Tagged With "Bringing Baby Home"
Blog Post
ACEs Connection Parent Handouts
Great resources to accompany ACEs screening efforts, presentations, and community awareness building. Please share how you plan to use the handouts in the comments section below!
Blog Post
Advancing a Plan for Addressing Trauma and Building Resilience within L.A. County Systems (prnewswire.com)
Center for Collective Wisdom Releases Extensive Report Outlining Research and Recommendations First 5 LA, the California Community Foundation, The California Endowment, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation along with other local, state and nationally-recognized expert organizations today released a report to advance a comprehensive trauma and resiliency-informed approach in Los Angeles County . "Trauma is a serious health concern affecting many children and...
Blog Post
Anne Douglas celebrates her birthday at the skid row women's shelter that bears her name (latimes.com)
Anne Douglas could have celebrated her birthday at home in Beverly Hills with her husband, actor Kirk Douglas. Instead, she sat behind a silver-and-pink birthday cake Wednesday as women lined up, weeping, to embrace and thank her for starting the Los Angeles Mission's Anne Douglas Center for Women — one of skid row's first homeless shelters for women. "When I first encountered the women at this homeless shelter it was heartbreaking, and I was determined to make it better," said Douglas, who...
Blog Post
Bob Hope’s Toluca Lake home is on the market, and here’s why it matters: Dennis McCarthy (dailybreeze.com)
“If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.” - Bob Hope. They could have left the family home worth millions to their children or the Catholic church, but Bob and Dolores Hope didn’t. They left it to the homeless and the veterans of Los Angeles County to help shelter and feed struggling families at the bottom of the economic ladder - a million miles from where the Hopes lived at the top. Without any fanfare or press releases, the Hopes quietly took on...
Blog Post
Bringing Baby Home Educator Training
Bringing Baby Home Facilitator Training comes to Santa Ana, November 14-15, 2019. Research continues to show that our children are most fragile in the first years of their life. Even the strongest relationships are strained during the transition to parenthood. Lack of sleep, never-ending housework and new fiscal concerns can lead to profound stress and a decline in marital satisfaction – all of which affect baby’s care. Not surprisingly, 67% of new parents experience conflict, disappointment...
Blog Post
Broadening Your Network and Identifying Partners for More Resilient, Healthier Communities
Who should you partner with to create lasting change through resilience in your community? The Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative aims to address, prevent, and reduce the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adverse community environments (ACEs) on children’s health and wellbeing ( The “Pair of ACEs” ). An essential element of the successes of BCR’s five test sites around the country has been strategic collaborations. In your work to build resilience, identifying...
Blog Post
Building an ACEs, Trauma-Informed, and Resilience-Building Community: Draft MOU from Walla Walla WA
Working document, 3/20/15 Walla Walla, Washington MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING Between the Children’s Resilience Initiative and Community Partners PREAMBLE VISION: All young people thrive and parents raise their children with...
Blog Post
California 2018 State Profile on ACEs Initiatives and Action
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for California. To review the entire profile, open the PDF that is attached to this post. If you have corrections or additions, please leave them in the comments section of this post. We’ll be reviewing the comments regularly and doing fact-checks. The information you give us will also help us determine how to organize and expand the information in the state profiles. We will be turning this post into a living profile that, with your help and input,...
Blog Post
California is failing our kids [SactoBee.com]
California’s economy is the seventh-largest in the world, and home to global industries that have revolutionized our way of life. Yet when it comes to caring for our children, we are failing to provide the essential services they need to thrive and succeed. The facts are disturbing and unacceptable. California ranks 49th among the states for standard of living for kids; roughly half of children are in families in or near poverty; nearly three-fourths of our youngest kids don’t receive health...
Blog Post
California issues update on state residents' ACE scores from 2011 & 2013 surveys
The latest adverse childhood experiences survey from the California Department of Public Health shows that 42% of the population has an ACE score of 3 or higher; 16% have an ACE score of 4 or higher. Those with an ACE score of 4 or higher are: 3x more likely to be current smokers 4x more likely to have a depressive disorder 2x more likely to have asthma 2x more likely to be obese 4x more likely to have COPD 3x more likely to have a stroke Here are a few other highlights from the six-page...
Blog Post
CYW releases "Children Can Thrive: A Vision for California's Response to ACEs"
The Center for Youth Wellness released a new report “Children Can Thrive: A Vision for California’s Response to ACEs”. This report is a follow up to last November’s Children Can Thrive Summit. ...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Funds From Ballot Initiative Help Newly Released Prisoners Find a Home in Los Angeles [calhealthreport.org]
As Latanja Madison’s release date from prison inched closer, she felt more terrified than elated. During a decade behind bars at the California Institution for Women in Corona, the 55-year-old Madison underwent multiple orthopedic surgeries and now uses a walker. Her immediate family members passed away during her incarceration, creating grave doubts she would have a support system. She feared leaving prison may lead to a worse fate – habitual homelessness. “I’m more blue collar than white...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
In L.A., Law Enforcement and Child Protection Try the Impossible: Stop Child Maltreatment Deaths [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
On Wednesday , prominent Los Angeles County officials will revisit a trying time in the county’s child protection history. In May of 2013, the violent death of an 8-year-old Antelope Valley boy rocked the county. The first story that appeared in The Los Angeles Times opened with gruesome details that are still as shocking today as when they were first written. “When paramedics arrived at his Palmdale home last week, 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez’s skull was cracked, three ribs were broken and...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Inside the California facilities holding children separated from their parents at the border (latimes.com)
In a quiet nook in the small city of La Verne, small cottages topped with Spanish tile are spread across a sprawling green campus. Long ago, it was an orphanage; now it’s a group home for foster kids. Recently, it also became one of several shelters in the Los Angeles area that quietly began to house kids who have been split from their parents at the border. It is now home to some of the children who were forcibly taken from their parents under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration...
Blog Post
Is There A Foster-Care-To-Prison Pipeline? If So, This New LA-Based Program Aims To Break It (witnessla.com)
“Everyone talks about the school-to-prison pipeline,” said Loyola Law School professor Sean Kennedy. “But doing this work you see that there’s a group-home-to-prison. Kennedy is the Director of Loyola’s respected Center for Juvenile Law and Policy (CJLP), which was founded in 2004 to “tackle the injustices of the Los Angeles County juvenile court system” by providing pro bono advocacy for youth who find themselves caught up in that system. Thanks to a highly competitive $1 million grant from...
Blog Post
L.A. County bail reform would pay off in fairness and efficiency: Sheila Kuehl [DailyNews.com]
Imagine waiting in jail month after month for your trial. A court has determined that you pose minimal threat to public safety, but still you sit in pretrial incarceration. And while you wait, you lose your job, your home, in some cases even your family, all because you simply don’t have the money to post bail. Nationwide, more than 450,000 people are sitting in local, state and federal jails while they await trial — in essence, serving time before they’re even convicted. The cost is...
Blog Post
L.A. County’s Latest Solution to Homelessness Is a Test of Compassion [CityLab.com]
California’s budding YIMBY movement is up for a real test. Under a new pilot program approved this week, Los Angeles County homeowners are being asked to literally open up their backyards to the homeless. The county’s board of supervisors gave the green light to the The Granny Flats Motion project on Tuesday, which would give homeowners up to $75,000 to build a backyard home—if they agree to rent it to a homeless family or individual. (For those who already have a unit to offer, the county...
Blog Post
L.A. County steps up efforts to eradicate homelessness (lasentinel.net)
Ethnically diverse advocates detailed their efforts to eradicate homelessness during New America Media’s forum at Skid Row Housing Trust’s Apartments on Feb. 3. Panelists hailed from African-American, Chinese, Latino and Korean backgrounds. The briefing focused on how L.A. County is working to raise awareness among our audiences about the diversity of its homeless population and how all ethnic groups have a stake in working to end it. “Who we hire is important, and how they’re trained is...
Blog Post
L.A. County wants to help foster students avoid switching schools when they move homes (latimes.com)
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a motion Tuesday that would help foster children avoid having to switch schools when they move to a new home. The motion would create a pilot program to provide transportation for the students to the schools they were attending before being moved. “Changing schools, along with changing homes, creates further upheaval for foster kids who have already experienced trauma and loss,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who introduced...
Blog Post
L.A. requires face coverings outdoors to slow coronavirus, help lift stay-at-home restrictions (latimes.com)
Los Angeles County beaches reopened Wednesday and more businesses were given the green light to provide curbside service to customers, but officials made clear the region still has a ways to go before a major lifting of stay-at-home orders is possible. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday evening that all Angelenos, except for small children and those with certain disabilities, would be required to wear face coverings outside. That marks a significant increase in the city’s rules,...
Blog Post
LA County leaders support $1.2 billion ballot measure to help homeless (dailynews.com)
Los Angeles County supervisors approved a resolution Tuesday to support the city’s property tax bond measure that, if passed by voters in November, is expected to raise about $1.2 billion to build supportive housing for the homeless. Known as Proposition H, the measure would allow for a new property tax on both residential and commercial properties in the city of Los Angeles. For example, a $1 million home would be taxed about $40 to $80 a year with the new fee, according to city analysts.
Blog Post
Working at the intersection of violence and land use (preventioninstitute.org)
This past September, the Healthy, Equitable, Active Land Use (HEALU) Network convened a summit in Los Angeles to explore the nexus of land use and community safety, drawing nearly 100 community members, policymakers, and representatives of community-based organizations. Our new report shares key learnings from this summit and invites people working in land use, transportation, food policy, education, housing, and other areas to consider the ways their own work can support safe communities.
Blog Post
San Francisco Trauma Informed Systems Initiative 2014 Year In Review
The Department made the commitment to train all of its 9,000 staff to become trauma-informed. From the report: The Trauma Informed Systems Initiative Workgroup is led by Dr. Ken Epstein and currently staffed by a full time Coordinator, a team of 4...
Blog Post
Spotlight on: Hope Integrated Psychiatry
As your community manager, I will be spotlighting agencies who are integrating Trauma-Informed Practices and furthering the mission of ACEs Science. If you would like your agency to be highlighted or if you would like more information on how to integrate ACEs Science into your organization, please contact me directly through Private Message. Walking up to the La Maida Institute felt like entering a secret garden. The weathered, wooden door surrounded by greenery was simultaneously welcoming...
Blog Post
States Produce a Bumper Crop of ACEs bills in 2017—nearly 40 bills in 18 states
A scan done in March by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) through StateNet of bills introduced in 2017 that specifically include adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the text produced a surprising volume of bills (close of 40) in a large number of states (18). A scan done a year ago produced less than a handful. NCSL is a bipartisan organization that serves both state legislators and their staffs. The shear volume of bills in so many states represents a promising...
Blog Post
Study: Community Trauma from Gun Violence Results in Negative Health and Behavioral Outcomes (Violence Policy Center)
Research on trauma is frequently featured in mainstream news outlets, pointing to its connection to a range of behavioral and health outcomes. While trauma can have multiple interpretations, for the purposes of this report, it is the result of experiencing or witnessing chronic and sustained violence, or specific events that can have lasting effects on individuals. Researchers have identified 13 distinct types of trauma, including community violence. Community violence is an umbrella term...
Blog Post
Surrounded [latimes.com]
E ven as crime has dropped in L.A. over the last two decades, there are thousands of children who grow up with a constant drumbeat of death while navigating safe paths to schools in neighborhoods where someone has been killed nearby. The impact of close-up violence can be devastating and costly for students, schools and communities: Some students suffer PTSD-like symptoms. Schools have begun incorporating the inevitability of trauma into their design, with curriculum addressing stress...
Blog Post
Teen Dating Violence is Widespread, but Underreported [calhealthreport.org]
After her visit at an adolescent medical clinic in Los Angeles in January, 19-year-old Serena was afraid to go home. Six days before, her boyfriend had beaten her so badly that she had to go to the emergency room. Serena’s name has been changed to protect her safety. “She was so sad and so scared,” said Monica Sifuentes, my colleague and an adolescent medicine pediatrician at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, who treated Serena. With visible sadness, she told me Serena’s story. Serena, who is...
Blog Post
Tell Us a Story: The Power of Narrative to Build a Social Movement
Rosa Ana Lozada grew up on a two-block-long street in a San Francisco neighborhood pocked with trauma: domestic violence, child abuse, the frequent wail of police sirens. “It was unsafe to walk the two blocks to the bus stop,” she recalled. “In my community, we learned that police officers were not our friends because they were only seen when bad things happened.” For Lozada, now CEO of Harmonium, Inc., and a member of the San Diego Trauma Informed Guide Team, home and family were the...
Blog Post
The Lost Children of Los Angeles County: Foster Care Reform Moves Steadily Through Growing Pains [pasadenanow.com]
From Pasadena Now, March 9, 2020 As upwards of 18,000 children now move through the LA County Foster Care system, it has long meant that those young people may continually bounce from home to home, with an ever-dwindling number of care providers among the County’s 88 cities. But now the State is almost three years into implementing a new system with one simple goal—to move foster children into “forever families,” or long-term homes, more swiftly. The lofty aim requires a massive budget, a...
Blog Post
The Ubering of Foster Care has Begun [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/child-welfare-2/ubering-foster-care/21670 Earlier this month , I wrote a story about how Los Angeles County was considering using ridesharing services like Uber to improve “family visitation.” The problem in L.A. and across the country is that it is hard to transport children and their parents to court-ordered visits. My back-of-the-envelope math suggested that if every L.A. foster child were to be afforded one hour of visits a week – way less than court...
Blog Post
They're sick, traumatized, malnourished and transient — what child poverty looks like in Los Angeles (latimes.com)
Many of the children who visit the St. John’s Well Child and Family Center at 58th and Hoover in South Los Angeles are anything but well. The dentists treat children who suffer excruciating pain from swollen gums and rotting teeth. The doctors routinely see chronic preventable diseases common in third-world countries, and developmental delays are standard. Dr. David Bolour said he sees children daily who suffer from trauma they’ve experienced in their high-crime neighborhoods or in the...
Blog Post
This L.A. restaurant will charge different prices for the same meal, based on the neighborhood (latimes.com)
In a small storefront on Union Avenue and West 23rd Street in South Los Angeles sits Everytable, a new grab-and-go restaurant that opened July 30. Inside, dozens of meals prepared by chef Craig Hopson — who a few years ago was cooking at the lauded New York City restaurant Le Cirque — fill the shelves, waiting to be microwaved. There’s a Jamaican jerk chicken dish, made with coconut rice, beans, kale and plantains; a bowl of spaghetti squash and turkey-quinoa meatballs, designed to be a kids...
Blog Post
This Zillow-like platform helps people find apartments for homeless people (fastcompany.com)
In Los Angeles, it’s now far simpler for nonprofits to find apartments to help people get off the street. For someone living on the street or in a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, the wait to get housing through the county’s Coordinated Entry program–a system that tries to connect people who are homeless with an apartment or house as quickly as possible–usually takes months, leaving a person waiting without a home. A new platform may help make the wait a little faster, by making it easier...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed LA-Grief and the Holidays
Even before receiving this email from Trauma Informed Los Angeles, I was having a conversation with my sister about how the Holidays remind me of the people who are no longer with us. The logical part of me knows that people cannot live forever, the emotional part of me is sad about the loss and even a little angry. Special Thanks to "Our House" and RANDI PEARLMAN WOLFSON, MA, LMFT, Clinical Coordinator of Adult Programs and Volunteer Trainings for sending this out. Grief and the Holidays...
Blog Post
Trauma Informed Schools: Part 2, Creating Trauma Informed Classrooms
In October a video showing a senior deputy yank a student from her seat and flip her desk at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina went viral on the Internet. This incident gained wide national attention and demonstrates the need for...
Blog Post
Trauma-Informed Uber (chronicalofsocialchange.org)
As Los Angeles County mulls the idea of using ride-sharing services to escort foster youth to visitations with biological parents, some child-welfare experts wonder how such a service would be able to grapple with children with significant experiences of trauma and loss. Children in the county’s foster-care system remain spread out across the vast geographical expanse of Los Angeles County. Trips to court, meetings with social workers or visitations with parents or other family members can...
Blog Post
Venus and Serena Williams just opened a center for gun violence victims in Compton. (upworthy.com)
The two sisters just opened a safe haven for Compton residents affected by gun violence, which they're calling the The Yetunde Price Resource Center. The center’s mission hits close to home for the tennis stars: They were raised in Compton, California, and their sister, Yetunde Price, fell victim to gun violence in Compton in 2003. Serena Williams opened up about the trauma from the tragedy in 2009 and how therapy was vital in her recovery. The purpose of the center is simple: Community...
Blog Post
What next for fire victims? Here’s where to go for answers (dailynews.com)
“It’s all a waiting game right now,” Sylvia Valenzuela said as she opened the front door to the couple’s Santiago Estates home, where the smell of smoke clung to the walls, to allow the insurance adjuster to assess the damage. Some help for residents like the Valenzuelas will be available the rest of this week at a local assistance center scheduled to open Tuesday at noon at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center (11075 Foothill Blvd, Lake View Terrace). Hours are noon to 8 p.m. each day...
Blog Post
What’s Behind California’s Sudden Urge to Help the Homeless? It’s the Rich! (citywatchla.org)
CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--How did homelessness suddenly become such a hot issue across California? There are many reasons, and few of them have anything to do with people who are homeless. Those reasons—economic anxiety, budget surpluses, tax schemes, housing prices, prison reform, health care expansion, urban wealth, and political opportunism have combined to create today’s “homeless moment” in California. In Los Angeles, which has the nation’s second largest homeless population according to...
Blog Post
LA supervisors want to beef up home visitation programs (scpr.org)
Two Los Angeles County Supervisors are calling for steps to better coordinate and expand the work of several voluntary home visitation programs that help parents raise healthier children. Arguing that the various programs and their funding are disjointed, Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Janice Hahn proposed a motion for Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting that would order the County Department of Public Health to develop a plan "to coordinate, enhance, expand and advocate for high quality...
Blog Post
Landmark lawsuit filed in California to make trauma-informed practices mandatory for all public schools
A landmark first step was taken today to insure that all public schools in the United States be legally required to address the unique learning needs of children affected by adverse childhood experiences. A class action suit on behalf of...
Blog Post
Legislation Signals Growing Support for Significance of Trauma Indicators [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
As a college student, Rob Bonta had a summer job working as a counselor for troubled kids. Now, two decades later he is bringing legislation to address some of the needs he saw then. “I worked with some of these kids as a counselor out of college, and I’d walk them home and hear some of these stories,” Assembly member Bonta (D-Oakland) said. “Shootings they heard. Or shootings they witnessed the night before.” It was the summer of his junior year at Yale, when...
Blog Post
Malibu Joins LA County in Combating Rising Homelessness (malibutimes.com)
Through a program established by Los Angeles County and United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ Home For Good Funders Collaborative, Malibu and 46 other cities will receive a planning grant—ranging from $30,000 to $70,000—in response to “localized blueprints” for how each city would work with its contractors to confront rising homelessness. The program, financed by the LA County Board of Supervisors with more than $2 million, seeks to “pursue regional solutions to the homeless crisis.” “The...