Tagged With "War on Drugs"
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Medi Cal Managed Care: Partnership Healthplan of California Expanded Substance Use Disorder Services
Click here to learn more: Partnership Wellness and Recover Program Spring 2020 Partnership is working to ensure that our members get effective and appropriate behavioral health care services (mental health and substance use treatment services) in all 14 counties we serve. Expansion of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Services PHC’s 14 counties have long supported SUD treatment services through the Drug Medi-Cal program. In the coming months, these services will be greatly expanded in eight of...
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Mental Health Matters MOVEMENT in Napa County
Finally it begins; the talk of the struggle in Napa County has transitioned to the walk (or the march) , and thanks to Ashley Ochoa and Jenny Waken, voices of Napa County residents are being heard! I was so excited to be a part of this march, to see the lit up and excited faces of so many who came together with the same passion for change, and the same drive to fight (safely) for a difference that's long over-due! The challenge of having a dual diagnosis can be a detrimental reality ending...
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
Sixth grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister (photo: Laurie Udesky) ________________________________ During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people...
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Mother-daughter duo plan mental health march in Napa [Napa Register}
Have you ever had to call the police on your brother, son, or other family member? Ashley and Jenny share their ongoing difficulties with accessing mental health services for their loved one. After calling the Police about 30 times - it is time to find a better way of serving folks with serious mental illness. Join them as they hold a MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS march! From the article, published in the Napa Register - scroll down for link to full article. After years of watching their loved ones...
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National collaborative provides roadmap for doctors to ask about adult patients' ACEs, current trauma
How do you ask patients about current and past trauma? And how do you respond to their disclosures? Those are two key questions that members of a national collaborative who are among the early adopters of trauma-informed care practices have answered in a recent article in the journal Women’s Health Issues. Dr. Edward Machtinger To Dr. Edward Machtinger, the lead author of the paper entitled, “ From treatment to Healing: Inquiry and response to recent and past trauma in adult health care” ,...
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New ACEs data on Kidsdata.org
On behalf of California Essentials for Childhood, I am very excited to announce the release of a new Child Adversity and Resilience data topic on Kidsdata.org! This has been a collaborative effort between the CA Essentials for Childhood Initiative's Shared Data and Outcomes Work Group and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. I represent ACEs Connection Network on Essentials and am the co-chair of the Shared Data & Outcomes Work Group so I couldn't be more thrilled about...
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New Sesame Street Tools Help Build Resiliency [rwjf.org]
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Sesame Workshop share a common vision of giving all children—especially the most vulnerable among us—a strong and healthy start in life. We know that childhood experiences lay the foundation for children to grow into productive and successful adults, and promoting healthy behaviors and supporting families from the very beginning can help kids thrive. But it’s equally important to address challenges that can undermine their healthy development. That’s...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Prescribing nature for health draws providers to Oakland, CA, conference
There’s now a growing body of research showing the positive health effects of nature. At a recent conference in Oakland, CA, clinicians who prescribe nature to help buffer ACEs and toxic stress experienced by children and families shared findings from their own research and others.
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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San Jose, Ca physician to talk ACEs science at community gathering
When Dr. Angela Bymaster thinks about ACEs exposure, her thoughts often turn to the adolescents who are her patients now. “It’s the teenagers who keep me up at night,” says Bymaster, a family medicine doctor who works at the Washington Neighborhood Health Clinic in San Jose. The clinic serves low-income families in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Dr. Angela Bymaster “They’re so often starting with the behaviors themselves. The teenagers are the intersection of adverse childhood events...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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We Need a Healing Movement
What if you had developed a cure for the most painful and costly public health problem in America, you had proven that it worked, and you were offering it for free, but could not reach those who need it most because no one wants to talk about the problem? Tragically, this is my reality and the truth about human nature. It is easier to suffer in silence than acknowledge the painful things that happen to us. Over 20 years ago, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser...
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Youth court banishes blame; leads with ACEs science
YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...
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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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A grandmother learns to be a mom again [CopeFamilyCenter.org]
One Friday afternoon, as Jana was on her way to pickup her grandson from school , she received a very disturbing call. The police had come to her daughter’s apartment the night before, arrested her for drug involvement and taken her grandson, David, into the custody of Marin County’s Child Protective Services . After meeting with CPS, she was able to obtain temporary custody of D avid and take him home with her to Napa. She was not prepared to instantly become a mother again . David’s father...
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ACES Science 101 (FAQs)
What are ACEs? ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children's developing brains so profoundly that the effects show up decades later; they cause much of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence. ...
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ACES Science 101 (FAQs)
What are ACEs? ACEs are adverse childhood experiences that harm children's developing brains so profoundly that the effects show up decades later; they cause much of chronic disease, most mental illness, and are at the root of most violence. ...
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Apply for Grants for Underserved Populations, register by Jan 5, application due Jan 26
SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS - up to $300,000 over 24 months, NO cost sharing or match required. Web-based information session scheduled for December 13, 2017 from 11am-1pm PST (see page 8 on the attached document for details). Apply for Grants for Underserved Populations Register by: Jan 5, 2017 Apply by: Jan 26, 2017 This solicitation supports outreach to and services for individuals in underserved populations who are survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.
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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...
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Community Profiles from selected CA ACEs Initiatives and Programs
CA communities and organizations from across the state shared information about their trauma informed and resilience building initiatives at the Child Adversity Policymaker Awareness Day on July 11, 2017 in Sacramento. The event, organized by 4CA ( California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity) , educated state legislators about the impacts of child adversity across the lifecourse and strategies for preventing ACEs, healing trauma and creating resilient communities. A series of twelve...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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Eleven state-specific profiles feature ACEs-related data and ACEs/trauma-informed/resilience-building initiatives
One of the resources shared with participants in the Sept. 13-14 convening of First Spouses in Milwaukee to address trauma was a series of state information sheets that featured data on ACEs prevalence and ACEs/trauma-informed/resilience-building initiatives. These one-pagers provided a succinct summary of state highlights on trauma that in some instances were well known to the First Spouses but for others, provided new information. In partnership with state trauma leaders, ACEs Connection...
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FREE full-day perinatal substance use conference with Dr. Ira Chasnoff in Napa on September 11.
The Queen of the Valley and the Perinatal Substance Abuse Committee bring you the special opportunity to participate in a full-day conference with Dr. Ira J. Chasnoff. Join in a full-day conference about how substance use during pregnancy can affect both the mother and child. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Upon completing this program, the participants will be able to: Count participation for CEUs or CMEs, if applicable Discuss the epidemiology of substance use in pregnancy Describe the psychosocial...
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Hanna Center takes ‘trauma care’ on the road
For 72 years, Hanna Boys Center has been a place of refuge for disadvantaged boys – boys who, largely by circumstance, were in trouble. Dysfunctional homes, neighborhood violence, feral upbringings, drug abuse: Hanna Boys Center has sheltered all kinds. Over those decades Hanna Boys Center has established itself as a leader in transformational protocols, a vanguard on the fractious front advocating for at-risk youth. ..... ..... Trauma-informed care argues that children who’ve experienced...
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"Addiction begins with solving a problem, the problem of human pain, emotional pain"
In his groundbreaking book , In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction , trauma and addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté writes, “There are almost as many addictions as there are people.” ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens read that quote as a springboard to asking Maté to define addiction and explain whether or not it is always rooted in adverse childhood experiences. Maté, along with filmmaker Michelle Esrick and Saturday Night Live star Darrell Hammond,...
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ACEs Aware Grantees By County
ACEs Connection will begin highlighting ACEs and Resilience initiatives by county. We're starting this effort off by listing the recent ACEs Aware grantees by county.
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Sonoma County field nurses use ACEs science to educate families
Santa Rosa, CA, resident Lisa Marden watches her 15-month-old baby gleefully play with magic markers and relays how she’s been coping with feeling anxious. (We're using a pseudonym to protect the family's privacy.) “I’m just super stressed out with everything, and as soon as I eat anything, I get nauseous, so I’ve been eating snacks instead of meals,” she explains to Liz George, a field nurse with the Maternal/Child Field Nursing team of Sonoma County, CA, who has been seeing Marden on home...
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The 'war on drugs' was a war on people of color
In the spring of 1982, Susan Burton turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of her 5-year-old son, who had run into the street and was hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer . Over the course of the next 17 years, Burton was in and out of prison. “Each time I left, I felt a little more broken,” she told me recently. What would have made a difference, she said, was “if there could have been a way to have therapy from traumatic childhood events, disappointments and...
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Want to empower youth in communities of color during COVID? Let them lead.
Widespread reporting has revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many poor communities of color. Less widely known is how the pandemic has affected young people in those communities. “COVID-19 has had a particularly harsh impact on youth of color,” further traumatizing [juvenile-justice] system-impacted youth and their families already struggling with disproportionately high rates of disease, death, job loss and housing insecurity,” said Jim Keddy of Youth Forward . Keddy was...
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Youth Detention Facility finds culture of kindness more effective than punishment
A corner of the Multi-Sensory De-escalation Room, All MSDR photos courtesy of Valerie Clark When a young person enters the de-escalation room in the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility , they’ll find dimmed lights, bottles of lavender, orange and other essential oils, an audio menu featuring the rush of ocean waves and other calming sounds, along with squeeze balls, TheraPutty, jigsaw puzzles, and an exercise ball to bounce on. TheraPutty, squeeze balls and more Sometimes, with a...
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HOPE Summit speakers show how positive childhood experiences offset adversity
The Rev. Darrell Armstrong, pastor of the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jersey, is an accomplished man. He graduated from Stanford University in public policy and went on to get his master’s degree in divinity studies at Princeton. As a former director in the New Jersey Department of Human Services, he was responsible for New Jersey’s statewide strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. Armstrong has also worked as an entrepreneur, workshop facilitator, and radio host.
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Cheryl Montez
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Webinar explores Oregon bill declaring racism a public health crisis
For anyone who thinks Oregon — long regarded as a liberal, progressive state — was a welcoming place for Blacks and other minorities in the past, a recent webinar sponsored by Oregon health care organizations was a chilling wake-up call. In June 1844, Oregon’s provisional government passed its first Black Exclusionary Act , with language stating that any Black person who set foot in Oregon “would be publicly whipped 39 lashes.” From that time forward, Oregon, like most states, amassed its...
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California advocates press for expansion of visiting rights to incarcerated loved ones
In a recent nightmare, 8-year-old Jovina dreamt that her father got COVID-19. He was getting sicker, but she and her mother weren’t able to get there in time. “There,” in her father’s case, is a cell at the California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville, California, nearly 300 miles from where she lives in San Jose. In Jovina’s mind are a swarm of worries about her father’s welfare, her mother Benee Vejar reports. If an earthquake shakes the Bay Area, Jovina says, “What if the building...
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Peer-led organization offers San Francisco's unhoused food, work, dignity and more
He is sprawled out on the sidewalk, motionless, flushed cheeks framed by high cheekbones. He’s slender, probably in his mid-20s, his straight, coal black hair pulled back, and his orange t-shirt twisted up over his stomach. “He’s OD’ing on fentanyl!” shouts a guy holding a skateboard.
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Dan Press traces how legal work for Native Americans led to advocacy to uproot trauma
L-R Dr. Mary Cwik, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, Dan Press, Dr. Zach Kaminsky, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Prewitt In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation. Dan Press “I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens...