Tagged With "Quick Focus Group"
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A Better Normal, Tuesday, June 9th at Noon PDT: Racial Trauma & How to be Anti-Racist
Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our ongoing series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. Protests and riots across the country--and even worldwide--are making it impossible to ignore the racial trauma of police brutality and historical trauma embedded within our society. Many of us are grappling with complex feelings of helplessness and righteous anger. In response to this pandemic of racism in America, "A Better Normal" will hold space...
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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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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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Association of Work Requirements With Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation by Race/Ethnicity and Disability Status, 2013-2017 [jamanetwork.com]
By Erin Brantley, Drishti Pillai, and Leighton Ku, JAMA Network Open, June 26, 2020 Key Points Español 中文 (Chinese) Question What are the associations between work requirements and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation for the overall target population and subpopulations? Findings In this pooled cross-sectional study of 866 000 low-income US adults, work requirements were associated with a 4.0 percentage point decrease in participation for the target population of childless...
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Resilience for Children & Families: Being Brave When Things are Hard
Building Resilience with Children During Racial Discrimination & Violence: This attached Resilience Brief for Children has been the hardest one I have written yet. I have been an active advocate for the equal treatment of people from all backgrounds, religions, ethnic heritages, orientations, and families my entire life. It is hard to see the pain present today, not only due to COVID19 but also due to the harm and anger we see daily in the news. I want to share a story about the person...
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‘I COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT ON MY OWN,’ YOUNG MAN SAYS OF RCS IN UKIAH AND FOSTER FAMILIES (Redwood Community Services)
“My whole life resulted into a positive outcome. Even though there were rough patches (no matter how big or small) it made me the person who I am today. I could have not done it on my own.” This is Justin, age 22, who is a young adult in Stepping Stones, a Transitional Housing Program since he was 18. Redwood Community Services (RCS) Stepping Stones Transitional Housing program serves youth ages 16-plus by providing independent living skills to prepare them for adulthood. Prior to turning...
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Do Affirmations Work for Children? Building Brainpower for Resiliency
When an affirmation works, we gather real-life examples our brain can use as evidence that success IS possible, which changes the way we think. In my work with children, I find that this tool can work magic at home and in school! When we challenge our thoughts with evidence that a positive result is possible, it can stop negative thinking in its tracks.
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Parents Need Help with Trauma Too: A Bottom-Up Approach
Psych Central published my latest article on trauma and it's one you don't want to miss! Through my work with children coping with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) the historical trajectory became very clear to me. Often childhood trauma doesn't start with the child who was traumatized, but it starts with the parents and grandparents of that child who were overwhelmed by adversity and never had help. Unprocessed emotional trauma is likely to be passed on in some capacity to at least the...
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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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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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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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"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...
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Monty’s Day in Court - Children's Book
I wanted to tell everyone about my new children’s book available in English and Spanish: “Monty’s Day in Court: What To Expect When You Have To Testify In Court”. “Monty’s Day in Court” is the first children’s book written from the perspective of a child who testifies in court against his abuser. Monty’s story serves as a tool for children in learning resilience and as an aid for those on the front lines helping young people through challenging times. To learn more about the book please...
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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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Biden Appoints Child Welfare Policy Expert, and Former Foster Youth, to Budget Office [imprintnews.org]
By Michael Fitzgerald, The Imprint, January 26, 2021 The leader of a prominent foster care reform group – who spent time as a child in foster care herself, a searing experience that she’s said shaped her work as a congressional policy adviser – has been appointed to a senior role in President Joe Biden’s administration, according to tweets and website updates today from her organization, Foster America. Sherry Lachman will become associate director for education, income maintenance and labor...
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I am in foster care. I started a tutoring organization to help young people like me. [ny.chalkbeat.org]
By Sarah Malik, Chalkbeat, February 4, 2021 My family has always emphasized the importance of education. All three of my aunts are teachers, and my father has helped me with my schoolwork throughout my life. My dad enrolled me in a prep course for Hunter College High School’s admission test. The school, which is run by New York City’s university system and whose seats are highly sought after, serves students in grades 7-12. When I was 12 years old, I passed the admissions test and entered...
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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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Can you help? [cssp.org]
The Center for the Study of Social Policy, in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, is recruiting focus group participants for Our Identities, Ourselves: Antiracist Data Project which will uplift the voices of young people, parents and caregivers with lived experience and gather information to develop best practice guidance that supports child welfare agencies in collecting and using accurate data on race, ethnicity and other identities. We need help recruiting participants for the...
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Families Over Facilities: Ending The Use of Harmful and Unnecessary Institutions and Other Group Facilities in Child Welfare Systems [childrensrights.org]
From Children's Rights, March 2021 At any given time, there are approximately 42,823 children housed in institutions and other group facilities. Institutionalizing children denies them loving homes and robs them of their childhood. Families over Facilities is a call to action to end the unnecessary institutionalization of children in child welfare. The report details the physical, mental and emotional harm done to children in group settings, the significant unnecessary taxpayer costs...
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Mississippi judiciary trains on the power of hope, inspiring Youth Courts judges and staff
Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection , on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi's Youth Courts. “Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of...
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You're Invited: Baby Shower Briefing for Expectant Youth in Care
Good morning PACE members, I hope you are safe and well today. I want to extend an invitation to you to our Baby Shower Briefing on May 5, 2021 at 11 a.m. so together we can Extend the Infant Supplement as a prenatal support for our youth! We will have a number of youth advocate speakers and members of the coalition speak to the issues. Will you join us for our Baby Shower Briefing for Expectant Youth in Care? Description: How does the pandemic impact expectant and parenting foster youth?
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Melissa Casto
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Gayle Lynne Schurig
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Tina Mueller Griffiths
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Mary K Greer
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Ashley Rojas
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Dawn Pratt
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Color-Blind Ambition: The idea of removing race from child removal decisions is growing, despite some skepticism. (The Imprint)
In an all-too-common occurrence in the nation’s largest local child welfare system, a 37-year-old mother of five from Los Angeles County dialed 911 about two years ago, seeking protection from an abusive partner. That call brought not only the police but the Department of Children and Family Services to her home. Under the watch of social workers, Kenia Charles said, she moved into a shelter for domestic violence survivors, but still, the child welfare agency argued in court it had concerns...
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How Daisy Gonzalez went from foster care to the top of the nation's largest system of higher education [edsource.org]
By Ashley A. Smith, EdSource, August 11, 2021 Just who is Daisy Gonzales, California’s new acting community colleges chancellor? Her journey, which she describes as an “incredible story,” may resonate with many of the system’s 2 million students. “I became aware that I was in foster care at the age of 4” she said. As a child, Gonzales grew up in a variety of places including group homes, child care facilities, and even with relatives. As she made her way, earning a Ph.D. and serving the last...
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Away From Home: An in-depth report on the experiences and perspectives of young people who have recently lived in institutional placements in foster care (Think of Us)
A new report from Think of Us examines the experiences of foster youth who are placed in congregate care placements, such as group homes or residential treatment centers. The report uses stories, art, and other first-person accounts from foster youth to understand their day-to-day lives in these living arrangements. The experiences of these youth offer ideas for improving congregate care placements, and for alternatives to these placements that better support the development and well-being...
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New Washington Laws Aim to Interrupt Foster Care-to-Prison Pipeline [imprintnews.org]
By Elizabeth Amon, The Imprint, August 9, 2021 What unites the group of imprisoned men seeking change isn’t addiction recovery, making amends or anger management. Instead, it’s a shared childhood experience: foster care. “State-Raised” is the name of the group they’ve formed with the goal of disrupting the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Washington legislation passed this spring is designed to help that mission, the group’s founder Arthur Longworth said on a recent call from the Monroe...
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I Will Never Forget That I Could Have Lived With People Who Loved Me (nytimes.com)
By Sixto Cancel, The New York Times, September 16, 2021 When I was 15, an usher at my church offered to become my foster parent. Hers was one of the best foster homes I lived in. But she wanted a son. It was more than I was able to give. I had been in foster care since I was 11 months old because of my mother’s drug addiction and poverty. Adopted at age 9 by a racist and abusive woman, I was locked out of the house at age 13. For two years, I couch surfed with friends, then entered foster...
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Barred from Sending Probation and Foster Youth Out of State, California Officials Have Managed to Find Them Local Homes and Programs [imprintnews.org[
By Sara Tiano and Kelly Davis, the Imprint, September 2, 2021 Before July when it became unlawful, California officials sent hundreds of vulnerable children each year to residential treatment programs as far-flung as Wyoming and Florida. They were kids who the courts, social workers and probation officers decided were too troubled to place in family foster homes or in local group facilities. Their behaviors were so unsafe and mental health issues so severe, local officials determined, their...
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New York City Foster Youth Have a Stage, Healing Space with "Foster Care Unplugged" [imprintnews.com]
By Madison Hunt, The Imprint, October 1, 2021 A s Broadway reopens in New York City, a courageous and lesser-known group of actors also takes to the stage this weekend, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Nine teens raised in government care are performing through Sunday at Brooklyn’s Mark O’Donnell Theater, their unfiltered and personal struggles presented in “Foster Care Unplugged, The Stage Play Part Two.” The production, created with the financial support of the city’s...
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Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
Did you know that societal inequities can impact a person's long-term health outcomes? Marginalization is the exclusion of a disadvantaged person or group to the fringe of society. It results in individuals being overlooked when laws, policies, and practices are established that protect the privileged class, and leads to adverse community environments--such as poverty, poor housing, and lack of mobility--that promote fertile ground for structural violence and harm, including racism and...
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New York Shifts Away From Group Care for Foster Children Under New Federal Requirements [imprintnews.org]
By Megan Conn, Photo: St. Anne Institute, The Imprint, November 15, 2021 A cross New York state, the footprint of group homes for children in foster care has steadily shrunk or disappeared altogether. Back in 2013, the St. Anne Institute, a tidy three-story brick building in Albany, was home to as many as 88 teenage girls, but by last summer, the agency had cut its capacity to just 35. Last year, OLV Human Services closed two 8-bed group homes near Buffalo and downsized another. And Graham...
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How ‘Shadow’ Foster Care Is Tearing Families Apart (nytimes.com)
By Lizzie Presser, The New York Times, December 1, 2021 When a staph infection killed Molly Cordell’s mother just before Halloween in 2015, Molly felt, almost immediately, as if she were being shoved out of her own life. At 15, she and her sister, Heaven, who was a year younger, had no idea where they would go. Their dad had been in and out of their lives for most of their childhood. His grief, as their mother lay dying, sent him spinning. It seemed to the girls that he was on too much meth,...
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The All-Too-Common Tragedy of Foster Care (nytimes.com)
By Jane Coaston, title image by Alex Merto, The New York Times, December 18, 2021 In 2006, 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel was murdered by his foster parents near Cincinnati. They left him in a second-floor closet in August wrapped in tape and a blanket in a playpen with no food or water while they went out of town to a family reunion, dog in tow. When they returned home, they took his body to an abandoned chimney, doused it in gasoline and burned it, throwing most of the remains into the Ohio...
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They made headlines for discovering 751 unmarked graves. Now Cowessess First Nation wants to be a leader in child welfare [thestar.com]
By Alex Boyd, Photo: Liam Richards/The Canadian Press, The Star, January 4, 2022 Visitors have come from Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba. A biker group cruised all the way from Edmonton. Grandmothers brought their own chairs so they could sit and stay awhile. In the six months since Cowessess First Nation announced the discovery of 751 unmarked graves, the site has become an informal gathering place for community members and strangers alike who come to pay their respects to the people...