Tagged With "Survivor Stories to Build Partnerships"
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Ride-Sharing Company Will Get L.A. Foster Kids to School (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
Today , HopSkipDrive, a child-focused ride-sharing company, announced a partnership with Los Angeles County’s Office of Education (LACOE) to transport foster youth to school. Moving at what one official called a “fast and furious” pace to rectify its failure to comply with foster care mandates enshrined in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), LACOE has contracted with the L.A.-based tech company to give foster kids rides to their so-called “school of origin” through the end of the...
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Sharing Data to Benefit Kids: A Guide for Child Welfare and Education Systems [aecf.org]
Re-sharing this blog post from the Annie E. Casey Foundation where they shared a guide for data sharing linkages between child welfare and education - the Roadmap for Foster Care and K-12 Data Linkages . ...Successful data linkages mean agencies are able to draw on all the publicly collected information to create a more complete picture of individual students in foster care, helping inform interventions that are more effective. “Data sharing between foster care and educational agencies is...
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Social policies to prevent adversity -- see Open Access link (until July 1) to “A Critical Assessment of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study at 20 Years”— in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
The ACEs research by Drs. Felitti, Anda and colleagues focused attention on the important consequences of childhood adversity for adult health. Of course, as many in the resilience-building movement recognize, adversities affect children’s health and life trajectories as well. When we recognize the powerful impacts of harsh life circumstances for children and families, it becomes clearer that social policies to strengthen household and community resources are needed as well as...
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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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Specialized Foster Homes Needed for Commercially Sexually Exploited Children in King County, Washington
HOW YOU CAN HELP: Become a foster parent! King County is starting a new and innovative program—the Puget Sound CSEC Foster Care Pilot Program—to serve these youth! CAREGIVERS WILL RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING TRAINING AND SUPPORT: Extensive training and support—both upfront and ongoing Access to a CSEC social work expert for consultation services In home support services and respite care Ongoing community building/recreational activities for families and children INTERESTED IN LEARNING...
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Standing Strong – The knowledge, skills and peer support parents need to lead (www.risemagazine.org)
Cissy's note: I admire the work of this parent-led and parent-focused organization. I read everything they post. For those not familiar with what they do, this is a recent interview with three staffers and gives a really good look at what and how they work to support families and make systems change. Here's an excerpt. The full piece is here. To read more of this piece recently published in Rise Magazine, go here.
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Supporting Brain Development in Traumatized Children and Youth
This Administration on Children and Families (ACF) bulletin summarizes the effects of early trauma on brain development and looks at steps child welfare professionals can take to screen for developmental delays and identify the trauma-affected children and youth in their care. It also looks at ways to access cross-sector, therapeutic, and evidence-based treatment to encourage healthy recovery for trauma-affected children and youth. HERE TO ACCESS MATERIALS. Document attached.
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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The Campaign to Heal Childhood Trauma is coming!
Maybe you have heard about this initiative on one of the social networks or you followed the tour last year. If not, The Campaign to Heal Childhood Trauma is a grassroots partnership between Calo Programs and three leading, national attachment, trauma and adoption nonprofits; The Attachment and Trauma Network (ATN), The American Adoption Congress (AAC) and Association for Training on Trauma and Attachment in Children (ATTACh). The purpose of this collaboration is to increase compassion and...
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The Family Partnership: Leveraging a Two-Generation Approach to Improve Executive Function in Families
Three Change in Mind partners (The Family Partnership, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, and Children & Families First in Delaware) were just recognized in an article about TFP’s Executive Functioning Across Generations. Reflection Sciences is the developer of the Minnesota Executive Function Scale, the best tool out there for measuring EF in kids. Here’s the link: ...
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The Healing Place Podcast - Joyelle Brandt: Parenting with PTSD
I am grateful to have had the chance to sit down with Joyelle Brandt to discuss her mission of helping those who are parenting with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Thank you, Joyelle, for sharing your personal story and the beautiful work you are doing helping others along their parenting and healing journey. What a gift for those families and the children who will benefit from the steps their parents are taking to heal.
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The Mockingbird Society - Youth Trainings [mockingbirdsociety.org]
The Mockingbird Society, an advocacy organization for youth in foster care, offers trainings for youth and young adults on topics such as Legislative Advocacy, Voice Development, Transitions, The Power of Voting, & Storytelling for Advocacy. The mission of this organization is to improve foster care and end youth homelessness through guiding principles such as: Children in "the system" are our children, our responsibility and Institutions do not change lives - relationships do Every...
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The Path Out of Foster Care Crisis Runs Through Family (socialjusticesolutions.org)
The language of family finding is evolving in response to years of learning from practice and research. The family finding name itself came from these central questions: Is it true this child has no one? Is it true this child has no father? Is it true this parent has no one who will help today or tomorrow? In envisioning our future, what would our practice look like, and how would relationships and experiences change, if we were to abandon approaches that separate and make small the people...
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TIC: News and Notes for February 2020
ACEs, Adversity's Impact Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 1) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 2) Podcast: What happened to you? (Part 3) Family dynamics may influence suicidal thoughts in children Fawning: The fourth trauma response we don't talk about FPs are best equipped to tackle adverse childhood experiences New study reveals annual cost of childhood adversity in California is approximately $113 billion Signs your child may be struggling from an adverse childhood experience...
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Tipping the Scales: The Resilience Game [developingchild.harvard.edu]
Have you been looking for a fun interactive game to illustrate how families and communities build resilience? This tool from the Center on the Developing Child at harvard University is a fun way to engage a team or group in thinking about how communities and systems contribute to resilience building and protective factors for chidlren and families. In this interactive feature, you will learn how the choices we make can help children and the community as a whole become more resilient in the...
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To Build a "Trauma-Informed Community" Start With Babies (www.psychologytoday.com) & Dr. Claudia Gold
Cissy's note: This article was written by the same @Claudia Gold who was the featured guest in one of our Parenting with ACEs chats . Here are excerpts from her article published in Psychology Today.
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Trauma-Informed Journey with a local Department of Social Services
Our Trauma-Informed journey began with the Henrico Department of Social Services (DSS) in the fall of 2012 when we approached their leadership with a proposal to partner with the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (TICN) to create a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System. We began by developing a TIMELINE of activities (please note we set out to complete things in one year - little did we realize at the time that the process is always ongoing!). The first step on the timeline...
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Trump’s Top Child Welfare Official Speaks [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
by Daniel Heimpel , November 6, 2017 In June, the Trump administration hired Jerry Milner to lead the federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees federal child welfare funding and policy. The Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) was established in 1977 and oversees the Family and Youth Services Bureau as well as the much larger Children’s Bureau, which was created by President William Howard Taft back in 1912. As acting commissioner of...
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Understanding Trauma to Promote Healing in Child Welfare [co-invest.org]
California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership, Summer 2019. For child welfare stakeholders, the concept that children and their families come into our systems bearing the burden of traumatic experiences associated with neglect and abuse is not new. What has evolved over the last couple of decades is the science of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and understanding of the long-term physical and behavioral health consequences and high societal costs. A landmark study , and the many...
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WEBINAR: Fostering Equity: Creating Shared Understanding for Building Community Resilience
Struggling with how to Foster Equity Conversations in Community? Join the national partners of the Building Community Resilience Networks as we share our lessons learned in fostering equity as a strategy to prevent childhood adversity and build community resilience. Wednesday, February 26th 12pm-1:15pm Eastern More info at go.gwu.edu/EquityWebinar As a nation we have agonized over how to approach conversations on race, racism, inequity and racial justice. Too often we have opted to attempt...
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When Child Welfare Systems Embrace Trauma-Informed Care [AECF.org]
When child welfare systems infuse trauma-informed care into everything they do, kids experience fewer placements and fare better in foster care, according to new Casey-funded research. In a five-year study conducted by Child Trends , researchers focused on kids served by KVC Kansas, a nonprofit offering child welfare and behavioral health support through a public/private partnership with the Kansas Department of Children and Families. As part of the study, administrators, staff and foster...
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Young Parents Speak Out: Barriers, Bias, and Broken Systems [aecf.org]
By National Crittenton and Katcher Consulting, Annie E. Casey Foundation, March 2020 Founded in 1883 as a social justice advocacy organization, National Crittenton has been dedicated to the needs and potential of girls, young women and women facing violence, poverty and injustice across the country for more than a century. Additionally, National Crittenton convenes the 26 Yet, systems have turned a blind eye to the ways in which the “safety net” designed for adults is a “trap” for young...
Ask the Community
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year, group! I have finally come back online after a few weeks off for break. I hope everyone here had a fantastic and rejuvenating holiday, free from trauma and drama! If not, let me know how I can help you and/or your clients deal with...
Ask the Community
Help our public radio station with a story: How did separation from your parents as a child impact you?
KQED is the NPR-affiliate public radio station based in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How has it impacted your connection to others and how you build relationships? If you're a parent, how does it influence how you parent? We’re...
Calendar Event
Trauma Informed Caregiving [Woodland, CA]
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Re: ACE's Informed Child Protective Services?
I echo the sentiments shared here. Service Management Solution services for Children is about to embark on this journey. We have been trained through the Karyn Purvis Institute in Texas, using Trust Based Relational Intervention. I manage the training for the Child Protection Investigators with the Department of Children and Families as well as the training for Case Managers. It is a daunting task. We plan to eat this elephant one bite at a time. The TBRI training will be required after...
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The Journey to Ready4K Trauma-Informed
It began with a request from a small rural coastal town. They needed a new way to support families facing some of the biggest challenges. Their community was experiencing trauma at a higher rate than the surrounding towns. Community members were not getting the services they desperately needed to navigate challenges.
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Within Our Reach Launches ENewsletter on Preventing Child Maltreatment
The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities will be launching a monthly e-newsletter at the end of June. You can now subscribe online . Created for policymakers, practitioners, and advocates, this e-newsletter will delve into the public health approach to child welfare transformation. We’ll feature innovative efforts being led around the country to bend the arc of policy and practice toward prevention so that all families can thrive. We encourage you to sign up and share with your...
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Survivor Stories to Build Partnerships: Tools for Domestic Violence Service Providers [jsi.com]
From John Snow, Inc., June 2020 The connection between domestic violence (DV), social determinants of health, and other pressing issues may not always be clear to potential partners who do not work in the DV/trauma prevention fields. JSI developed a set of tools for domestic violence service providers—in the form of stories—to address this gap. The first three stories depict the connection between DV and a key social issue (housing instability, economic insecurity, or childhood adversity).
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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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Alameda County’s Youth Transitions Partnership Program: A Promising Model for Supporting Transition-Age Youth in Foster Care [chapinhall.org]
By Laura Packard Tucker, Amy Dworsky, and Molly (Mayer) Van Drunen, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 The Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP) blends service coordination, intensive case management, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help transition age youth in foster care in Alameda County, CA engage with support systems and improve their outcomes. YTP was funded by the Children’s Bureau Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) grant program. This brief describes the...
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Invite: Community of Practice, Early Childhood (online)
For anyone who has access to the internet and a computer. Please share the invite widely! Details Community of Practice ∞ Invite Commitment Form Commitment Due by July 15th I'm thrilled to invite you and yours to join a six month pilot to imagine and actuate Early Childhood Learning & Wellness that more fully benefits all children, families, and communities. I cannot think of better people than you all to help shape this group. Also, I hope it's a helpful option for schools, programs,...
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Community Resilience Series Part 1: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty [Peace & Justice Institute at Valencia College]
The Peace and Justice Institute (PJI) at Valencia College is excited to offer 3 free, online workshops with Dr. Ken Ginsburg , as part of a Community Resilience Series. The first workshop in this FREE series will be specifically for parents: Parenting in an Age of Uncertainty , July 7th from 5:30 - 7:00 pm EST (zoom). REGISTER HERE “As parents, we want to protect our children from witnessing the fear and uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We wish we could take away the disruption...
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Rebecca Lewis Pankratz: Breaking Generational Poverty, Poverty Circles, & Poverty Programs
"A CEs Connection is the curator of incredible hope, healing and possibility. Parents are not the bad guys. Most of us are just kids with ACEs who grew up..." Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz Last Friday, @Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz joined our A Better Normal series to discuss poverty circles and programs. Rebecca is the Director of Learning Centers as Essdack, as well as a poverty consultant, and we met online, via Twitter (her handle is @pOVERty’s Edge. Rebecca is a brilliant speaker, gifted writer, and...
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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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A Listening Curriculum: School Radically Re-imagined in the Time of COVID-19
Symbolic of our quick-fix culture, I was recently asked to do a five-minute radio interview addressing the challenge of remote learning without the peer group dynamics of a regular classroom. The time constraint motivated me to get to the core of the education crisis precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Decades of developmental science research reveal that our physical and emotional health- our very sense of self- emerges in moment-to-moment interactions in our social world. The...
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With less money and more risk, waves of child-care providers call it quits [latimes.com]
By Rikha Sharma Rani, Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2020 Kirsten Hove and her mom have been taking care of kids in San Francisco for decades. Hove’s mother opened a day-care program in her home in the city’s Marina neighborhood more than 30 years ago. In 2006, Hove and a family friend expanded the business by opening sites in their apartments nearby. The days were long, but the women loved the work. What took years to build, however, was dismantled by the coronavirus in just a few months. [...
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Community Trauma Prevention Starts with Parent-Infant Relationships
The COVID-19 pandemic has called on us to find creative ways to connect and learn. In rural western Massachusetts I had scheduled a training for 20 practitioners who work with parents and infants to meet together for two days of learning on April 15 and 16th. Instead I rapidly adapted the training to the online setting. I have had the pleasure of meeting weekly with an extraordinary group that includes peer recovery coaches on the front lines supporting moms with opioid use disorders,...
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Free 2020 Virtual Trauma-Informed Care Conference
Each year, STAR hosts a Trauma-Informed Care Conference to help educate the next generation of leaders and build a strong network of Trauma-Informed professionals in the state of Georgia. The conference will be held on Saturday, October 3rd from 10:00am- 1:00pm EST and Sunday, October 4th , 2020 from 2:00pm-5:00pm EST conducted virtually via Zoom.
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Trauma-Informed Strategies for Supporting Children and Youth in the Child Welfare System during COVID-19 [childtrends.org]
By Rebecca Vivrette and Jessica Dym Bartlett, Child Trends, September 30, 2020 Children and youth who become involved in the child welfare (CW) system often experience trauma as a result of maltreatment and other adversities while in the CW system, including removal from home and multiple out-of-home placements . Children and youth of color , particularly Black and Native American children, are disproportionally represented in the CW system and are more likely to experience trauma due, in...
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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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We are Overdue for a Revolution in Child Welfare [imprintnews.org]
By Jessica Pryce and Amelia Franck Meyer, The Imprint, January 4, 2021 Although child welfare reform has been a topic of conversation for many years, what is often meant by “reform” is evolutionary or incremental change, which are efforts to make the current system better, but not fundamentally different. But many systems leaders who operate significantly improved versions of the current system agree that it still falls short of meeting the needs of families. The Biden administration...
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Resilience: The Foundation of a Strong Child-Welfare System
Resilience, which is defined as the capacity to recover from difficulties, is a vital tool in building a strong child welfare system, but what does that really mean? It is easy to say that resiliency is important, but effectively utilizing systems and tools for children and families as well as the employees who serve them is a different challenge. Through the latest research, we know resilience is made up of many different factors, from one’s genetics to their environment and support...
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Partnering with Local Mental Health Providers to Support Foster Youth in College [cccstudentmentalhealth.org]
LAST YEAR, NEARLY 18,000 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS WERE CURRENTLY OR FORMERLY IN FOSTER CARE. These students, and students from other vulnerable or underserved groups, are motivated and resilient. However, many face higher rates of trauma and unmet mental health needs, coupled with systemic barriers that prevent them from accessing services. Without support, these challenges can contribute to lower college completion rates. BACKGROUND In 2018-2020, John Burton Advocates for Youth...
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How to help an older child or teen adjust to your home [blog.adoptuskids.org]
By Kris Kittle and Kelly Reed, AdoptUSKids, January 16, 2021 When you adopt a child, it’s easy to focus on their immediate needs: home, food, routine, education, people, etc. These are all important, and your child certainly experiences significant changes that require patience, love, and understanding from you as they adjust to their unfamiliar life. But there are other areas of focus that can help an older child adjust as well. Be trustworthy. Your child may not have experienced...
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Helping Youth Prepare for the Transition to Adulthood [fosterclub.com]
Course Summary For teenagers who have been living in foster care, the transition to adulthood presents many new and often daunting experiences. This course provides foster parents with guidance on how to help youth and emerging adults build a foundation for a successful transition to adult life outside of foster care. In this course, you can expect to learn: Unique challenges youth face when exiting foster care Adolescent development and changes in the brain Laws and programs to support...