Tagged With "Connecting Communities 1 Book at a Time"

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...

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...

A couple weeks ago I was enjoying breakfast in a popular restaurant when I was captured by a conversation a husband and wife were engaged in with their children just across from me. I happened to be researching studies and locating data related to...

Hello, Everyone, I am co-editor of a new publication on Medium.com, to be launched in March 2020. Collective Power is the written arm of Home for Good , a collective organization recently launched after 6 years of planning. HFG began when our founders asked themselves, "What would a system that reflects our love for our children look like?" HFG's mission is to transform the trauma too often perpetuated by the various helping systems, among the people they purport to help—whether the...

January 28, 2014 My Dear Colleague Jeff Bergstrom: The interaction you had with the couple in the restaurant in June 2013 was fascinating, scary and probably an honest summary of some of the mis-information and the biased thinking that dominates segments of this country. I have been told that it is difficult to reason someone out of something that they have not been reasoned into. This may be one of those conversations. But I wonder where the ideas about children in foster care came from? It...

This really has been an ongoing issue for several years. I see the biggest problem here being time for appropriate assessments, time with the right people involved with the child(ren) to get adequate history, and then payment for the services of the professionals who conduct the evaluations. The current modus operandi is that anyone (even a driver) can deposit a child at a clinic for an evaluation by a psychiatrist who is given very little time. Yes, I had a 3 y.o. brought in by a driver for...

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far. These posts are really helpful in understanding the dynamic of the problem when it comes to foster care youth and mental health. Are there any resources you might recommend for a social worker or clinician or even adoptive parent who is trying to deal with these issues? I know that trauma-informed training requires a lot of time and practice, but if there's a primer or background material that others might benefit from, maybe we can share it here.

Yes is all I have to say and inappropriately so. Pharmaceuticals push their shotgun drugs and don't look at the cause... Docs have 15 min to see you and "do something". Folks get direct to consumer ads on TV. As a doc I see it all the time esp in foster lids, kids from poverty, and stressed parents with little education and even the docs are only educated by the drug companies coming into your office providing free pens and lunches along with free samples it is really unfortunate... But...

WOW!!! I am amazed at your excellent impulse control.... I could not have been so still listening.... I would have had to leave and would have been ill with a migraine for a day or I may have confronted less graciously .... But I love how you artfully had their engagement and then informed them they had met their first former foster child.... You are a hero!!! I totally understand the experience of stigma but I guess there is a blank spot in my intellect as to why??? I have never hid that...

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...

This is a problem area for sure. I did my residency at Riley and worked as a pedi in several places in Indiana. The child welfare system is incredibly broken because the resources alloted in Indiana are poor (and MI too). And all over the country. The case workers are not well trained or paid and all I have met are almost totally unaware of the importance of ACEs science, but getting better. I’ve talked to a few of my fellow peds classmates still in Indiana and it hasn’t changed much I am...

Does anyone know of communities who send a clinician to serve the child (trauma, psychological first aid, etc) when a social service/child protective service team member goes out for a "removal" from a family and move into foster care or kinship care? Someone to focus on the needs of the child, instead of the inevitable negotiations, information-gathering, packing, and management of the parent/guardian? I know I've heard of communities who do this across the country. Having a hard time...

Hello everyone, I am the founder of Rituals for Recovery a non-profit organization in Ontario Canada who is commited to combating complex trauma and the stigma and suffering that results from it. We are getting ready to launch our fall programming and trauma responsive mind body wellness training and are looking for clinicans, social workers and helping professionals working with children and families in the foster care system (particularly those who offer free services for at-risk families...