Tagged With "Youth Thrive"
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Is child protective services effective?
An article called "Is child protective services effective?" in this month's Children and Youth Services Review finds that CPS involvement does not reduce the risk of further substantiated maltreatment. It highlights both the need to improve interventions and questions current mandates that are not garnering results. As the article explains, one possible reason interventions may be less effective is that most CPS cases are opened for neglect, not abuse, and most services are aimed at...
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Kinship care families: New policy can guide pediatricians to address needs [aappublications.org]
A growing body of evidence suggests that children who cannot live with their biological parents fare better overall when living with extended family than with nonrelated foster parents. Acknowledging the benefits of kinship care arrangements, federal laws and public policies increasingly favor placing children with family members rather than in nonrelative foster care. Despite overall better outcomes, families providing kinship care endure many hardships, and the children experience many of...
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Love as Destiny: A Former Foster Youth's Journey in Motherhood [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Katarina Sayally, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 25, 2019 If you haven’t heard enough stories about what breaking the intergenerational cycle of foster care looks like, I want to share one. This is our story, and it’s a good one. When I found out I was pregnant, the only fear I had was, “What if my baby ends up in foster care?” As a former foster youth who works in the field, I am constantly reminded of this possibility. One study found that mothers in foster care were twice as...
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Native American Children Protected in Groundbreaking Foster Care Settlement [youthtoday.org]
By Bette Fleishman, Youth Today, May 8, 2020 For decades, we have repeated and recapitulated: Our nation’s foster care system is broken. New Mexico, which receives the lowest markers of child wellbeing and the second-highest level of childhood poverty, has, not coincidentally, one the worst child welfare systems in the nation. It is largely coercive and punitive, and disproportionately targets low-income children of color. Further, 23 Native American tribes and pueblos are located in the...
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Native American Children Protected in Groundbreaking Foster Care Settlement [youthtoday.org]
By Bette Fleishman, Youth Today, May 8, 2020 For decades, we have repeated and recapitulated: Our nation’s foster care system is broken. New Mexico, which receives the lowest markers of child wellbeing and the second-highest level of childhood poverty, has, not coincidentally, one the worst child welfare systems in the nation. It is largely coercive and punitive, and disproportionately targets low-income children of color. Further, 23 Native American tribes and pueblos are located in the...
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Over 14,000 CA foster youth facing end to critical services
May is National Foster Care Month. If foster youth are not reunified with their families or adopted by age 21, youth “age out” of the state’s foster care system and services often end abruptly. In 2015, more than 14,000 California foster youth—nearly a quarter of all those in care statewide—were between the ages of 16 and 20 years old.
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Parenting in a Pandemic [medium.com]
By Damon Korb, Medium, March 16, 2020 It is a well-known fact that children thrive when there are routines. This time of year most children wake up, get dressed, eat their breakfast, head off to school where they move from class to class, come home and have a snack, do some homework, have some free time or participate in an afterschool activity, eat dinner, and then get ready for bed. The daily life for most children is pretty mapped out and organized. But, as children suddenly need to stay...
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Community Buffers Help Children in Foster Care Thrive [hometownsource.com]
By Sheila McCoy, Morrison County Record, February 2, 2020 Children who are placed in foster care or are adopted often carry trauma and other mental health issues with them. It is a natural response to their experiences. While many receive counseling and other mental health services, there are several ways the community can help the children to build resiliency to their adverse childhood experiences. Examples of adverse childhood experiences are emotional, physical and sexual abuse,...
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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 Youth Deserve the Right to Speak for Themselves in Court [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
As a youth in foster care, I am used to major decisions about me being made in my absence. Countless times, I was not made aware of my court dates, where my future would be decided. But not being able to participate in court can have a far-reaching impact on foster youth like me. Last year, I tried reaching out to my attorney to find out my court date and to discuss some challenges I had with my case workers. However, he never answered, and attended my hearing without me. I later found out...
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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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Fostering a Community [BostonGlobe.com]
Nestled in the shadow of Mt. Tom in Easthampton, MA, the Treehouse Community was founded to support families that take in foster children in the hopes of stopping the bounce through the system. Among the townhomes that house families who are fostering children, live senior residents. The result is a multi-generational community where one generation helps another. The seniors are vital to the support system that enables parents to succeed and the children to thrive. Now approaching its tenth...
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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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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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75 Calm Down Strategies for Kids
I came across this webpage and wanted to share with my parent and caregiver small groups. My intern typed it up into a handout. Feel free to share.
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Across the Country, Diverging Policies for LGBTQ Youth in Child Welfare System [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
The ways in which states and their respective child welfare agencies support LGBTQ youth varies greatly, according to a state-by-state analysis and map of child welfare systems’ policies from Lambda Legal . Some state agencies have explicit safeguards that protect youth from discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, while other states have none at all, according to the national organization that works to promote the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. The issue has grabbed attention...
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Advocates for Families First (Enhancing Support and Advocacy for Children in Kinship, Foster and Adoptive Families)
The mission of Advocates for Families First is to build a unified national movement in support of kinship, foster, and adoptive families who care for children and youth, promote their healing, and help them thrive. We envision a world...
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Balancing Adverse Childhood Experiences with Hope [alliance1.org]
This report presents evidence for HOPE (Health Outcomes of Positive Experiences) based on newly released, compelling data that reinforce the need to promote positive experiences for children and families in order to foster healthy childhood development despite the adversity common in so many families. These data: Establish a spirit of hope and optimism and make the case that positive experiences have lasting impact on human development and functioning, without ignoring well-documented...
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Brief Aims to Better Understand How Positive Factors Change Child Trauma [socialjusticesolutions.org]
According to a leading group of children’s advocates, it’s not enough to just study the impact of childhood trauma and how we can lessen its toll on children and adults later in life. Armed with new data, researchers from Center for the Study of Social Policy, Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Prevent Child Abuse America, Casey Family Programs and the Montana Institute say that positive childhood experiences are more important...
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Pasadena Unified Establishes Foster Youth Advisory Council [Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley Journal]
What an amazing solution story highlighting some great work done in the Pasadena Unified School District to support foster youth! The district has established an advisory council to ensure the success of the 400 foster youth enrolled across the district. The district has established services, training, programs and resource centers to support the needs of enrolled foster youth. At its meeting on August 25, 2016, the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Education approved the...
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PROTECTIVE FACTORS & RESILIENCY (Futures without Violence)
Exposure to domestic violence can have lasting effects on children and teens. Not all young people are affected in the same way, and in fact many children are resilient, able to heal and go on to thrive. Various risk and protective...
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Resources for Professionals
Adoption Information & Resources Resources on all aspects of domestic and intercountry adoption, with a focus onadoption from the U.S. foster care system. Includes information for adoption professionals, adopted adults, expectant parents considering adoption, birth parents and relatives, and prospective and adoptive parents on a broad range ofadoption topics. Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). Link: https://www.childwelfare.gov/t...?hasBeenRedirected=1 ...
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Sand Diego County's Answer to School Stability for Students in Foster Care [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
It seems obvious that keeping kids in their home school with their peer group – a concept known as “school stability”– is a key ingredient in the recipe for academic success for students in foster care. Research shows that on average, children lose four to six months of learning each time they change schools. This is especially acute for high school students, who run into issues obtaining the credits they need to graduate or may have to re-take classes due to coursework alignment issues. For...
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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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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 Trauma-Sensitive Parenting Summit & Commentary
"Having a history of trauma or loss does not by itself predispose you to have a child with disorganization. It is the lack of resolution that is the essential risk factor. It is never too late to move toward making sense of your experiences and healing your past. Not only you but also your child will benefit." That's a quote from the book Parenting from the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, which was published fifteen freaking years ago. It's...
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This Is How You End the Foster Care to Prison Pipeline [nationswell.com]
Almost half of all foster care youth end up in jail within two years of aging out of the system. First Place for Youth has figured out a housing and support strategy to keep these young adults out from behind bars and living on their own. Moments of stability were rare during Pamela Bolnick's childhood. She repeatedly witnessed her father beat her mother, a Venezuelan immigrant diagnosed with schizophrenia. Bolnick's mom eventually left her abusive spouse, fleeing to the Bay Area with her...
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Thrive Washington: 3rd Edition of NEAR@Home Toolkit Released
Thrive Washington is pleased to announce that the 3 rd edition of the NEAR@Home toolkit is now available and offers home visitors more guidance on how to safely, respectfully and effectively address Adverse Childhood Experiences with the families they serve. This new edition reflects what was learned when the toolkit was incorporated into a Facilitated Learning Process with 225 home visitors and 54 supervisors in the four states of federal Region X: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It's...
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Toxic Childhoods [politco.com]
Often times, a pediatrician or medical professional well-versed in the effects of ACEs or toxic stress can be the initial bridge to services, support, and building resilience for children, youth and families served by child welfare. It's exciting and encouraging to read about more and more pediatricians grounding their medical practice within ACEs framework. A toddler came into my examination room recently at Bayview Child Health Center in Bayview Hunters Point, an underserved, largely...
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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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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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Using Infant and Toddler Data to Support State Policymaking [NSCL Blog
Brain development in the first years of life provides the foundation for all future learning and development, and yet the randomness of where a child is born or lives often determines whether they have access to the services they need to thrive in their earliest years. So how are infants and toddlers doing in your state? ZERO TO THREE and Child Trends has produced a first-of-its-kind publication to answer how the 12 million infants and toddlers are faring in the United States. The State of...
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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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What's In The Coronavirus Stimulus for Youth and Family Services [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, April 1, 2020 Congress passed, and President Trump has signed, the CARES Act, a massive piece of stimulus legislation aimed at shoring up the American economy and protecting workers and businesses in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic. One of the nation’s largest employment sectors – human services, a field dominated by nonprofits delivering contracted help to children and families – secured some relief as Americans prepare for a recession...
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Why Do LA’s Foster Care Facilities Keep Calling The Cops On Traumatized Kids? (witnessla.com)
On March 21, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed an important motion that instructed the Director of the Office of Child Protection, Michael Nash, former presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court, to find out why so many of LA County’s foster children were crossing into the county’s delinquency system, what could be done to prevent that crossing, and how these so-called crossover kids could be helped if and when and if they found themselves in the clutches of both...
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Why Keeping Current Foster Parents Can Be More Important Than Recruiting New Ones [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Foster parents are the primary intervention in the lives of abused and neglected children. In order for children placed into foster care to receive the safety and stability they need to heal and thrive, available and willing high-quality families are needed. In California, finding enough caregivers for the state’s foster children is a key plank of the state’s current child welfare initiative, the Continuum of Care Reform ( CCR ). That reform effort is driven by a need to place more of these...
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Re: Is child protective services effective?
When I entered child welfare, the worker who came into my beat down, no plumbing trailer asked me what I did to make my parents - parents who had provided me with 10 ACEs- so mad? I was going to be Valedictorian despite all the Hell and Pain I had endured. They separated me from my brother and sister and put them in a separate foster home where I had no contact. When I called, the new home my sister was in told me to never call back because my sister had a new family now. I almost died from...
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Re: Is child protective services effective?
Thanks for sharing your story. I agree that the child welfare system misses on a lot of fronts and tends to pile more ACEs on to people who have already experienced many. Instead of maintaining your sibling relationships, they caused you more stress. Hopefully we can work to get the system to work better.
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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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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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Researchers Find Association between Participation in Extended Foster Care and Reduced Risk of Homelessness [chapinhall.org]
By Huiling Feng, Justin S. Harty, Nathanael J. Okpych, and Mark E. Courtney, Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, June 2020 A fundamental tenet of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is that allowing foster youth to remain in care past their 18th birthday would improve their outcomes as adults. One of the most significant challenges transition-age foster youth face is homelessness. Foster youth experience disproportionately higher rates of...
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ACEs Connection Launches New LGBTQ+ Community: the Rainbow Resilience Connection of LGBTQ Survivors
I am thrilled to announce the newest ACEs Connection Community, the Rainbow Resilience Connection of LGBTQ Survivors ! This newest community is a group for anyone who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community or who supports the community. You can find the page and join here ! The Community Managers are myself and Mary Giuliani, you can read more about us below! You may be wondering why we chose the name: Rainbow to reflect the colors of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer...
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California Considers Extending Foster Care for Young Adults Until Pandemic Emergency Ends [calhealthreport.org]
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report, June 22, 2020 At the beginning of March, Monse Gonzalez had her entire year planned. She would graduate from community college, save part of her paychecks as a childcare worker, and start school at the University of Santa Barbara. Then came the pandemic. Suddenly, everything Gonzalez, 18, had worked for was in jeopardy: her job, her housing, her associates degree. While many young adults have families to lean on during these uncertain times,...
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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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Building Relationships and a Better Foster Care System [positiveexperience.org]
7/2/20, positiveexperience.org/blog Today’s post is based on an interview with Elliott Orrin Hinkle (they/them), an alumnus of the Wyoming Foster Care System. They are an advocate for child welfare, mental health, and the LGBTQ population. Nationally they work as a consultant to the National Capacity Building Center for States at ICF International and at JBS International working on NYTD. Since 2014 they have been a trainer of Youth Thrive and recently were certified to train on Youth Thrive...
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Communities on ACEs Connection, By Interest & Location
ACEs Connection members are encouraged to join as many communities as they are interested in. Keep scrolling to find our list of geographic communities to join your local, state, or country community! Interest Based: ACEs & African Americans ACEs and Nourishment ACEs and the Social Sciences ACEs Connection for Birth Workers ACEs Connection Resources Center ACEs in Early Childhood ACEs in Education ACEs in Foster Care ACEs in Higher Education ACEs in Maternal Health ACEs in Medical...
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Influential Foster Youth Forum Calls for Sweeping Changes to Address Racism, Mental Health Issues [thelundreport.org]
By Ben Botkin, The Lund Report, August 31, 2020 A forum for current and former youth in foster care has called for sweeping changes to help children who have suffered trauma, are entering adulthood or belong to communities of color. The recommendations are the product of the Oregon Foster Youth Connection Policy Conference, a biennial forum for lawmakers, state agency officials, advocates and others interested in the state safety net. The conference, sponsored by the advocacy group Our...
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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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"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise PNP, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be on...