Tagged With "Park Middle School"
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
Sixth grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister (photo: Laurie Udesky) ________________________________ During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people...
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Wisconsin 5th graders make music video to a mindfulness hip hop song by SF Bay Area artist, Just Me
Wisconsin elementary-school teachers are incorporating simple mental exercises in the classroom to promote well-being, thanks to a partnership between the Madison Metropolitan School District and the Center for Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The school's 5th graders recently made a music video for the song, "Don't flip yo' lid," by SF Bay Area hip hop artist, Just Me. The song's hook is, "mindfulness will change your life."
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NEW! Closing the Opportunity Gap Infographic in Contra Costa County
While many kids in Contra Costa County are thriving, others lack basic health, education, and financial supports they need for well-being and long-term success. Since countywide statistics can mask such issues, regional data is useful for highlighting disparities and targeting resources. That’s why Children Now collaborated with the Contra Costa Economic Partnership , The Lesher Foundation , and First 5 Contra Costa to develop an infographic to help illustrate the need to close the...
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A Better Normal Friday, June 19th at Noon PDT: LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma
Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our ongoing series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma With Panelists Rev. Dr. D. Mark Wilson and Alexander Cho, Ph.D., Moderated by ACEs Connection staff members Jenna Quinn and Alison Cebulla Friday, June 19th, 2020 Noon to 1pm, PT (3pm to 4pm ET) >>Click here to register<< Please join us...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything.
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Child Life specialists empower kids in hospitals, disasters and now the pandemic
In late May, Betsy Andersen’s 7-year-old son, Ezra, had a serious meltdown. He and his six-year-old sister Abby had been enjoying an online Zoom interaction with “Miss Eileen,” “Miss Savannah,” a couple of their colleagues, and a puppet. Betsy Andersen “I could see him trailing off and then he started crying,” says Andersen, who lives in Mundelein, Illinois. But before she swooped in, she heard Miss Eileen talking to him: “She was saying ‘Hey, I see you’re having some big emotions.” Speaking...
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Greater Richmond Trauma Informed Community Network, first to join ACEs Cooperative of Communities, shows what it means to ROCK!
In 2012, Greater Richmond SCAN and five other community partners hatched a one-year plan to educate the Richmond, Virginia, community about ACEs science and to embed trauma-informed practices. Eight years later, the original group has evolved into the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (GRTICN) with 495 people and 170 organizations. And they're just scratching the surface.
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Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
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‘Trauma on top of trauma’: Bay Area students under stress from pandemic face wildfire risks [sfchronicle.com]
By Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2020 Students in the Bonny Doon school district had been back in class — virtually — for two days before the wildfires forced them to evacuate, many fleeing for their lives in the middle of the night Wednesday. Teachers and students lost homes to the powerful wildfires raging through the charming, wooded town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. School had just started, but now Superintendent Mike Heffner, who is also the principal of the...
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CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY: Parental ACEs and Pediatrics: Transforming Well Care [avahealth.org]
CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY (CAA) , funded by ACEs Aware, is providing free online training to Medi-Cal providers and others featuring: Practical strategies for integrating trauma-informed health care into your team’s practice that improves patients’ well being and the productivity of your practice. Meet colleagues with experience and success providing trauma-informed health care in their practices. Learn from national and local experts. Talk to other professionals from your region in small...
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Whole People Watch Weekend on ACEs Connection (Dec. 11th - 13th)
The Transform Trauma with ACEs Sciences FREE Film Festival continues this weekend. Please join us to watch parts 1, 2, and 3 of the PBS Whole People series at your convenience, on ACEs Connection, by clicking play on the videos below: Whole People | 101 | Childhood Trauma | Episode 1 (27 min) Preview: Whole People | 102 | Healing Communities | Preview | Episode 2 Whole People | 102 |Healing Communities Episode 2 (27 min) Whole People | 103 |A New Response | Episode 3 (27 min) This is one of...
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The Power of Preventing ACEs
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as child abuse and neglect, can lead to negative psychological, social and physical outcomes later in life – and can even affect future generations. New and exacerbated stressors during the pandemic underscore concern for the risks and long-term health effects of ACEs, particularly for groups already disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Certain interventions can help mitigate negative outcomes from ACEs and prevent them from occurring in the...
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Want to empower youth in communities of color during COVID? Let them lead.
Widespread reporting has revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many poor communities of color. Less widely known is how the pandemic has affected young people in those communities. “COVID-19 has had a particularly harsh impact on youth of color,” further traumatizing [juvenile-justice] system-impacted youth and their families already struggling with disproportionately high rates of disease, death, job loss and housing insecurity,” said Jim Keddy of Youth Forward . Keddy was...
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Speakers at children & youth conference call for systems change based in love, liberation
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.
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Youth Detention Facility finds culture of kindness more effective than punishment
A corner of the Multi-Sensory De-escalation Room, All MSDR photos courtesy of Valerie Clark When a young person enters the de-escalation room in the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility , they’ll find dimmed lights, bottles of lavender, orange and other essential oils, an audio menu featuring the rush of ocean waves and other calming sounds, along with squeeze balls, TheraPutty, jigsaw puzzles, and an exercise ball to bounce on. TheraPutty, squeeze balls and more Sometimes, with a...
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CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY - Session 8 with Robert Sege, MD, PhD | April 22
CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY LIVE WEBINAR with FREE CME/CE Educate, Inspire, Connect HOPE: Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences presented by Dr. Robert Sege Thursday, April 22, 2021 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm (PT) This interactive session will describe how ACEs screening can be enhanced by also considering HOPE: Healthy Outcomes from Positive Childhood Experiences. Children’s brains develop in response to their experiences, both adverse and beneficial. Just as adverse childhood experiences can...
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HOPE Summit speakers show how positive childhood experiences offset adversity
The Rev. Darrell Armstrong, pastor of the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jersey, is an accomplished man. He graduated from Stanford University in public policy and went on to get his master’s degree in divinity studies at Princeton. As a former director in the New Jersey Department of Human Services, he was responsible for New Jersey’s statewide strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. Armstrong has also worked as an entrepreneur, workshop facilitator, and radio host.
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To solve the Black maternal mortality crisis, start with upending racist practices
It’s been all over the news for months: Black women in the United States are dying from complications during their pregnancies or in childbirth at alarming rates, and those deaths are preventable. Less well explored is how systemic racism and historical trauma have been at the core of what’s driven up these rates over several decades. A March 20 conference entitled The Impact of ACEs on Black Maternal Health took an in-depth look into why Black maternal mortality and complications during...
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Policing in schools: Redefining public safety to be supportive & healing, instead of punitive & criminalizing
A recent video , shared on the national news, shows a 16-year-old Florida student being slammed to the ground by a police officer working at her school. It’s one of many such incidents of school-based police violence against students captured in videos around the country. Some of the victims are as young as five years old. About 47% of U.S. schools employ armed police officers , known as school resource officers, who are there to keep students safe. But students who attend these schools...
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Childcare providers use two- generational approach to help preschoolers from being expelled
It’s shocking: Preschoolers are three times more likely to be expelled than children in elementary, middle and high school, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Boys are four times more likely than girls to be kicked out, and African American children are twice as likely as Latinx and White children. One organization with childcare centers and mental health providers in Kentucky and Ohio began a long journey 15 years ago, when they began hearing about...
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California PACEs Connection initiatives spark new connections in regional meeting
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,...
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Resource: Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic One-Pager (English & Spanish!)
English: The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , ACEs Connection , and the Yolo County Children’s Alliance co-created “Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in both English and Spanish. This material is intended for Californian families experiencing the severe economic consequences resulting from...
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Bruce Perry, Melissa Merrick discuss "What Happened to You?"
Child psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey have known each other for more than 30 years. Both are deeply interested in childhood trauma and healing. But it was following a 60 Minutes segment Winfrey did in 2018 on childhood trauma, for which she interviewed Perry, that the two decided to take their work together to the next level. They tapped Oprah’s star power and worldwide reach and Perry’s deep expertise in brain science to collaborate on a book project, the recently released,...
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Southern Oregon Success wants all children, families to thrive by 2025
For Peter Buckley, program manager for the PACEs initiative, Southern Oregon Success (SORS), the “aha moment” around positive and adverse childhood experiences was more of an “aha month.”
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Dan Press traces how legal work for Native Americans led to advocacy to uproot trauma
L-R Dr. Mary Cwik, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, Dan Press, Dr. Zach Kaminsky, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Prewitt In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation. Dan Press “I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens...
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Check Out New July Dates Added to the 2023 CRC Summer Curriculum and the Official Launch of the Dedicated CRC Community Page
July is a time to celebrate all summer has to offer by building bridges and innovating with community to get to the heart of trauma-informed awareness and resilience building. This month, we’ve added new July dates to the summer 2023 *CRC* curriculum—but that’s only half of the good news. Last year, the CRC began as a pilot program. Now that it's evolved, what better time to bring accelerator participants together in a PACEs Connection CRC community than the summer? We are proud to announce...
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World Mental Health Day: Mobilizing the Human Family Through the CRC & the PACEs Movement
Awareness about health outcomes are as much about the long-term impact caused by adverse childhood experiences as they are by positive childhood experiences. By providing education on trauma-informed awareness and resilience building frameworks, the CRC Accelerator certification is a tool for both.
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Strength Through Unity: Nurturing Trauma-informed Resilience in Families Displaced by Violence Through the CRC & the PACEs Movement
Beyond Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), our members seek to deeply understand strengths-based insights embedded in the remaining ACEs quadrant: Adverse Community Environments, Adverse Climate Experiences, and Atrocious Cultural Experiences.
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Healing Centered Futures through the CRC & the PACEs Movement: Announcing the CRC Fellowship, Celebrating CRC Graduates, and #GivingTuesday Campaign
Something amazing keeps happening in our CRC Accelerator program that we want to shout out from the rooftops this December. Thanks to our committed participants, the number of CRC graduates keeps increasing! The number of graduates has increased by 15x this year. As we head into a new year, w e are grateful for the unique role CRC Accelerator participants have played in expanding the PACEs movement through the willingness to explore healing-centered practices through a PACEs science lens.
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Our Trauma-Resilient Educational Communities (TREC) Model's website launched on 1.25.24 with our Award Ceremony!
The culmination of thousands of hours from our Trauma-Resilient Educational Communities (TREC) team in developing our TREC Model, we launched TRECeducation.com website on Thursday, January 25, 2024. Craig Beswick, Vice-President, School Development Division, Lifelong Learning Administration Corporation (LLAC) opened up our exciting launch, which was hosted by the beautiful UCSD Park & Market in downtown San Diego. Craig warmly welcomed over 200 attendees to our Awards Ceremony and TREC...