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Teen stress is on the rise. According to a new study, learning mindfulness and self-compassion can help a teen cope. In a 2014 national survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, 31 percent of adolescents aged 13 to 17 said that their stress increased in the previous year, and 42 percent said they were not doing enough to manage their stress. Adolescents who experience frequent stress are more prone to depression and perform worse in school Many teens turn to external...

It’s easy to drive right past the bucolic pasture tucked between houses on a winding road in Anaheim Hills. But once you locate the unassuming entrance to Canyon Acres Ranch, suburbia suddenly becomes backcountry. With its barn, stables, four horses and 10 chickens, Canyon Acres Ranch acts as a salve to the children who visit. There, Tustin-based Seneca Orange County offers Guided Animal Intervention Therapy, or GAIT. GAIT, the only equine-assisted program of its kind in Orange County,...

Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...

Is there a shortage of foster homes in the United States? If so, is the shortage widespread or localized? To find answers to these questions, I looked at federal data, research by the Casey Foundation, information from state program directors and evidence from hundreds of recent news reports documenting critical local shortages throughout our nation. The overwhelming message is that we have fewer foster homes than in the past and recruitment is becoming quite difficult. The foster home...

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Issues New Guidelines to Encourage Secure Sharing of Information Between Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Better Serve Foster Youth Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced that the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Children’s Justice (BCJ), the California Department of Education (CDE), and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have jointly developed statewide guidelines for school districts, county offices of...

As Los Angeles County mulls the idea of using ride-sharing services to escort foster youth to visitations with biological parents, some child-welfare experts wonder how such a service would be able to grapple with children with significant experiences of trauma and loss. Children in the county’s foster-care system remain spread out across the vast geographical expanse of Los Angeles County. Trips to court, meetings with social workers or visitations with parents or other family members can...

Dr. Tami DeCoteau, holds the sign-up sheet for a North Dakota trauma initiative, flanked by Dr. Zach Kaminsky, (left), Dr. Mary Cwik, (right) of the Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins University, and Megan DesCamps, health policy advisor for U.S. Senator Heitkamp ________________________ There is often a distinct event that leaders in the trauma movement mention when asked about how it all got started in their community. Many times it is when one of the authors of the ACE...

This story is part of Rise's series by frontline staff at foster care agencies about their experiences working with parents. Recently, I facilitated a Family Team Meeting with a mother who was going through tremendous stress. (To protect her privacy, I’ll just call her “Mom.”) Her partner had recently died and she’d been diagnosed with a serious illness. She also suffered from anxiety and depression. Up until the series of crises in her life, she’d worked, had an apartment, cared for her...

SACRAMENTO -- Legislation that would require better transparency and tracking of mental health services for foster kids in every California county unanimously passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday. (August 11, 2016) Senate Bill 1291, by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, would institute more stringent annual oversight of county Medi-Cal mental health plans' services to foster youth. Services may include screenings, assessments, psychiatric hospitalizations, crisis interventions,...

Social activist and former foster care youth Shenandoah Chefalo was forced to move 50 times during her childhood, and that experience coupled with her ideas to improve the foster care system that she survived resulted in her book, “Garbage Bag Suitcase.” The book, which took over four years of research and writing to complete, describes Chefalo’s dysfunctional upbringing and journey through the foster care system. She also offers insight into the problems and potential solutions surrounding...

For three decades, I have listened in awe to the brave voices of children, youth and families who have shared, in anguish, their past experiences — experiences that anyone would objectively call “adverse” and ones that can have lasting effects on health and well-being. The seminal ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study opened my eyes to how pervasive their stories were and how these findings might influence the development of effective interventions and treatment, especially for...

When a foster youth encounters a psychiatrist, chances are high that s/he will get medicated. Traumatized foster youth are often prescribed powerful psychotropics due to exhibiting a wide variety of “normal reactions to abnormal events”, such as despair, agitation, anxiety and self-harm. The practice has been well documented; foster children are prescribed psychotropics at a 2.7 to 4.5 times higher rate than non-foster youth [1] . The National Center for Youth Law aptly summarizes the...