Tagged With "Turn My Pain Into Power"
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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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5 Essential Takeaways From The New Oversight Plan For LA County’s Still-Troubled Probation Department [Witness LA]
By Celeste Fremon, Witness LA, June 17, 2019 After 14 public listening sessions held all around Los Angeles County—some of the meetings drawing as many as 200 people—the temporary blue-ribbon panel, known as the Probation Reform and Implementation Team, or PRIT, delivered its plan late last week for the creation of the nation’s first civilian oversight commission for a local probation department. Before it was made public, WitnessLA gave readers an early look at the proposed strategy,...
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8th Annual Water Cooler Conference - Stronger Together: Transforming Opportunity for Every Child
On February 22-23, 2016, our friends at Advancement Project will be hosting the 8th Annual Water Cooler Conference at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel. Don't miss out on this chance to hear keynote speakers Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character ; David B. Grusky, the Director of Stanfords Center on Poverty and Inequity; and Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl, the Co-Director of the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. Panelists...
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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 Group of Mothers, a Vacant Home, and a Win for Fair Housing [citylab.com]
By Brentin Mock, City Lab, January 28, 2020. On November 18, two women walked in through the unlocked door of a vacant three-bedroom house on West Oakland’s Magnolia Street, set up small bedrooms for themselves and their children, and settled in for an occupation designed to call attention to the Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis. Over the next few months, this collective of formerly unhoused women grew in size—and power. Calling themselves Moms 4 Housing , the group remained in 2928...
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A Landmark Lawsuit Aimed to Fix Special Ed for California's Black Students. It Didn't. [kqed.org]
By Lee Romney, KQED, October 18, 2019 Darryl Lester was at his mom’s place in Tacoma, Washington, when a letter he’d been waiting for arrived in the mail. At 40, he was destitute, in pain and out of work. The letter delivered good news: Lester would be getting disability benefits after blowing out his back in a sheet metal accident. But he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. Why? Because he couldn’t read it. From first through seventh grades, Lester had attended three public schools in...
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A Quest To Understand Adoption, Attachment, and Suicide
Join me and my guests, John Brooks and Nancy Newton Verrier, on “About Health.” Monday March 7th from 2-3PM on KPFA.org or 94.1FM. We will discuss, The Girl Behind the Door, A Father’s Quest to Understand His Daughter’s Suicide , by John Brooks. It provides a profound look into adoption, teenage suicide, and attachment issues. When John and Erika’s daughter Casey jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2008, John began to unravel a heartbreaking truth—Casey had been in pain since birth,...
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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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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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Bankruptcy and privatization will not lead us to recovery. [preventioninstitute.org]
By Rachel A. Davis, Prevention Institute, May 7, 2020 My father, a farmer, called me a few weeks ago to share that he had just stopped picking mid-harvest because of disruptions in produce distribution lines due to the coronavirus pandemic. I felt concerned for my family, for other farmers, and for families across the country that were struggling to feed their children. In the meantime, my sister, the ranch manager, spent days personally handpicking and boxing 1,600 pounds of the unpicked...
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Beyond Paper Tigers is Back!
Back for the second year, Beyond Paper Tigers conference will take place June 28th and 29th in Walla Walla, WA. Featuring Dr. Ken Ginsburg from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as the keynote speaker, BPT builds on the story of one community and how they've learned that embracing trauma-informed care and implementing ACEs science truly takes a village. Operationalizing the latest in brain science, BPT will provide concrete strategies for intervention with youth, families, and communities...
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Bipartisan trauma resolution passes the House unanimously
In the late afternoon on Feb. 26, the House of Representatives unanimously passed H. Res. 443 , a resolution recognizing the importance and effectiveness of trauma-informed care and calling for a national trauma awareness month and trauma-informed awareness day. The impetus for the resolution resides with the First Lady of Wisconsin, Tonette Walker, who has taken a strong leadership role in advancing trauma-informed policy and practice statewide through Fostering Futures , and has elevated...
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Bring That Beat Back: The Power of Arts to Heal Youth in the Justice System (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
Today, Cummings leads a circle of drummers that include a handful of young men who are incarcerated for offenses like stealing a car, petty theft, substance abuse and delinquency. "I want them to know who they are, to find their identity," Cummings said. "Music is a healing weapon." Cummings is a teaching artist with the Rhythm Arts Alliance, a group that works with incarcerated youth in camps overseen by the Los Angeles County Probation Department. Last week, Cummings' group and other arts...
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CA 3rd Annual API Mental Health Empowerment Conference in Fresno County
The purpose of the annual Asian & Pacific Islander Mental Health Empowerment Conference (APIMHEC) is to increase awareness of mental health concerns and to promote improvement of mental health services for Asian & Pacific Islander (API) communities. The 2019 APIMHEC Conference will be hosted by Fresno County's Department of Behavioral Health at Clovis Veteran's Memorial District. This conference will convene mental health service providers, consumers, family members, students,...
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CA pediatrician develops, tests, gets state OK for whole-child assessment tool that includes ACEs
Over the last dozen years or so, many pediatricians, astounded by the ramifications of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the children they care for, began integrating this science into their practices. The most common approach has been to ask parents about ACEs using a questionnaire, and to use this information to counsel parents and identify resources for the family. Different practices have been using different questionnaires: Some ask parents for their ACE scores...
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CA pediatrician develops, tests, gets state OK for whole-child assessment tool that includes ACEs
[Editor's note: This blog was first posted in April 2017. Dr. Marie-Mitchell updated the assessment by modifying a few of the questions, so we are republishing with the new assessment, one in Spanish and one in English.] Over the last dozen years or so, many pediatricians, astounded by the ramifications of the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the children they care for, began integrating this science into their practices. The most common approach has been to ask parents...
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...
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An Alternative to Suspension with Trauma-Informed Dynamic Mindfulness: Building Stress Resilience, Emotion Regulation and Empathy
At the November 2019 Northern California Safe and Healthy Schools Conference at UC Berkeley, Niroga Program Managers Sam Weiss and Fatima Ahmed facilitated a session incorporating the theory and practice of Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) to a standing room only crowd.
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Announcing a New Parenting and ACEs Blog from Stress Health, an Initiative of the Center for Youth Wellness
Research shows that the right kind of support and care can mitigate the impact of toxic stress in children and help them bounce back.
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California Considers Decriminalizing Truancy [Chronicle of Social Change]
By Mauricio Tellez-Sanchez, August 29, 2019, for Chronicle for Social Change California Assembly Bill 901 would instruct schools to refer habitually truant students in California to community-based organizations rather than juvenile court. The California State Senate will vote Friday on a measure that seeks to decriminalize truancy and limit the power of probation departments to work with youth who have not been charged with any crime through “voluntary probation” programs. Assembly Bill...
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California Governor Signs Flurry of Health-Related Bills On Topics Ranging From Abortion Medication to School Start Times
California Governor Signs Flurry Of Health-Related Bills On Topics Ranging From Abortion Medication To School Start Times : Gov. Gavin Newsom capped the end of the legislative session with a bill signing marathon over the past few days. And some of the most notable measures from the year were health-related. Here’s a look at some of them: ― Students at California’s 34 California State University and University of California campuses will have access to medication-induced abortion — commonly...
Calendar Event
Trauma Informed Yoga Outreach Training (Oakland, CA)
Calendar Event
Uplifting People of Color (Los Angeles, CA)
Calendar Event
WEBINAR: Compassion-Based Resilience for Climate Breakdown
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Update: Stand Up for Immigrant Families in California [The Children's Movement in CA]
Two weeks ago, the President announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would begin the process of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants across the country. While these raids were temporarily halted, new information suggests that ICE may begin conducting enforcement actions in 10 cities, including San Francisco, as early as this Sunday, July 14. In California, where many kids are growing up in “mixed status” families (where some members are citizens and others are...
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Updated Community Health Assessment now available [Humboldtgov.org]
The Community Health Assessment (CHA), a comprehensive overview of the health of the Humboldt County community, was presented at the Board of Supervisors meeting this afternoon. The Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Public Health report looks at traditional public health measures of illness, mortality, nutrition and physical activity in the community. The CHA also includes data about income, housing status, community safety and access to care, as underlying...
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Walk With Us: Building Community Power and Connection for Health Equity [rwjf.org]
By Aditi Vaidya, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, August 20, 2019 While many think of the Bay Area of California as the center of big tech and wealth, my memories of Oakland take me back to its Port truck drivers. Working an average of 11 hours a day, waiting in long lines at the Port of Oakland to pick up their loads, truck drivers in the Bay Area were isolated—living in the rigs they decorated with photos of their children and families. You can guess all of the reasons this is...
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Webinar: Building Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses
Live Webinar: Building Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses Monday, October 28 th , 2019 12:00-1:30 PM PDT You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming...
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Webinar Recap: Health Equity and COVID-19: Opportunities to Improve Child Wellbeing through Policy with Dr. Flojaune Cofer
On May 13, 2020, the California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative held a webinar entitled, “Health Equity and COVID-19: Opportunities to Improve Child Wellbeing through Policy” and heard from special guest speaker, Dr. Flojaune Cofer, Senior Director of Policy with the All Children Thrive (ACT) California project . This interactive webinar examined what success could look like to address COVID-19 by describing equity concerns arising for children and families that have been...
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Webinar recording available: Making Meaningful Change—Addressing ACEs through Public Policy
On February 18, 2020, nationally recognized experts discussed policy and advocacy strategies on local, state, and national levels using evidence from studies they have conducted with legislators and the general public. Speakers shared advocacy and messaging "how to’s" including communicating the effects of structural racism as an ACE, fostering equity as an essential component of resilience, and leveraging the power of community-based ACE, trauma and resilience networks to inform policy.
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses with Bob Doppelt
Recorded live October 28, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The webinar recording: You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming toward us and why prevention is the only realistic...
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#WeMakeLCFFWork: Month of Digital Action for Public Education [publicadvocates.org]
By Public Advocates, January 2020 In 2013, low-income communities of color and immigrant communities won the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), a funding law that increases resources for high need students and gives more power to the community. The promise of LCFF has yet to be fully realized, but together, we can make it live up to its potential. That’s why we’re launching the #WeMakeLCFFWork community education campaign in February 2020 to make sure families know their rights, are fully...
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What does a public health approach to preventing and healing trauma look like? This statewide initiative may have an answer.
Learn more about All Children Can Thrive (ACT/CA), trauma informed effort funded through the CA state legislature.
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When Being Trauma-Informed Is Not Enough
Trauma-informed care is the new gold standard. For the last several years, Echo has been providing professional development in trauma-informed care but we’re beginning to notice a worrying aspect of the new push to train staff and transform systems. Some human service professionals are seeing ‘trauma-informed care’ as another skill to add to their resume or a box to check off on a grant proposal. But if the information stays with the professionals and is not used to empower survivors, then...
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Whole-Family Wellness for Early Childhood: A New Model for Medi-Cal Delivery and Financing [cachildrentrust.org]
The California Children’s Trust and First 5 Center for Children’s Policy just announced the publication of their vision for a new approach for California to conceptualize, deliver, and fund a system of care—grounded in family wellness—for Medi-Cal eligible infants and toddlers. Whole-Family Wellness for Early Childhood: A New Model for Medi-Cal Delivery and Financing was developed by The California Children’s Trust and the First 5 Center for Children's Policy. The primary authors are Ken...
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Why California’s Once-Dismissed Idea to Give Everyone a Paycheck Is Gaining Ground [ZocaloPublicSquare.org]
Do you want your ham and eggs, California? It is one of the oldest and most enduring ideas in our state: Government should provide everyone with a minimum amount of money on a regular basis. It goes back to the 1930s, when Californians narrowly rejected the so-called “Ham and Eggs” proposals to give Californians a $30 check every Thursday. Now, this notion is back, a subject of books and op-eds and speeches, especially in the Bay Area, and with some bipartisan political momentum.
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Why not share information on trauma and resilience directly with survivors?
The Echo conference is known for shining a light on new developments in the trauma field, and this year, our "And Still We Rise" conference will be no different. Only the difference this year is that we will be doing something revolutionary in our field - providing information on trauma and resilience DIRECTLY TO SURVIVORS . Historically, the conference audience has been service providers and - as any trauma survivor will tell you - it is imperative that our services, systems, and...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Why this financial coach integrates ACEs-based training
In foreground, Dr. Donielle Prince (l) and Saundra Davis (r) ____________________________ Saundra Davis, a financial coach and consultant who trains other coaches on building resilience among the working poor, knew she had met her partner in helping people deal with their “money disorders” when she first met Dr. Donielle Prince in Sacramento at a black women’s gathering in 2015. Dr. Prince works with ACEs Connection as its San Francisco Bay Area regional community facilitator. She also...
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Why trauma-informed care is needed in Los Angeles County: Guest commentary [DailyNews.com]
When Jake was a child, his parents would scream at him every day. They told him everything he did was wrong and he was worthless. One day when Jake was 4, his father threw him against the wall three times. It was not until his mother found Jake talking to himself at age 12 that she saw he — and her family — needed help. When Jake entered therapy, he was hearing voices in his head and had a severe stutter. He never felt safe and found it hard to trust others. Today, Jake, a 58-year-old Los...
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Wildfires, power outages cause unprecedented healthcare disruption in California (sacbee.com)
Healthcare leaders told The Bee that they are confronting a level of disruption to delivering care and running their businesses that they have never seen in their careers as a result of the California wildfires and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s planned blackouts . “I actually have never experienced a power outage where we were on emergency generator backup for 40 hours or more,” said Dr. Brian Evans , the chief executive officer at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. “We’ve had...
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Women’s Need for Medical Care Spikes Following Sexual Assault, Study Finds (calhealthreport.org)
Women who experience sexual assault are more likely to need medical care for mental health and stress-related problems in the year following the attack, new research suggests. Researchers at Kaiser Permanente analyzed the medical records of 1,350 women in northern California who were sexually assaulted between 2009 and 2015. They compared the women’s use of health-care services and their diagnoses in the years before and after the assault. The study also compared the victims’ records with...
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Women’s Well-Being Index, interactive map [California Budget and Policy Center]
California Women's Well-Being Index In Partnership With the Women's Foundation of California Women's Well-Being Index: Overall When women thrive, their families and communities prosper . Yet despite decades of progress, women still face persistent disparities on a range of issues, from economic security to health to participation in political leadership. By viewing women’s well-being as encompassing various distinct yet interrelated components, policymakers, advocates, service providers, and...
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World-wide COVID experiences survey
We at Penn State have launched a world-wide survey, now translated into 20 languages to study the effective (vs ineffective) ways of communicating the the COVID pandemic related messages. This survey has been already completed by over 10,000 people around the globe since we launched it few days ago. Our humble goal is to reach 1 million responders by the end of April / early May.
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Youth Of Merced Use The Power Of Writing To Illuminate The Human Cost Of Incarceration…& Other Urgent Issues [WitnessLA.com]
Earlier this month, an innovative youth program called We’Ced Youth Media, located in Merced, California, co-hosted an event called #SchoolsnotPrisons Merced. The event’s stated purpose was “to educate the Merced community about the impact of the school-to-prison pipeline and mass incarceration.” A portion of the event included poetry that expressed the pain of incarceration, both for the one who is locked-up, and for those who lose a family member to jail or prison. What is particularly...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Starting Now: A Policy Vision for Supporting the Healthy Growth and Development of Every California Baby [ChildrenNow.org]
In the first three years of a child’s life, foundational brain architecture is established, making children’s earliest experiences the most important. The creation of healthy brain architecture is dependent on good health, positive and nurturing relationships with adults, exposure to enriching learning opportunities and safe neighborhoods. Yet too often in California, children—especially children of color, foster youth, and those growing up in poverty—lack the components critical for a...
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STATE HEALTH CARE STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS CHILDREN’S TRAUMA, EXPOSURE TO VIOLENCE AND ACEs
I found this document by Futures Without Violence to be a useful resource. From the forward: The health care system plays an important role both in identifying children who may be exposed to extreme adversity and violence, currently and in the past, and in providing the evidence-based interventions that can help children heal from trauma and prevent health conditions and other poor outcomes associated with trauma and ACEs. The health care system is also central in supporting the greatest...
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Strategies 2.0 [strategiesca.asentialms.com]
By Strategies CA, September 4, 2019 Healthy families are the bedrock of strong, vibrant communities. When the skills and abilities of professionals and their organizations grow and strengthen, they can create bigger, more sustainable changes in their communities so that all families can be healthy. Organizations working with families want to support as many people as possible and make a bigger impact but their budgets and resources fall far short of their aspirations. With no-cost trainings...