Tagged With "Lifelong Health"
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Resource for Explaining ACEs and Assets in Monroe County
The Monroe County Office of Mental Health (MCOMH) and CCSI have recently partnered to create an information resource about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that can be shared with the general public in Monroe County using local data. Our intention is to further educate our community about the prevalence of ACEs, how ACEs affect the behaviors and health of our youth and how development of protective factors can improve their lives. The data points selected and methods to communicate them...
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Resource: Guide for Early Childhood Development
Healthy development in the early years of life provides the building blocks for lifelong health, educational achievement, and responsible citizenship. What can we do during this incredibly important period to ensure that children have a strong foundation for future development? This guide explains how children develop in their earliest years, why that time period is so important, and the practical ways we can support early childhood development (ECD) and improve outcomes for children and...
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Resource List - Trauma Informed Approaches and Autism Spectrum and Other Developmental Disabilities
Resources for individuals, organizations, and communities moving along trauma and hope-informed pathways in order to: Prevent and mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Promote resilience and safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. Promote equity and racial justice. Prevent substance abuse and promote mental health. … so that all children, youth, families and communities have equal opportunity for educational success, economic stability, health, and well-being.
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Resources for health care providers to prevent burnout during COVID-19
Editor's note: We will be providing ACEs in Pediatric members with resources to help navigate the challenges of COVID-19. Please see these resources below, including registration for a webinar to help prevent burnout in health care providers. It was complied by the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative. Healthcare Workers and the Workplace Healthcare providers, human service workers, journalists, and the service industry are all facing enormous difficulties in the face of coronavirus.
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Restoring Attachments using a Playbook from Treating the Traumatized Child: A Step-by-Step Family Systems Approach
For many boys, fathers, and grandfathers, a first step towards healing trauma can be found in the wilderness, “Where there are no deadlines, cell phones, or committee meetings. Where there is room for the soul and a quiet place to restore lost nurturance”, ( Wild at Heart , Eldridge, 2011). Glen and his father Darren are a great example of how this healing can take place. Dr. Sells uses the Wild at Heart Wound Playbook from Treating the Traumatized Child: A Step-by-Step Family Systems...
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Role of Pre-existing Adversity and Child Maltreatment on Mental Health Outcomes for Children Involved in Child Protection: Population-based Data Linkage Study [bmjopen.bmj.com]
By Miriam Jennifer Maclean, Scott Anthony Sims, Melissa O'Donnell, BMJ Journals, July 29, 2019 It is established that children who experience child abuse and neglect are at an increased risk of poorer mental health outcomes. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child states that chronic stress to which maltreated children may be exposed, in the absence of consistent and supportive relationships with adult caregivers, has negative impacts on children’s developing brain.
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School Discipline Practices: An Issue Brief on a Public Health Crisis and Opportunities for Reform [changelabsolutions.org]
Early childhood education sets the foundation for a student’s future well-being and success. However, the widespread use of exclusionary school discipline (ESD) aggravates pre-existing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and deprives students of essential opportunities for learning and growth. Examples of harmful and counterproductive ESD practices include suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement, and corporal punishment. These practices can compound feelings of isolation and...
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School Grants for Healthy Kids
School Grants for Healthy Kids Link View Program Website Sponsor Action for Healthy Kids Deadlines Apr 5, 2019 Contact SchoolGrants@ActionforHealthyKids.org Purpose School Grants for Healthy Kids awards funding to implement school health and wellness practices that help students eat better, stay physically active, and be better prepared to learn. Funded schools will also receive technical assistance to help implement a successful project that leads to sustainable change. Priority areas...
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Self-Care Resources
Self-care is a key element of a trauma-informed approach, at individual, organization, and community levels. This internet resource list includes links to introductions to ACEs and the ACE Study, self-care, secondary trauma and mindfulness. Self-Care - General Self-Care Starter Kit, School of Social Work, University of Buffalo http://socialwork.buffalo.edu/...are-starter-kit.html Relaxation Tool Kit, Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center...
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Shifting the focus from trauma to compassion
photo: Rolf Schweitzer/CCO Dr. Arnd Herz, a self-described champion for ACEs science, would like nothing more than to witness a greater appreciation of how widespread adverse childhood experiences are. Herz, a pediatrician and director of Medi-Cal Strategy for the Greater Southern Alameda Area for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, would also like to encourage more people in health care to engage in a trauma-informed care approach, a change in practice that he says not only benefits...
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Sleep Tied to Teenagers’ All-Around Health [nytimes.com]
A good night’s sleep may be critical for the metabolic health of teenagers. Researchers studied 829 boys and girls, average age 13, who wore electronic measuring devices that tracked sleep time, sleep quality and physical activity over seven to 10 days. They also recorded five factors associated with cardiovascular risk: waist circumference, blood pressure, HDL or “good” cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin resistance. Inadequate sleep was common — 31 percent of the children slept less...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Strengthening Families: Increasing positive outcomes for children and families [www.cssp.org]
We engage families, programs, and communities in building key protective factors. Children are more likely to thrive when their families have the support they need. By focusing on the five universal family strengths identified in the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework , community leaders and service providers can better engage, support, and partner with parents in order to achieve the best outcomes for kids. How We Do It The Strengthening Families framework is a...
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Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project Evaluation Opportunity Announcement
The Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project , a five-year project of the Urban Institute, to support the Administration for Children and Families, is increasing the number of evidence-supported interventions for the child welfare population by conducting rigorous evaluations and supporting the field in moving toward rigorous evaluation. The project focuses on evaluating interventions that already have some evidence of effectiveness and are currently operating or those that will...
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Supporting Older Trauma Survivors as They Heal Their Pasts, Grow Their Futures
Members of The Living Well Theater perform at the Good Food for All Conference at the Free Library/Parkway Central Library. Photo courtesy of Marie-Monique Marthol. ________________________________ Marie-Monique Marthol handed out the cards to older adults at meetings of her local civic association. With the pastor’s permission, she left some at a neighborhood church. She stacked them in restaurants, community centers and even at the laundromat. On the front, the cards read, “Time never runs...
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Supporting Young Children Experiencing Separation and Trauma [zerotothree.org]
Young children and their families can be tremendously affected by trauma, with significant implications for well-being well into the future. And while young children can be very expressive, they often do not have the skills or ability to use words to express how they are feeling. Adults may notice a variety of unexpected, atypical behaviors, and may need help understanding and nurturing infants and toddlers who have been affected. Fortunately, there are infant and early childhood mental...
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Taking Action: Building Resilience
There are many ways to take action to become trauma responsive and build resiliency. Here are few examples to point you in the right direction: Attend the Raising Resilience Summit on January 9th, 2018 Join the Consortium on Trauma, Illness, and Grief In Schools (TIG) Learn more about Mental Health First Aid Visit TraumaSenstiveSchools.org Trauma Informed Care training offers the entire staff an opportunity to look deeply into an organization's culture in order to build a resilient staff and...
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Taking Action: Building Resilience
Organizations have the unique opportunity to build and restore the core capabilities that promote resiliency, reduce stress, and support social and emotional health for adults and the children in their lives. Through a trauma-informed approach, organizations can make changes in organizational beliefs, policies, programs, practices, services and points of contact that value, advocate, and invest in healthy relationships; safe and secure environments and psychological safety; healthy habits;...
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Taking Action: Building Resilience Presentation
Thank you to all who presented the material, and all who listened! Here is a copy of the slides from the presentations.
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Teenagers Say Depression and Anxiety Are Major Issues Among Their Peers (nytimes.com)
Most American teenagers — across demographic groups — see depression and anxiety as major problems among their peers, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found. The survey found that 70 percent of teenagers saw mental health as a big issue. Fewer teenagers cited bullying, drug addiction or gangs as major problems; those from low-income households were more likely to do so. Some psychologists have tied a growth in mental health issues among teenagers to increased social media use,...
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The First Five Years Matters: Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health
Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health The first relationship—usually this is between the mother and her infant—has an enduring impact on all later stages of human development. This relationship which occurs has been described by Bowlby’s attachment theory, which at its core, is about how the mother helps the infant regulate emotion. The mother-infant attachment communications are essential because they directly affect the development of the brain. Dr. Allan Schore, the...
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The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement (medium.com)
What is needed is an approach that allows practitioners to approach trauma with a fresh lens which promotes a holistic view of healing from traumatic experiences and environments. One approach is called healing centered , as opposed to trauma informed . A healing centered approach is holistic involving culture, spirituality, civic action and collective healing. A healing centered approach views trauma not simply as an individual isolated experience, but rather highlights the ways in which...
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The Healing Place Podcast: Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, D.A.A.E.T.S. - How to Help Suicide Loss Survivors & the Traumatic Impact of Suicide
Barbara Rubel is a suicide loss survivor and leading thanatologist. Thanatology is the scientific study of death. As a thanatologist, Barbara Rubel specializes in suicide loss survivor grief and educating professionals about traumatic loss. The third updated and revised edition of her book, But I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Helping families after a suicide, just launched on Amazon.
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The many faces — and aspirations — of all of us at ACEs Connection
All of us at ACEs Connection have experienced ACEs during our childhoods, either in our own families or vicariously through friends; some of us accumulated pretty high ACE scores, with not enough resilience factors, and we’ve suffered the consequences. That history propels us up and out of bed every single morning to grow this network of amazing people (that’s you!) to reach even more people so that kids don’t have to repeat what we went through. We want more of our taxes to go to such...
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The Many Faces of Grief
“…Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self….” – From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran There are many kinds of loss that we can encounter in life. However, losses surrounding addiction can be particularly confusing; they tend...
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The Other COVID Risks: How Race, Income, ZIP Code Influence Who Lives Or Dies [khn.org]
By Liz Szabo and Hannah Recht, Kaiser Health News, April 22, 2020 It started with a headache in late March. Then came the body aches. At first, Shalondra Rollins’ doctor thought it was the flu. By April 7, three days after she was finally diagnosed with COVID-19, the 38-year-old teaching assistant told her mom she was feeling winded. Within an hour, she was in an ambulance, conscious but struggling to breathe, bound for a hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. An hour later, she was dead. [...
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The Rise of the Trauma-Informed Mothers
The next generation is less likely to wear predisposed shackles of trauma because as trauma-informed parents we are re-wiring the traumatically stressed DNA that was passed down to us.
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The Transformative Effects of Mindful Self-Compassion (mindful.org)
An explosion of research into self-compassion over the last decade has shown its benefits for well-being. Individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction and motivation, better relationships and physical health, and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events such as divorce, health crises, and academic failure, and even combat trauma. What Is Self-Compassion? Self-compassion involves...
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The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy (Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association)
Grabbe L, Miller-Karas E. The Trauma Resiliency Model: A “Bottom-Up” Intervention for Trauma Psychotherapy. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 2017; 24 (1): 76-84.
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This Is Your Brain on Nature [dirt.asla.org]
Neurosurgeon Edie Zusman , a real-life Doogie Howser who started medical school at 19 and has completed some 6,000 brain and spinal surgeries, said what landscape architects do saves far more lives than what she does. The early prevention of disease reduces the need for surgeries. Prevention is made possible by eating healthy foods and walking and getting exercise in green environments that lower stress and improve well-being. At the ASLA 2018 Annual Meeting , Zusman and a number of...
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Becoming Your Healthiest Self: An Eat-Well, Get-Fit, Feel-Great Guide for Teens [jamanetwork.com]
By Michelle Cardell, Aaron S. Kelly, and Lindsay A. Thompson, JAMA Pediatrics, May 26, 2020 Parents, empower your adolescents so they can make choices that promote their healthiest self. Teens, getting older means making decisions about what matters to you most. Making healthy choices is a great place to start. Taking care of your physical, emotional, and mental health is what makes it possible for you to do all the things you want to do. Fuel Up You are in charge of what you eat and drink.
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Tribal Communities: Advancing Trauma-Informed Care
New federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes critical funding for advancing trauma-informed care services in tribal communities. The devastating impact of historical, intergenerational and current traumas experienced by tribal communities has long overwhelmed chronically underfunded health care, education, mental health, social service and legal systems in Indian Country. The current impact and anticipated aftermath of the coronavirus...
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The Black Community, COVID-19 & Trauma [sdvoice.com]
By Latanya West, San Diego Voice, May 15, 2020 In January 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as California’s first-ever Surgeon General. An award-winning physician, researcher and advocate, Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. Her work is equally dedicated to changing the way our society responds to one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of...
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"Addiction begins with solving a problem, the problem of human pain, emotional pain"
In his groundbreaking book , In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction , trauma and addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté writes, “There are almost as many addictions as there are people.” ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens read that quote as a springboard to asking Maté to define addiction and explain whether or not it is always rooted in adverse childhood experiences. Maté, along with filmmaker Michelle Esrick and Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond,...
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Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, June 10, 2020 We know that responsive relationships and language-rich experiences for young children help build a strong foundation for later success in school. The rapidly advancing frontiers of 21st-century biological sciences now provide compelling evidence that the foundations of lifelong health are also built early, with increasing evidence of the importance of the prenatal period...
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Connecting the Brain to the Rest of the Body: Early Childhood Development and Lifelong Health Are Deeply Intertwined [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, June 10, 2020 We know that responsive relationships and language-rich experiences for young children help build a strong foundation for later success in school. The rapidly advancing frontiers of 21st-century biological sciences now provide compelling evidence that the foundations of lifelong health are also built early, with increasing evidence of the importance of the prenatal period...
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America's child care problem is an economic problem [vox.com]
By Anna North, Vox, July 16, 2020 The nation’s largest school district, New York City, said last week that students will be physically in classrooms only part time at the most in the fall. The nation’s second-largest, Los Angeles, announced Monday that it will be remote only. Meanwhile, day care centers around the country are closing their doors, unable to balance the higher operating costs and reduced enrollment that came with the coronavirus pandemic. Experts have been warning for months...
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Connecting Systems to Build Health Equity During COVID-19 [rwjf.org]
By Chris Lyttle, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, July 13, 2020 It's hard to describe water to a fish while it’s swimming in it. I was that fish, growing up in a working-class, majority Black community in southwest Ohio. For instance, it hadn’t occurred to me to question why my school had metal detectors and armed police officers at every entrance yet so few textbooks that students had no choice but to share. Or why we had to travel to find affordable fresh vegetables while unhealthy food...
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How a Pandemic Could Advance the Science of Early Adversity [jamanetwork.com]
By Danielle Roubinov, Nicole R. Bush, and W. Thomas Boyce, JAMA Pediatrics, July 27, 2020 The reach of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is global, a health crisis with a ubiquity never before experienced. While the physical health consequences of COVID-19 appear to affect proportionally fewer children compared with adults, its psychosocial consequences may be magnified within families who consistently weather a landscape of severe stressors or adverse childhood experiences...
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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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Children will pay long-term stress-related costs of COVID-19 unless we follow the science [statnews.com]
By Nadine Burke Harris, STAT, August 4, 2020 The world is learning more about the uncommon but puzzling ways Covid-19 can show up in kids, keeping worried parents on the lookout for symptoms of the disease. We should also be concerned about how toxic stress brought on by the pandemic, or made worse by it, will affect children’s developing brains and bodies and their future health. In millions of households, kids are experiencing an incredible amount of stress and anxiety. They’ve lost the...
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Family Well-being in Grandparent- Versus Parent-Headed Households [pediatrics.aappublications.org]
By Eli Rappaport, Nallammai Muthiah, Sarah A. Keim, and Andrew Adesman, Pediatrics, August 2020 Abstract BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the 2% of US children being raised by their grandparents. We sought to characterize and compare grandparent- and parent-headed households with respect to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), child temperament, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and caregiver aggravation and coping. METHODS: Using a combined data set of...
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Childhood trauma can speed biological aging [news.harvard.edu]
By Manisha Aggarwal-Schiefellite, The Harvard Gazette, August 3, 2020 Experiencing adversity early in life has a direct effect on a person’s mental and physical health as they grow, and certain kinds of trauma can affect the pace of aging, according to new Harvard research. In addition to being risk factors for anxiety, depression, and stress, early life experiences like poverty, neglect, and violence are powerful predictors of physical health outcomes like cardiovascular disease, diabetes,...
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Resilience - overcoming our past [talkbusiness.net]
By Ray Hanley, Talk Business & Politics, August 16, 2020 All children face challenges – it’s how they learn and grow into responsible adults. But how does one child experience a terrible childhood trauma and survive, even prosper as an adult, while another child is emotionally and physically destroyed by it? The answer is closely linked to the amount of resilience in each child. Resilience – the ability to recover from or adjust to trauma or misfortune – comes in many forms – a loving,...
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What to Do About Suicidal Thoughts in a Pandemic
Who knew when the year started we’d be separated from loved ones for months? And here we are, canceling celebrations, work and vacation plans, and not even hugging our friends. We are facing more stress – financial, emotional, social – than anyone could have imagined. We haven’t seen the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health yet. But as therapists, we know that as chronic stress continues, more people will experience depression and even suicidal thoughts. Let’s not wait to...
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COVID-19 Community Response: Emerging Themes Across Sentinel Communities [rwjf.org]
From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, August 2020 The coronavirus pandemic has elevated and exacerbated deep-seated inequities in communities across the United States. Localities large and small, urban and rural, well resourced and under resourced, are responding to distinct challenges. The Sentinel Communities project will follow the experiences of nine diverse communities to understand how they are responding to and recovering from this crisis. From the county housing the nation’s...
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Adversity in Early Childhood [americanprogress.org]
By Cristina Novoa and Taryn Morrissey, Center for American Progress, August 27, 2020 Since the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the United States has seen a proliferation of cases, record-breaking unemployment, and economic instability. Meanwhile, many public health measures that severely restrict social interactions—including stay-at-home orders and school and child care closures, among others—have been prematurely lifted, with...