Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. She would get up in the morning, have breakfast and then cry her way to work. Hawkins, as it’s known, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Pilot School program , which was established in 2007 to relieve overcrowding at Belmont High School in central L.A. The...
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A South LA high school steps up effort to help students besieged by trauma [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
Along with books and backpacks, the teens who walk through the hallways of Washington Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles also carry secrets and fear. Some have seen moms or dads arrested or taken away by immigration agents during early morning raids. They've watched as loved ones and friends were gunned down or stabbed to death on the sidewalks in front of where they live. Others dread going home to an adult who hurts instead of heals. Trauma, depression and anxiety weigh heavily...
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A Special Opportunity to Invest in Our Communities with Proposition 64 Expenditures
California’s Proposition 64 (2016 marijuana legalization) presents a special opportunity to invest in community-based substance use education, prevention, and more for children, youth, families, and the communities they live in. There is a critical need to focus these efforts on effective strategies that address the underlying causes and conditions of substance use, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), adverse community environments, toxic stress , trauma and lack of proactive...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Supporting Families Impacted by Addiction
RFQ ANNOUNCEMENT: Celebrating Families! California Expansion Project Update: Due to the expanding ACEs response in California, and subsequent interest in Celebrating Families! we are extending the due date for proposals to May 24 th. Invitation to Expand Celebrating Families!™ Statewide The California State Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) recognizing the effectiveness of Celebrating Families! (CF!), has awarded Prevention Partnership International (PPI) a $100,000, 2-year challenge...
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A Trauma-informed, Resiliency-based Community of Practice for Prison Educators
An article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled " How Philanthropy Can Create Public Systems Change " describes how Renewing Communities, a five-year, multifunder initiative aimed increasing education of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students by California’s public colleges and universities, partnered with the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research in order to address educator burnout through a trauma-informed and resiliency-based community of practice.
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A Win for California's Families (CA FRC Assoc)
On October 2 nd , Family Resource Centers and the family strengthening field as a whole reached a critical victory, when Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 436 into law. SB436 built on the findings of the 2017 monograph Family Resource Centers: Vehicles for Change, Volume II, the Evolving Field, as well as a recent study commissioned by the David & Lucille Packard Foundation, to establish in statute an inclusive and clear definition for Family Resource Centers. SB436 represents...
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Attorney General Becerra Announces Final Regulations to Implement Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) (oag.ca.gov)
SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today announced that the regulations drafted by the California Department of Justice (DOJ) for the collection of data pertaining to law enforcement stops under Assembly Bill 953 (AB 953), the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015, are now final. Beginning July 1, 2018, law enforcement agencies, starting with the nine largest agencies, will begin collecting stop data and reporting the information to the DOJ. “Public safety is...
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Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Unveils Bureau of Children’s Justice
LOS ANGELES On February 12, 2015, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris unveiled the Bureau of Childrens Justice within the California Department of Justice that will work to ensure all of Californias children are on track to meet...
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AVA Regional Academies: Building Trauma-Informed, Resilient, and Healthy Communities
Last week, I was fortunate to be a part of a small group of professionals in San Diego to attend the Academy on Violence and Abuse preconference session for the 30 th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment. The conference draws over 1,800 professionals in the maltreatment field from around the world each year. The session, titled: Building Trauma Informed, Resilience, and Healthy Communities: Regional, National, and Global Perspectives , had an ambitious...
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Back to Our Roots: Catalyzing Community Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing [preventioninstitute.org]
Mental health is at the heart many of the challenges we face, including trauma and adverse childhood experiences, social isolation, institutionalized bias and discrimination, and ‘diseases of despair’ that manifest in depression, suicide, and substance misuse. Addressing social determinants of health is key to helping communities navigate adversity, heal, and flourish. PI’s new report, Back to Our Roots: Catalyzing Community Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing , illustrates how improving...
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Bad childhood experiences can make us unhealthy [Sacbee.com]
Vincent Felitti, a Kaiser Permanente physician in San Diego in the 1990s, had a radical idea. Instead of just asking patients about their symptoms, what would happen if doctors asked them about their childhoods? His hypothesis, built on a hunch informed by experience, was that childhood trauma was connected to poor health later in life. Felitti helped lead an exhaustive study of 17,000 patients that seemed to confirm his theory. That was in 1998. But for years Felitti’s study and his...
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Bail or Jail? Tool Used by San Francisco Courts Shows Promising Results (kqed.org)
Last year, San Francisco began using an algorithm to assess whether someone accused of a crime and awaiting trial is safe to be let out of jail. Fifteen months later, prosecutors say the risk assessment tool appears to be working: According to information provided to KQED by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, just 6 percent of defendants who were released from jail based on the “public safety assessment,” or PSA, over those 15 months committed a new crime; 20 percent failed to...
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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...
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Bay Area school redesigns its program to help students graduate [EdSource]
Theresa Harrington, July 9, 2019 Wen Jazhun Brown first transferred to De Anza High as a junior, poor grades made him an unlikely candidate to graduate on time. His GPA was low and he had failed biology. That changed after school counselors, college advisers and teachers helped him see he could reach his goal of becoming a police officer by retaking courses and working hard to successfully complete others. He graduated last month and will enroll this fall at Sacramento State University “My...
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BCSD wellness centers provide free services for students as they head back to school [Bakersfield.com]
By Ema Sasic August 7, 2019 The first day of school is just a few days away and school supplies are not the only items parents need to cross off their back-to-school checklist. Bakersfield City School District's four wellness centers are encouraging parents to stop by to make sure their children have all their required immunizations before the first day of school and are ready for the upcoming school year. The district has recently opened school wellness centers to promote physical, mental...