Tagged With "Blogging Tips and Talking about Trauma"
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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Echo Conference 2017 Highlights
When Echo first announced the theme for this year’s conference – Social & Historical Trauma – some were worried about whether we could pull off an event built around such a difficult and sensitive topic. Yet we felt we had to tackle this subject since every year at our childhood trauma conference participants always raise the questions, “What about racism? What about community trauma and poverty? How do these things contribute to Adverse Childhood Experiences?” Kanwarpal Dhaliwal from...
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Echo Conference Feature: Neuroscience & The Havening Techniques
At the Echo conference in Los Angeles on March 18 & 19, 2019 we will be showcasing many new and traditional ways to use the body to reverse the impact of trauma. One of these ways is Havening. During her workshop, Dr. Kate Truitt will explain how stressful events impact brain functioning and how the Havening Techniques harness the power of neuroplasticity to create sustainable healing. Her workshop will cover: Fundamentals of the Havening Techniques Key areas for fast and effective...
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Echo Conference Feature: Resolving Trauma Memory
30 years ago, Dr. Shapiro was walking through a park when she noticed that her eyes started to move from side-to-side rapidly when she was thinking about something upsetting. Then she noticed that when these thoughts came up again, they didn't have the same power to upset her. That was the beginning of what has now evolved into an evidence-based practice for resolving trauma. At the Echo conference in Los Angeles on March 18 & 19, 2019, you will learn about EMDR from Ana Gomez, who was...
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Mental Health of Undocumented Students
Echo's conference this year is packed with great workshops for teachers, parents and anyone who works with children and their families. In addition to the not-to-be-missed keynotes (such as Susan Craig ), we are proud to present: Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres Workshop Spotlight: Holistic Healing for Immigrant & Undocumented Youth In this important workshop, Jose Ivan Arreola-Torres will talk about an often overlooked aspect of student mental health - the mental and emotional...
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Restorative Justice
This year’s conference has something for everyone! Opening the conference, Echo’s Co-Executive Directors will be joined by some very special guests, including Anne Hudson-Price, an attorney from Public Counsel. Anne will be speaking about the legal action taken by Public Counsel to bring trauma-informed services to Compton School District. “You have to address trauma in order to do anything about the achievement gap,” she says in this article . In addition to featuring the Public Counsel,...
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Echo "Frontiers of Resilience" conference - schedule now available!
Please check out the inspiring keynote speakers and embodied resilience workshops we have lined up for Echo's 2018 conference . We will be looking at how trauma and resilience are transmitted across generations and learn how to not only be resilient but also thrive despite trauma histories.
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Echo Parenting Changing the Paradigm Conference: March 5-6, 2015
10% discount for all LA County ACES Connection group members! Enter code "ACEs" when completing the online registration . Childhood trauma is responsible for many of our physical, mental and societal problems and interferes with a parent or...
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Echo Parenting Conference photos
Bessel van der Kolk explains how to take a trauma history. A sell-out crowd attended the Echo Parenting & Education annual conference -- Developmental Trauma: Where Trauma Meets Attachment -- held March 5-6 at the California Endowment in Los Angeles. Featured speakers included Bessel van der Kolk, Stephanie Covington, Ruth Beaglehole, Heather Forbes and me. Bessel van der Kolk's badge. Louise Godbold,...
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Echo Training and Certification Course
In the fall, Echo will be rolling out the new Training & Certification Course (TCC) for selected candidates who want to become certified in the Echo trauma-informed, nonviolent parenting curriculum. This is the first time Echo will be offering the certification course since 2016. We've been spending the intervening time systematically revising the old parenting curriculum, bringing it up-to-date with the trauma and resilience information that we are already teaching in the parenting...
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Echo Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Parenting Classes @ The Wellness Center
Parenting is one of the most creative and exhausting jobs you’ll ever have. Sometimes you’ll find yourself saying or doing things to your child you swore you would never do. Our 10-class parenting series draws on the latest scientific research on brain and child development, as well as the effects of childhood toxic stress. Discover how to communicate in ways that deepen your relationship with your child and begin to model the skills that are proven to help your child succeed at school, have...
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Echo Upcoming Trauma-Informed Professional Development Trainings
Trauma -Informed Nonviolent Parenting Classes Parenting is one of the most creative and exhausting jobs you’ll ever have. Discover how to communicate in ways that deepen your relationship with your child and begin to model the skills that are proven to help your child succeed at school, have more rewarding relationships and enjoy a longer, healthier life. Yoga for Trauma Recovery This training combines physical practice with the latest science on trauma and recovery. You will learn basic...
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Enroll today for the December 5, 2019 SoCal Learning Community!
Welcome to the 2019 - 2020 SoCal Learning Community series! This 4-part series is designed to build leadership capacity to improve outcomes for children and families in the SoCal region. Re-visioning Prevention: Exploring Systems Innovation and Best Practices in the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Join us for the second convening in December and participate in this innovative peer learning experience, hear from topic experts and connect with colleagues in the SoCal region. Date:...
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An Upstream Approach: Using Data-Driven Home Visiting to Prevent Child Abuse (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
(Image Credit: pixgood.com) Today, Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors will vote on a motion to move 103 public health nurses from the Department of Children and Family Services to the Department of Public Health. While largely administrative, the development sets the nation’s largest child welfare system up for a much broader discussion about how public health strategies can help break the intergenerational cycles of abuse that result in preventable child maltreatment. If Los...
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Facing Rising Homelessness, Los Angeles Adds Hundreds of Beds for Older Foster Youths [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, November 15, 2019 The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to boost housing options for transition-age foster youth at its meeting on Tuesday. Two separate investments totaling nearly $9.4 million will open up 237 transitional beds for foster youth at the greatest risk of homelessness over the next year. “Youth transitioning out of foster care have often experienced significant trauma throughout their young lives,” said...
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FATHERHOOD MATTERS: Dr. Jorja Leap Gives Readers a Remarkable Window into the Lives of the Fathers of Jordan Downs [WitnessLA.com]
FATHERS WITHOUT FATHERS Every Wednesday night around two dozen men from the Jordan Downs housing project meet to teach each other, and themselves, how to be fathers. “See, most of the men in the group never had fathers,” Mike...
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First 5 LA's Strategic Plan: Trauma-Informed Care Is 1 of 4 Target Outcomes
First 5 LA’s Strategic Plan Highlights Target Outcomes: Families: Increased family Protective Factors Communities: Increased community capacity to support and promote the safety, healthy development, and well-being of children prenatal to age...
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Leadership Commitment to Creating a Trauma Informed Los Angeles County
The California Community Foundation , First 5 LA , The California Endowment and The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation sponsored a convening of leaders from county departments, philanthropic foundations and community organizations to discuss and learn how Los Angeles County could become a model for identifying and addressing trauma in children and families in a systematic way. The event was held at the California Community Foundation in Los Angeles. A full summary is available here:...
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For ACEsConnection members only -- a "sneak preview" of 'Resilience'!
Resilience , a documentary that looks at the birth of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and how it spawned a movement across the world, will be coming to your personal screen in April, says Lynn Waymer, KPJR Film’s community engagement strategist. The production team is working out the details to make the documentary, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival to sold-out houses, available to ACEsConnection.com members on Sunday, April 10, at 6 pm PT/ 9 pm...
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For ACEsConnection members only -- the official invitation/registration for sneak peek of "Resilience"
(A version of this post was emailed to all ACEsConnection.com members yesterday.) Join us on Sunday, April 10th, for a free sneak peek of Resilience , the critically acclaimed documentary by KPJR Films that chronicles a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators and communities who are using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction and disease. The streaming event will begin at 6 p.m. PT (3 p.m. HAST, 5 p.m. AKDT, 7 p.m. MT, 8 p.m. CT, 9 p.m. ET). For...
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Former Donovan Inmate Takes His College Degree Beyond The Barbed Wire (kpbs.org)
On a recent Wednesday, 43-year-old John Schimmel met with a counselor at Los Angeles City College — his backpack slung over a crisp dress shirt. It's a far cry from where he was this time last year: serving time at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa for voluntary manslaughter and attempted murder. A dispute earlier in life had gone awry and guns were drawn. “I just have questions about some of the classes — see what else I need to transfer over to a university,”...
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Free RESILIENCE Virtual Screening - register by 3/28 at 2pm PST
Join us on Tuesday, April 3rd for a VIMEO Virtual Screening of the award-winning film, RESILIENCE: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope - a critically acclaimed documentary chronicling a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators and communities, who are using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction and disease. RESILIENCE: The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope is the latest film from documentary Director-Producer James Redford...
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Free screening of "Resilience" at the Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival Feb. 4
Yes, that's at 2 p.m. this Thursday at the Lobero Theater , California's oldest, continuously operating theatre! James Redford, who directed Resilience , will be doing a Q-and-A following the screening on Thursday. (He will not attend the Friday screening.) Resilience premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 22 , followed by several more screenings last week. Here's the description from the Resilience page on the Santa Barbara International Film Festival web...
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FREE tickets to the LA Film Festival premiere of Wrestling Ghosts!
Hi ACEs Los Angeles community! Would you be our VIP guests at the Los Angeles Premiere of Wrestling Ghosts on Thursday Sept. 27th @7:30pm at the Santa Monica ArcLight? We have a limited number of FREE tickets that we want to share with you. You are the forefront of the resilience movement and we would be honored to have you for the premiere! Please email charlotte@wrestlingghosts.com if you’d like a ticket (first come first serve). And PLEASE, let us know if there’s anyone in LA we should be...
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Gage Middle School pilots transcendental meditation as model of ‘self-care’ (lausd.org)
L.A. Unified mental health experts say that self-care is the key to not simply surviving but thriving during the holidays and other times of stress. This means slowing down and taking time for yourself. Stretch your muscles before you get up in the morning, stick to your exercise routine and take time to take a deep breath and slow down. Through a grant from the California Endowment , funded by the David Lynch Foundation , students and staff at Gage Middle School are practicing...
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Gentrification pushes up against Boyle Heights — and vice versa (latimes.com)
For years, Boyle Heights seemed a neighborhood cooped up in the still embryonic stage of gentrification, or "gentefication," a term coined to reflect change driven substantially by Latinos with roots in the Eastside neighborhood. Boyle Heights hasn't seen close to as much gentrification as Silver Lake and Highland Park, or even neighboring Lincoln Heights, with a mostly Mexican American community but more ethnic, racial and socioeconomic diversity and a bigger stock of wood-framed 19th and...
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Get a sneak peak of the Policymaker Education Day training, with Shaddai Martinez Cuestas
Get an early start to the PE Day training when you join the 4CA webinar on April 17!
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Great videos on the what we are learning about telomeres (and how to lengthen them!)
I get daily updates Nutrition.org in which Dr. M Greger reports on the science of the benefits of plant based diets. Here he covers telemores and what science is showing related to meditation, exercise and diet for lengthening telemores. I found these videos very interesting but I won't be eating processed meats anytime soon! Research Into Reversing Aging Does Meditation Affect Cellular Aging? Telomeres: Cap It All Off with Diet
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Grief, Healing and Meditation for Los Angeles Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
For children in foster care, struggling with grief and loss can go hand in hand with experiencing trauma. Grief and loss are unfortunately a common, and sometimes pervasive emotional state. What's worse, is the effects of grief and loss - be that internalizing or externalizing, are oftentimes missed as being connected to the grief and loss. This results in many foster youth never understanding their own grief or never mourning their own loss. The Gift of Compassion fellowship is a program...
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#HackFosterCareLA Brings Tech Lens to Country’s Largest Foster Care System (socialjusticesolutions.org)
This weekend, over 200 people gathered at Fullscreen Media in Playa Vista for #HackFosterCareLA – Los Angeles’ iteration of the hackathon events that have been taking place across the country since last May at the White House. After months of planning, #HackFosterCareLA initiated two-days’ (and one long night’s) worth of active coding and intense dialogue between a cohort of 25 current and former foster youth, tech companies, county and city government officials, philanthropists,...
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He's devoted his life to caring for L.A.'s neediest patients, and Trumpcare has him very nervous (losangelestimes.com)
Jonathan LoPresti went to USC as an undergrad in 1974. And liked it. So much so that he stayed on for a PhD in physiology, and then stuck with the Trojan family for medical school. For his residency, take a wild guess. Yes, USC, and he’s still doctoring at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. LoPresti, who’s had M.D. after his name for 36 years, is a true believer in the mission at one of the oldest and largest public hospitals in the nation. Going back to the late 1800s, Southern Californians by...
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Healing and Justice Toolkit (Dignity and Power Now)
We have learned so much from our anchor organization Dignity And Power Now , a “Los Angeles based grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities” and are so thrilled to have been able to collaborate on a Healing Justice Toolkit with DPN. The guide was written by DPN, edited by Thandisizwe Chimurenga, translated into Spanish by delia ayala, and designed by Design Action Collective . Here is an excerpt...
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Helping youths can be a high-wire act, but it’s one L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to support (pasadenanews.com)
Low self-esteem. Environment. A desire to belong. A thirst for danger. They are all reasons why youths get involved in gangs. Although there are young gang members, Contreras is not one of them. But he and hundreds of others like him are members of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Youth Activities League. The LASD has 16 YALs throughout the county, from Industry to Walnut to Compton to Pico Rivera to East Los Angeles to Los Angeles to South L.A. and beyond. The programs are intended to...
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Homegirl Cafe offers ‘platos’ by ex-gang members with hope [apnews.com]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a different time, at another place, and under other circumstances, you might have run away from Latisha Valenzuela and Glenda Alvarenga. But at Homegirl Cafe, a Los Angeles breakfast and lunch spot with a Latino twist, the two waitresses welcome you with smiles and friendship. “You alone?” Valenzuela asked when I recently visited. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep you company.” After seating me, she tells me, “you’ll want our cinnamon coffee. We make it ourselves.” She says it...
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Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’ (latimes.com)
In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year. The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. “At this point of unprecedented...
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Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’ (latimes.com)
In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year. The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. “At this point of unprecedented...
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Hope Springs Anew in Center for Los Angeles Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
A year and a half after Los Angeles County shut a pair of emergency shelters for hard-to-place foster youth, Astrid Heppenstall Heger is still working to find ways to reach the county’s “invisble children.” Last week, Heger’s Violence Intervention Program (VIP) opened the doors of the Leonard Hill Hope Center, a space that she hopes will help Los Angeles County’s most vulnerable foster youth – those who are at the highest risk of leaving county-run care and ending up homeless, being sexually...
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'How do you explain love?' Finding community, friends and more at L.A.'s Braille Institute (latimes.com)
Tania and Jose Amaya are both a little shy, but ask them how they met and they'll light up. She'll blush. He'll grin. She was a computer teacher at the Braille Institute in East Hollywood, soft-spoken and sweet. He was a volunteer, deaf and legally blind, unable to speak. She was enrolled in deaf studies at Cal State Northridge . He'd help with her sign language homework. They'd speak in a language for the deaf-blind, called tactile sign language. She'd sign, and he'd hold his hands over...
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How L.A. County can open more doors for homeless women: Guest commentary [DailyNews.com]
Los Angeles County’s 2015 Homeless Count showed a 12 percent jump in homelessness, grabbing headlines and leading to a declaration of “emergency” by elected officials. Yet another number stands out — 33 percent, representing the over 13,000 women who make up the county’s homeless population. A woman experiencing homelessness enters a system designed by and for the majority. Her homelessness may have resulted from a violent home, a final paycheck, or untenable...
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How one California district narrowed its Latino achievement gap (edsource.org)
Last year, a girl in Melody Gonzalez’s class at Las Palmas Middle School, in the San Gabriel Valley, started sobbing in class one day. Gonzales asked her what was wrong. The girl said her father had just been deported. “I felt terrible. There was nothing I could say or do. So I just listened,” said Gonzalez, who’s been teaching seven years. “I just tried to be there for her. I think the listening helped — now she knows she can come to me. … Just building that relationship with kids makes a...
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How One Connection at CYW’s ACEs Conference Sparked Awareness into Action
Origins offers a number of training and consulting services. We developed The Basics as a half-day session to provide the foundation to support trauma-informed and resilience practices across sectors and industries. The session includes an overview of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, the neurobiology of toxic stress, the impact of social and historical trauma, and the science of resilience. We have tested The Basics with two cross-sector audiences, in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
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How Social Workers Improve Relationships Between Police and Communities
by MSW@USC Staff In 1955 , the Los Angeles Police Department adopted the motto “To Protect and Serve,” and over the last seven decades, many other American law enforcement departments followed suit. But in the Black Lives Matter era, those words may not resonate with some members of the communities police are tasked with protecting and serving. Community members may feel law enforcement officials exercise more authority than necessary. How can both sides work to create a more positive...
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How to Navigate Amidst Overwhelming Times by The Trauma Stewardship Institute
How to Navigate Amidst Overwhelming Times Whether because of trauma, crises, or extremely rough days. Please join us for a day of raising awareness of trauma, vicarious trauma, and systematic oppression. This workshop will address how we’re being impacted by current and past overwhelm, crises, toll, or trauma and establish concrete means for how to keep on keeping on both individually and collectively. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky will offer a compelling mix of personal insight, cutting-edge...
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How to talk to your kids about the violence in Charlottesville (latimes.com)
As violence erupted in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, with three killed and dozens injured at one of the largest white nationalist rallies in a decade, TV screens and newsfeeds across America were filled with images of chaos and terror. While politicians including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Senator Dianne Feinstein reacted by condemning the attacks, calling for "hope and prayers for peace" and reminders that "violent acts of hate and bigotry have no place in America", parents...
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In Los Angeles, Drug Court’s Wrap-around Services Help Parents Quit Using Drugs, Keep Their Kids [JJIE.org]
“I didn’t know how to be a mom,” Lisa Galvan said. “I was used to being by myself. It was really hard for me to adjust and even for the kids to adjust because I never was around. So when I came back out [of rehab] they gave them back to me, and within a month I started using again.” By the time Galvan was 20, she had three children and had been using meth for seven years. She had been a drug addict for far longer than she’d been a mother, and when she tried to get sober, she found out she...
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In Spanish: Handouts for parents about ACEs, toxic stress & resilience
The Community & Family Services Division at the Spokane (WA) Regional Health District has come through again, with a Spanish version of the parent handout (in English) that we posted last year , and which has been downloaded thousands of times. The English versions came about whiledoing a story about the trauma-in formed elementary schools in Spokane, WA .I interviewedp ublic health nurse Melissa Charbonneau who said that she'd been giving an...
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Influencing Complex Systems Change (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Complex times require complex responses. Through our work in the field, we have seen a set of evolving practices that help leaders, organizations, and networks achieve the scale and depth of transformative change needed today. These practices are: Rethinking boundaries to address intersecting constituencies, issues, and geographies. Learning how to surf the waves of irrational and unpredictable developments . Drawing on multiple ways of knowing to surface, include, and transcend differences...
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Infographic from TIC Task Force of Greater LA on their evaluation survey
Created by Co-Chair of the Trauma Informed Care Task Force of Greater Los Angeles Devika Shankar, the infographic represents an evaluation survey distributed amongst the task force members in January, 2016 of their Strategic Planning Committee. Thank you Devika for capturing the survey results and creating a succinct and engaging infographic!
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Insurance provider wades into LA's homelessness problem (scpr.org)
L.A. Care, the county's largest MediCal health plan, announced Thursday it will donate $20 million over the next five years to a program that houses homeless people who have medical issues. The money is expected to help the nonprofit Brilliant Corners house about 300 people through L.A. County's Housing for Health program. That program, started in 2013, identifies homeless persons who are frequent users of county emergency rooms and other high-cost medical services, and through nonprofits...
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Interested in becoming a Nonviolent Parent Educator?
Echo Parenting & Education is now accepting applications for the 2015-2016 Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Child Raising Training & Certification Course(TCC) Application Deadline: July 31, 2015 This courseis designed to provide in-depth training in the nonviolent approach to child raising as well as an introduction to the emerging and rapidly evolving field of developmental trauma. The two-part course comprises a 100-hour theoretical overview, followed...