Blog

Johnson City to co-host forum on community-wide systems of care On Sept. 5, the City of Johnson City will co-host a forum entitled Moving from Understanding to Implementing Trauma-Responsive Services in conjunction with the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The forum will address SAMHSA recommendations for communities to treat trauma as a component of effective behavioral health service delivery. Statistics recently released from the Tennessee Department of...

In just six weeks, stakeholders from across North Carolina will get together to learn about system integration work with youth involved with child welfare. This is the third annual Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Conference and this year, we have decided to really focus on "Creating Nurturing Systems". While the daily work of PFE can be hard and challenges us to think of new ways to meet the needs of the family, the annual conference offers us a way to celebrate our successes and...

Committee reports for the fiscal year 2019 funding bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor/HHS) call for the Office of the Surgeon General to report on the connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and negative long-term health outcomes, including future substance misuse. The House Appropriations Committee report contains stronger and more specific language than the Senate report—it directs the Office of the Surgeon General to submit a...

Thanks to the ever-present media and and rise in social media use, people across the economic spectrum are seeing dramatic examples of racism in our society in clear video. We’re talking about Black men shot for no reason, youth sentenced to disproportionate sentences and customers being arrested for sitting in a coffee shop, to name a few. Similarly, we are beginning to hear and understand the dramatic stories of our most vulnerable young people, young people who have been victimized,...

SMART Leadership Camp Director Harris Ambush talks with campers and counselors about finding a "happy place" in their mind Monday June 18, 2018, at University of South Florida St. Petersburg. City Council members approved a $35,000 grant to a team at USFSP who are piloting a program that will help kids deal with "adverse childhood experiences." JIM DAMASKE | Times ST. PETERSBURG — A dozen kids sit in a circle with their eyes closed and their hands resting gently on their folded legs. Slowly,...

On May 22, I had the opportunity to experience a presentation by DeAngelo Mack on the Sacramento Violence Intervention Program, Trauma and ACEs. The presentation was at Kaiser Sacramento and was directed to residents in the organization. I have worked with @DeAngelo Mack, @Chris Cooper and @Esmeralda Huerta through Resilient Sacramento for the past few years and have admired their work in the community, this was the first opportunity I had to attend...

Jane Stevens has worked for nearly 40 years as a journalist primarily covering science, health and technology. When she learned about Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, she saw unmet needs to disseminate the findings of ACEs science and to bring practitioners together. She created Acestoohigh.com and ACESconnection.com , a news site and social networking site which both serve as hubs for education about ACEs and resiliency as well as offering connection for communities striving to put...

Authors note: This piece is co-authored by @Lara Kain and @Christine Cissy White. Though we had never worked together or met, we were asked to co-present on creating t rauma-informed changes in communities by the Attachment Trauma Network for the first national (now annual) Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Summit in Washington, DC. This article is an expanded essay version of that presentation). Be the Spark Oprah Winfrey helped mainstream discussion about...

On the 27th of April 2018, Rowan-Salisbury School System hosted a showing of the movie Resilience at the Norvell Theater in Salisbury, North Carolina. Upon entering the lobby of the Novell Theater, shortly after 6pm that evening, the amount of enthusiasm and partnership surrounding the showing of Resilience and the trauma work being done within the community was breathtaking. The lobby was filled with teachers and social workers and many key community stakeholders, all working together to...

Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...

Ms. T., 75, came to see me for therapy after a man stole her purse. He was in a car and lured her over under the guise of asking directions. Then he grabbed her bag and stepped on the accelerator. She was dragged halfway down the block before she let go. When I saw her a month later, she was still in physical pain from her injuries and emotional pain from having endured a traumatic experience. Ms. T. had raised three successful children as a single mother, while enjoying a prosperous career...

Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry to her right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee but it was the personal stories that...