Tagged With "Care in Early Childhood"
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Early childhood programs can reduce the effects of trauma [missoulian.com]
Connecting very young children who've experienced adversity with high quality early childhood programs can provide both the child and the family with the tools, support, protective factors, and resources to address the effects of trauma on the child and the family. I've seen first hand the benefits early childhood programs can bring to families and communities. Often times, families who encounter child welfare don't need an extensive, court-involved child welfare intervention, and can be...
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Eunju Lee's Research on Kinship Care: Informing a Community-based ACE Response
Eunju Lee, assistant professor at the University at Albany, is a leading contributor to a body of research focusing on kinship care. Kinship care occurs when children cannot safely stay in the care of their parents due to child maltreatment, parental substance abuse, parental mental health issues or other reasons. In these cases, relatives, or family friends in some jurisdictions, take over the care of the children. Kinship care is often utilized by child welfare services as a diversion from...
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Explaining behavior: Professional seek to address students' trauma [thenotebook.org]
Professionals from multiple disciplines working with children and families came together earlier this month in Philadelphia for a three-day conference on trauma-informed practice – the Greater Philadelphia Trauma Training . … About 360 people from the Philadelphia area and across the Eastern seaboard attended, she said, and about of 100 of them work with K-12 students. The first two days of the conference emphasized the basics of trauma-informed work with children from the vantage points of...
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Families in Limbo: Coronavirus Hobbles Reunifications from Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback and John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 16, 2020 This week was supposed to be a triumphant one for a Northern California mother of two, a 39-year-old home health aide. Soon after a long-scheduled court date at the Sonoma County Hall of Justice this week, she imagined she would soon be able to gather her 1-year-old daughter in her arms at last and end what has been the most terrifying experience of her life: the seven months her toddler has spent in foster...
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Family Resilience And Connection Promote Flourishing Among US Children, Even Amid Adversity (www.healthaffairs.org)
Abstract below and link to open access article written by Christina D. Bethell , Nangerel Gombojav , and Robert C. Whitaker and published in Health Affairs Link to open access article written by Christina D. Bethell , Nangerel Gombojav , and Robert C. Whitaker .
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Fewer US Children in Foster Care; First Drop Since 2012 [nytimes.com]
By The Associated Press, The New York Times, October 24, 2019 The number of children in the U.S. foster care system has dropped for the first time since 2012, stemming a surge that was linked to substance abuse by parents, according to new federal data released on Thursday. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services counted 437,283 children in foster care as of Sept. 30, 2018, down from about 441,000 a year earlier. The peak was 524,000 children in foster care in...
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Five Things You Wish Your Community’s Early Childhood Programs Knew [CitiesSpeak.org]
By NLC Staff on May 10, 2019 Cities, towns, and villages are places of innovation and solution finding. If you want to improve early childhood wellbeing—local leaders are key partners. The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Learning Community is a program of Boston Medical Center’s Vital Village. The learning community’s goal is to support local early childhood coalitions and build their capacity to work together with the broader community to improve the wellbeing of our...
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Flourishing From The Start: What Is It, And How Can It Be Measured? [childtrends.org]
This comprehensive research brief discusses the important factors needed to promote child well-being across childhood. Of course, recommendations are grounded in maternal-infant health and relationships, but the recommendations also discuss how to build protective factors across developmental domains and the development of the child. The researchers make many actionable recommendations for both practice and policy, as well as how to obtain ongoing data, and make data collection and...
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Foster care children at much greater risk of physical, mental health problems [EurekAlert.org]
Children who have been in the U.S. foster care system are at a significantly higher risk of mental and physical health problems - ranging from learning disabilities, developmental delays and depression to behavioral issues, asthma and obesity - than children who haven't been in foster care, according to a University of California, Irvine sociologist. "No previous research has considered how the mental and physical well-being of children who have spent time in foster care compares to that of...
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Foster care survivor forced to move 50 times during childhood; brings her story Downriver [TheNewsHerald.com]
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...
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Foster Youth meets Psychiatry: First Do No pHarm
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...
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FOSTER YOUTH NEED MORE THAN EDUCATION TO BUILD A STABLE LIFE [Zocalo]
By Mike Stajura, August 19, 2019 Schools Don’t Nurture Long-Term Relationships—and May Even Discourage Them For the last three years, I have been working on public policy related to foster youth. But at a recent monthly foster care policy meeting in Sacramento, where experts were discussing the needs of foster youth fortunate enough to go to college, I found myself thinking, “They’re missing the point.” Getting the degree doesn’t fix the real problem that foster youth have, which is forming...
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Framework to Reduce Criminalisation of Young People in Residential Care [apo.org.au]
From the Victoria State Government, February 2020 The safety and wellbeing of young people and staff is paramount in providing residential care in Victoria. Attention needs to be directed at ensuring young people placed in residential care receive the necessary support to enable them to achieve the same outcomes as their peers in the broader community. A significant proportion of young people in residential care have experienced extensive abuse and neglect. The impact of this trauma may lead...
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From Trauma-Informed to Asset-Informed Care in Early Childhood [brookings.edu]
By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...
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Handouts for parents about ACEs, toxic stress & resilience
Hey everyone, here are some handouts that our founder, Jane Stevens, discovered as she was writing a story about the trauma-in formed elementary schools in Spokane, WA . We've updated it, and provided three different versions. The text is the...
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Healing ACE's
Healing Childhood Trauma I’d like to thank each member of ACE’s Connection for all your work helping and supporting children through various activities and organizations. You are clearly a collection of people who care about the children of the world. It is in recognition of these efforts that I ask you to consider two books on healing childhood trauma. They represent a life-time partnership dedicated to raising and educating healthy children. Secondly, I’d like to ask you for a word of...
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Health Status of Young Adult Mothers with a History of Child Welfare Involvement [policylabchop.edu]
How many of you are aware of the disproportionate relationship between adolescent mothers and the child welfare system? As this research points out, although teen pregnancy is on the decline nation-wide, half of female youth who have current or previous involvement with child welfare also experience pregnancy by age 19 – and half of that number have experienced multiple pregnancies by this age. Researchers at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia research institute looked at one Mid-Atlantic city...
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Helping Young Children Exposed to Trauma: A Systems Approach to Implementing Trauma-Informed Care [chdi.org]
By Alysse Loomis, Ph.D. Kellie Randall, Ph.D. Jason Lang, Ph.D., CHDI, June 2019. This IMPACT provides a summary of the research on the effects of early trauma exposure, discusses what Connecticut is doing across systems to support young children who have experienced trauma, and outlines a framework to expand Connecticut's robust system of trauma-informed care for older children to include younger children. There are more than 228,000 children under the age of six years old in Connecticut,...
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Helping Youth Transition to Adulthood: Guidance for Foster Parents
Please see the attached document to learn more about: The transition to adulthood and self-sufficiency can be challenging for any young person. For teenagers who have been living in foster care, the transition to life outside of care can be daunting. Generally, youth who have experienced foster care do not have the same safety nets and support networks as others their age, and the transition challenges can be even greater.
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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How Genes Respond to Trauma and Stress
Okay! So, after getting YOUR answers to my crowdsourcing question (thank you for the 100 responses on Facebook and Instagram !): "What do you want to see from me on social media?" the overwhelming #1 response was more nuggets of science, offered with the shared sense that I understand YOUR struggles, I see your suffering. And I do. Oh, you have no idea how much I do. So, with that in mind, here's a nugget of science about How Genes Respond to Trauma and Stress . Some genes, like the ones...
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How life outside of a school affects student performance in school [brookings.edu]
This report presents findings from a unique partnership between the University of Michigan and the State that allowed us to match the universe of child maltreatment records in Michigan with educational data on all public school children in the state. We find that roughly 18 percent of third-grade students have been subject to at least one formal investigation for child maltreatment. In some schools, more than fifty percent of third graders have experienced an investigation for maltreatment.
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How Many Children Experience Eviction During Childhood? [howhousingmatters.org]
Evictions are destabilizing events that increase families’ financial stress and strip away the psychological and physical security of having a home. These effects are particularly traumatizing for children, who often suffer emotionally and academically. While these negative consequences are well researched , little evidence exists to estimate the number of children who are evicted during childhood. To help fill this knowledge gap, this study calculates the proportion of children born in...
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How to Help a Child Struggling With Anxiety [npr.org]
By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, October 29, 2019 Childhood anxiety is one of the most important mental health challenges of our time. One in five children will experience some kind of clinical-level anxiety by the time they reach adolescence, according to Danny Pine, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health and one of the world's top anxiety researchers. Pine says that for most kids, these feelings of worry won't last, but for some, they will —...
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HOWEVER KINDLY INTENTIONED: STRUCTURAL RACISM AND VOLUNTEER CASA PROGRAMS [cunylawreview.org]
When we talk about child welfare reform, we shouldn’t shy away from issues of disproportionality and institutionalized oppression, as both are prevalent, present, and deserving of dialogue. One area of conversation I’ve noted of late is with CASA programs. CASA’s are Court Appointed Special Advocates who make recommendations to the court on behalf of the child’s best interest. More often than not, CASA volunteers are well-meaning individuals who give their time to help children. But, many...
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HSC holds symposium on childhood adversity [dailylobo.com]
The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center recently held a symposium to generate ideas for the state to address childhood adversity. As reported in this piece, New Mexico ranks 49th in the Nation for child well-being, and many of the ideas generated at this symposium focused on improvements to working with families experiencing adversity. Hsi said he feels the childhood protective system would benefit from “sustaining funding for a decade to see if we can make a difference,” as...
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“I Like to Move It, Move It!” – How Dance and Rhythm Can Reduce the Impact of ACEs (stresshealth.org)
As it is, more and more researchers studying the healing power of rhythmic movement on people who’ve experienced trauma from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, or parental mental illness or substance abuse issues. Among these researchers is Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist and senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston who advocates dance, drumming, walking and other rhythm-based movements to help kids with trauma. In a book about trauma and the power of...
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Immune Biomarkers of Early-Life Adversity and Exposure to Stress and Violence - Searching Outside the Streetlight [jamanetwork.com]
By Nicole R. Bush and Kirstin Aschbacher, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Evidence of an association between early-life adversity and heightened risk of chronic disease in adulthood has been found, but the optimal biomarkers for identifying vulnerable or resilient individuals remain unclear. Global trends, including widening socioeconomic disparities, the refugee crises, and climate change, increasingly sculpt trauma exposure and call for scalable early-risk identification and treatment...
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Improve Birth and Perinatal Outcomes with a Trauma Sensitive Approach
The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health is excited to bring together 10 talented practitioners to explore the Trauma Informed Practices that help improve birth outcomes and support human development right from the very start. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (1998) launched the importance of trauma and trauma informed care in our health and educational systems. We suddenly had a measure of how early experiences in childhood could correlate with adult disease.
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InBrief: Relilience Series [developingchild.harvard.edu]
This series of videos from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University provide a great resoruce on resilience: 1. InBrief: What is Resilience? 2. InBrief: The Science of Resilience 3. InBreif: How Resilience is Built Reducing the effects of significant adversity on young children’s healthy development is critical to the progress and prosperity of any society. Yet not all children experience lasting harm as a result of adverse early experiences. Some may demonstrate “ resilience...
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Incarceration, Addiction & Homelessness: The Problem with the U.S. Foster Care System
I was recently asked to be on the Incarcerate US podcast that is hosted by Dante Nottingham, an inmate who has been locked up since the age of 17. As you may know, incarceration in the US is at extreme levels and touches a wide variety of social issues, topics and dilemmas. At Incarcerate US, they believe that the solutions to our incarceration problems reside within the minds and hearts of the people. So the aim of our Incarcerate U.S. podcast is to interview a wide array of people across...
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2017 Kids Count Data Book [aecf.org]
Wednesday June 14th the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the 2017 Kids Count Data Book - State Trends in Child Well-Being. This comprehensive report is " a premier source of data on children and families." You can download the report from this post, as well as on the Kids Count website , where you can also access an interactive data map in their Data Center . This is an invaluable amount of data available to the public, relevant to anyone working with children and families - with the...
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2019 State Trends in Child Well-Being [aecf.org]
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The 30th edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® Data Book begins by exploring how America’s child population — and the American childhood experience — has changed since 1990. And there’s some good news to share: Of the 16 areas of child well-being tracked across four domains — health, education, family and community and economic well-being — 11 have improved since the Foundation published its first Data Book 30 editions ago. The rest of the...
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4 New Facts About ACEs Parents Need to Know [yahoo.com]
By Lisa Heffernan, Yahoo Lifestyle, January 24, 2020 Many Americans have at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) before the age of 17. These ACEs include child neglect and emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, household challenges like substance abuse, mental illness, incarceration, parental separation, or divorce, and witnessing intimate partner violence. A collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente San Diego, the original ACE...
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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7 Ways Childhood Adversity Can Actually Change Your Brain [goodmenproject.com]
The following article provides a short, yet concise list of seven ways in which adverse experiences can impact neuro-development. Described in user-friendly terms, the author draws on a lot of the current work in neuroscience and provides many helpful links for those who want to read further. Today, in labs across the country, neuroscientists are peering into the once inscrutable brain-body connection, and breaking down, on a biochemical level, exactly how the stress we face when we’re young...
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A Case for Collecting Adverse Childhood Experiences Data [youthtoday.org]
Check out this awesome work being done at Children and Families First in Delaware! They are integrating ACEs and Resiliency across all programs, collecting data, and using results to drive services! Let me start with a radical statement: I love data. One of my favorite activities in my role as chief strategy officer at Children & Families First , a large nonprofit child and family services agency, is turning columns of numbers into sets of colorful graphs. But even more satisfying is...
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A Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity / Making a Difference Conference in MA in November
The 6th Annual Making a Difference Conference for SESPs, Foster/Adoptive and Kinship Caregivers and their Professional Partners will be held in Marlborough, MA on November 14, 2017. The theme is A Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity. There will be at least two talks will be about ACEs! Speakers/Topics: Keynote: Managing the Hearts and Souls of Many, Dana Royster-Buefort, M.Ed., C.A.G.S. Workshops Tackling ACEs by Building Resilient Communities , Renee D Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD . Note:...
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A Conversation with Nadine Burke Harris: How Should Pediatricians Address Childhood Adversity?
Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a masterful storyteller. I learned in a conversation with her at Wheelock College before her presentation for the Brookline, MA organization Steps to Success , that before she decided to become doctor, Dr. Burke Harris wanted to be an author. Only after the smashing success of her TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime , when she was approached by a literary agent, did she find her way to writing. Her newly released book The...
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A Guide to COVID-19 and Early Childhood Development [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, April 15, 2020 The global response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed daily life in many ways for many people. Yet child development has not paused, and supporting children, families, and care providers of all kinds is as important as ever. In this guide, the Center on the Developing Child has gathered a number of resources and recommendations to help you through this challenging time. This guide pulls together...
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ACE-Aha Moments & Parenting: Meet Aprel Phelps Downey
Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...
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ACES Aware Webinar: Dec 13th, 12-1pm PT - Public Comments about soon-to-be-released Request for Proposal
The Department of Health Care Services and the California Office of the Surgeon General are hosting a webinar of the Trauma-Informed Care Implementation Advisory Committee’s Provider Education and Engagement Subcommittee. Subcommittee members will discuss a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) released for public comment as part of the ACEs Aware initiative. The draft RFP invites external organizations to apply for grants to support provider training activities, provider engagement activities...
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ACEs-informed 'freckles' spreading across Midwest [socialjusticesolutions.org]
This article is a wonderful collection of ACEs and trauma-informed resources and solution stories happening across the Midwest. Originally published on ACEs Too High, and now on Social Justice Solutions, this article provides a resource rich look at the ACEs and trauma-informed landscape of America’s heartland. From public child welfare, to private social service agencies, higher education and juvenile justice… follow the link below to learn about some exciting programs, initiatives and...
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ACEs Research Corner — February 2020
Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs science. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Kambeitz C, Klug MG, Greenmyer J, Popova S, Burd L. Association of adverse childhood experiences and neurodevelopmental disorders in people with fetal alcohol...
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ACEs Research Corner — January 2020
Research papers this month include links between ACEs and bullying, dropping out of high school, adult disability, and the effects of countering ACEs.
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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study: Beyond Screening in Pediatrics
The evidence is clear. When bad things happen to us as young children, we are at significantly increased risk for not only mental health problems, but also a wide range of physical health problems including asthma, heart disease, and even early death. These "bad things" all involve disruptions in caregiving relationships. A national movement directed at screening for ACEs in pediatric practices has emerged from this work. My suggestion that the implication of the Adverse Childhood...
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Adverse Childhood Experiences and Psychosocial Well-Being of Women Who Were in Foster Care as Children [the Permanente Journal]
Research has shown that many children in foster care later have psychosocial problems as adults; this is often attributed to cumulative adversities and a lack of supportive caregivers. The risk factors associated with foster care, such as maternal separation and multiple placements, often counteract many protective factors that can ameliorate the effects of childhood adversities. This study assessed the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and psychosocial well-being in...
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Adverse Childhood Experiences, Commitment Offense, and Race/Ethnicity: Are the Effects Crime-, Race-, and Ethnicity-Specific? [International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health]
Abstract Adverse childhood experiences are associated with an array of health, psychiatric, and behavioral problems including antisocial behavior. Criminologists have recently utilized adverse childhood experiences as an organizing research framework and shown that adverse childhood experiences are associated with delinquency, violence, and more chronic/severe criminal careers. However, much less is known about adverse childhood experiences vis-à-vis specific forms of crime and whether the...