Tagged With "foster children"
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Family Struggles May Affect Boys' Brain Development (Healthday.com)
Mental health symptoms, reduced gray matter volume noted in study MONDAY, Aug. 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Family problems early in life might raise boys' risk of depression and anxiety, which is also tied to altered brain structure in their...
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Foster Children Rising Above Despair (MyBayCity.com)
Thursday night, the Bay area chapter of the Michigan Youth Opportunities Initiative presented a program on the success of foster care children. The message was geared at educating the audience of their journeys from an abusive home to foster...
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Frysinger: Combat adverse childhood experiences in Ingham County [LansingStateJournal.om]
Unfortunately, child abuse and neglect is growing in the Capitol area. In 2015 in Ingham County, nearly one in six children live in families that came to the attention of Child Protective Services and have been investigated for abuse or neglect; in Eaton, nearly that many – 13 percent of all the county’s children. And for a growing number of children and youth in our communities, that investigation uncovers child abuse or neglect. Confirmed maltreatment typically results from parents who...
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Harsh parenting strategies undermine learning (Institute for Social Research U. Mich)
ANN ARBOR—Before the new school year begins, here’s a pop quiz for parents of middle-school children: What do you do when your child brings home a bad report card? A. Lecture the child. B. Restrict her activities, such as participating...
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Harvard Infographic on ACEs and Toxic Stress
This was just posted by Harvard. I thought all of us could use access to it, for use in our schools and the settings we work in. The full image is on the attached PDF.
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Healing ACE's
Healing Childhood Trauma I’d like to thank each member of ACE’s Connection for all your work helping and supporting children through various activities and organizations. You are clearly a collection of people who care about the children of the world. It is in recognition of these efforts that I ask you to consider two books on healing childhood trauma. They represent a life-time partnership dedicated to raising and educating healthy children. Secondly, I’d like to ask you for a word of...
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Healing Trauma: One Grocery Store Line at a Time
There’s a women standing in front of me at the grocery store. I can see her fidgeting, shifting her weight back and forth. She glances my way and gives me the “what is taking so long” look as she rolls her eyes. I shrug and smile. She turns back around. I notice she doesn’t have much in her cart. After the person in front of her is finished, the cashier asks, “How is everything today?” Of course the cashier had no way of knowing what was coming next. This woman begins to unleash a verbal...
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Help Us Share Your "Master Trainer" Story (Michigan Association of Health Plans)
The Michigan ACE Initiative is training individuals who work in fields that address trauma in children. Our Master Trainers bring excitement, energy and drive to this initiative and help make our efforts worthwhile—they will be the ones to make the difference and our job is to assist their efforts over the coming months and years. So far, we’ve trained 50 individuals– our first cohort trained in Gaylord last spring and our second cohort trained in Gull Lake in September. Talking about mental...
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Helping Students Overcome Toxic Stress through Science-Based Teaching Practices (stresshealth.org)
“What our students really crave the most is predictability from the adults interacting with them,” says Roger Sapp, a student success teacher at KIPP. For that reason, the one-on-one session is not a reward for being “good” or withheld if something bad happens. The kids who need it can count on it – every day. The scene is from a video by Edutopia (aka the George Lucas Educational Foundation), which has produced a series of more than 20 powerful, engaging shorts on how children learn in...
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How Grief Goes Unnoticed in Foster Children: And the Underlying Trauma that it Causes
I have attended several funerals during my lifetime. At one, when I was still in high school, I remember watching the mother of a friend throw herself over her son’s casket, unable to contain her emotions. Those of us who were there sat and stared, stunned, but silent. Eventually, a much older lady with gray wispy hair came running down the aisle, throwing her arms around the women’s shoulders, whispering that it was OK and that she should take a break for a while. She hugged the...
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"I miss Dr. Greg Proulx, too"
I met Dr. Greg Proulx in September 2014. I was getting ready to go to a meeting on ACEs in Washington, DC and was trying very hard to spread the word about ACEs across the region. That week before WE met, I spoke to about 100 people...
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If Minnesota Can Do This, We Can Too!!: State rep and family advocate, Rena Moran, envisions a trauma-informed Minnesota
Minnesota has the potential to become a trauma-informed state if the hard work is done to raise awareness of ACEs and the impact of toxic stress on brain development, says third-term state representative Rena Moran (D-St. Paul). Moran led the...
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It's April Again, Camping Season in Northern Michigan Begins
Growing up in Iowa, once a summer my dad would pack a tent, sleeping bags, and load up our camper which sat securely on the bed of my dad's pick- up truck. My mom would pack hot dogs to roast, and of course s'mores. We would then head off to a local campground on the shores of Saylorville Lake for an overnight adventure. We laughed as we burned marshmallows, and sometimes my mom even brought her guitar to play for us. This is all, thankfully, I knew of camping until I became an adult living...
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Letters from Death Row: The Biology of Trauma (texasobserver.org)
Juan Ramirez grew up in poverty in the Rio Grande Valley, in a neighborhood infested with drug-and gang-related violence. By the age of 10 he’d started smoking marijuana and using inhalants. Within a couple of years he’d moved on to...
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Link between ACEs and Animal Cruelty, Something for Child Forensic Interviewers to Consider?
Philadelphia ACE Task Force Member Risa Mandell, LCSW, has reminded us that it is important to understand that witnessing animal cruelty may be an adverse childhood event that has lasting impact and may also be indicative of other ACEs. She has...
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Michigan ACE Initiative: Building Healing Communities
The Michigan Association of Health Plans Foundation , thanks to funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund , created the Michigan ACE Initiative: Building Healing Communities . Their initiative is focused on expanding efforts toward a statewide awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and creating a statewide coalition to recommend development of appropriate interventions and state policy; and to provide for the implementation of Medicaid policy for ACEs. The ACEs initiative in...
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Michigan Trauma Informed Education
We are working with PESI, a leader in professional development, to offer a full day training in trauma informed education. This content follows the content of our book on Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. We will be in Michigan April 19, (Sterling Heights) 20, (LIvonia) and 21 (Ann Arbor) See the attached brochure If this goes well they will continue to offer this next year. Hope to see you there
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Mindfulness for Children (Childtrends.org)
Mindfulness helps poor Children in Brazil deal with Life's Challenges What do actress Goldie Hawn , Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan , and Google employees have in common with children in disadvantaged,...
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"Moving from Understanding to Implementing Trauma-Responsive Services" Takeaways from SAMSHA Forum in Johnson City 9.5.19
Speakers and guests at the SAMSHA Forum included (l-r) Mary Rolando of the Department of Children's Services; Chrissy Haslam, First Lady of Tennessee; Dr. Joan Gillece, SAMSHA Center for Trauma Informed Care; Dr. Andi Clements, East Tennessee State University; Becky Haas, Johnson City Police Department; Carey Sipp, ACEs Connection, and Robin Crumley, Boys & Girls Club of Johnson City/Washington County. It was easy to be both inspired and a bit overwhelmed at the Substance Abuse and...
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New Community!!! Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative
I'm excited to announce the newest ACEs Connection geographic community for my region, the Midwest & TN: Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative . This community is a partnership of local organizations taking a trauma-informed stance on behavioral health in Carter County, OK. Their goal is to build a healthy, connected and resilient community. The community manager is Ashley Godwin . Ashley Godwin joined Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative in March 2017 as the Director where she...
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New law tying cash benefits to truancy missing definition of truancy (stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org)
Governor Snyder recently signed into a law a set of rules about absences from school. These laws don’t affect every kid and family. but families living in poverty who get cash assistance from the state can lose those benefits...
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Nonprofit collaboration addresses family homelessness (garb.com)
Family homelessness is still a big problem in West Michigan and two local organizations have joined forces to do something about it. For the first time ever, a special partnership between two Grand Rapids nonprofits — Mel Trotter...
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Online child-shaming: Discipline or humiliation? (Freep.com - Detroit Free Press)
A mother posts a video to YouTube of her two small sons. They dump Legos on the floor, sit on unmade beds and get toothpaste on the bathroom counter. They hold up signs for the camera that say: "We got toothpaste everywhere in the bathroom,"...
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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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Poverty Impacts Brain Development
By John Tozzi | Bloomberg News Growing up poor has long been linked to lower academic test scores. And there's now mounting evidence that it's partly because kids can suffer real physical consequences from low family incomes, including brains that are...
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Preventing child abuse and neglect is a moral and economic imperative (jsonline.com) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
There is nothing more important than the health and happiness of our children, and what they experience in their early years helps build the foundation for them to grow into strong, confident adults. But every year, more than 650,000 children across...
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Substance Abuse Mental Health Services/National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative Public Service Campaign "Helping Kids Recover and Thrive"
Raising awareness about the impact of child traumatic stress and what parents and caregivers can do to help children recover and thrive is the focus of a new public education campaign launched July 3 by the Substance...
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Resilience Coffee Notes May 2016
May 2016 Resilience Coffee Notes Present Mike and Sharon Herron, Carrie Douglas, David Lloyd, Paula Smith, Amelia Siders, Emily Quinn, Lance Morgan, Sharon VanDrie, Carey Curran, Deb Frisbie, Sarah Hubbell, Erika Solomonson Conversation about a support group for parents who are parenting a child with ACES (adoptive, foster care or otherwise)- Amelia Siders of the Child Advocacy Center and Paula Smith of Child and Family services offered to work on a series. Amelia mentioned that Child...
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Resources from the 2018 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Conference
In October, I attended the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Conference in San Francisco. It was really inspiring. Below please find share some of the books, videos, and resources that I learned about. All the best, Natalie BOOKS 1) The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, MD https://centerforyouthwellness.org/the-deepest-well/ 2) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, MD...
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State Baby Facts 2015 - Michigan (Zero to Three)
Do you know what lies ahead for Michigan? No need to consult a crystal ball. The clearest way to envision what the future holds is to take a look at the babies. They tell us an important story of what it is currently like to be a very young...
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Submit a Presentation Proposal for the Midwest ACE Summit!
The Midwest ACE Summit will take place in Minnesota on November 10th and 11th. We hope that you will join us for this opportunity to connect and learn with others across the state and region! We are currently inviting presentation proposals from folks across the Midwest who would like to facilitate workshop (breakout) sessions. The deadline for submissions is August 1st . For more information, please see the attached RFP form. Please share this form across your networks! For more information...
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Supreme Court Allows Teacher Testimony in Child-Abuse Cases
Justices give prosecutors leeway to bring cases without young children testifying Su preme Court Upholds Child Abuse Evidence Via Mandatory Reporter On Thursday, June 18 the Supreme Court upheld the use of a child’s comments to a...
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Teen parent program needs new home
By MICHELLE MERLIN mmerlin@record-eagle.com TRAVERSE CITY — A program that helps teen mothers in the Grand Traverse region might be delivered to a new home. The Doula Teen Parent Program has been administered by the Women’s Resource Center since 2006. But organizers hope someone else will take over the program, which serves more than 70 young pregnant women and parents in the region. Women’s Resource Center for the Grand Traverse Area Executive Director Juliette Schultz...
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The Boy Born Out of Resilience
A few months ago I published a blog, " A Mother's Rage". I re-accounted my rage and helplessness regarding my daughter's high school rape in Miami, FL. I ended my post with words of hope. I wrote how several years had passed since my daughter's assault. She was now engaged and pregnant with my first grandchild. This is the rest of the story. I held my daughter's hand as she labored through the night with my grandson. I tried to comfort her fiancee who felt helpless. I rubbed her back,...
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The Crisis in Pediatric Psychiatric Emergency Rooms (The Center for Young Healthy Minds)
Psychiatric emergency rooms are busier than you can imagine—unless you’ve been stuck in one. In fact, there’s only one emergency room setting that’s even more so: pediatric psychiatric emergency...
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The National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds (Alliance) series of online training courses on Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework
Michigan uses the Strengthening Families Approach to Increase Resilience for Children and Families in Our State, so I wanted to post the information for the curriculum here. BRINGING THE PROTECTIVE FACTORS FRAMEWORK TO LIFE IN YOUR WORK...
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Tools for teachers -- Children's Resilience Initiative (Original Post by Jane Stevens)
The Children's Resilience Initiative's web site, ResilienceTrumpsACEs.org has an assortment of resilience-building tools for elementary school-age children. Because we understand the impact of trauma on a...
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Trauma-Informed is Messy Business…
Words like trauma-informed and resiliency get thrown around a lot these days. And for many, the visions they call up are a bit too glossy. You see resiliency and trauma-informed aren’t always pretty. Resiliency can look like closing the bathroom door and collapsing in tears… but then washing your face and going back into the world, carrying the belief that you can survive and the hope that things will get better. It looks like begrudgingly going on that walk with a friend, when the little...
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Trauma Primer for Juvenile Probation and Juvenile Detention Staff
A Trauma Primer for Juvenile Probation and Juvenile Detention Staff August 12, 2015 Juvenile justice probation and detention workers play an important role in helping system-involved youth and families navigate justice and social service systems;...
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Trauma Screenings for all Children on MediCal - AB 340 Approved in California!
I cross-posted this blog by Holly White-Wolfe (From Sonoma County ACEs) here. I think we in Michigan have to think bigger. We have to get more done. So....... Several ACEs Connection members should be feeling proud about now. Karen Clemmer, Carla Denner, Jessica Hackwell, Nick Dalton, and several others joined the 4CA Campaign to educate legislators about ACEs and trauma. Our partners with First 5, Maternal Child Adolescent Health, and the County Board of Supervisors also wrote letters to...
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Treating Childhood Trauma Becoming a Public Policy Priority [governing.com]
There’s a lot that’s indisputable about childhood trauma. Emotional or physical abuse early in life impacts health outcomes as children grow up. Community- and family-based approaches to dealing with trauma are better than institutional settings. And children of color are more likely to face traumatizing childhood experiences. Those events can include something as common as divorce, but also encompass circumstances such as having an incarcerated parent, living with someone with a substance...
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Under One Roof
BY SARAH ELMS selms@record-eagle.com TRAVERSE CITY — Local pediatricians and counselors are hopeful a new partnership will give more children access to mental health care. Kids Creek Children's Clinic pediatrician Stephanie Galdes said...
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We Will Be Discussing At our Next Trauma-Informed Meeting Things We can Do to Get our Alpena Schools Trauma-Informed and Help Educate our Traumatized Students, so...
I wanted to put in links to great materials from Dr. Bruce Perry, MD, from Child Trauma Academy. I will be taking notes to share at our meeting on Thursday. There are two great lectures in this series (they may be older but...
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Webinar Learning Series begins tomorrow: State Policy Approaches to Addressing Childhood Adversity, Wednesday, January 10, 10am PST (1:00 PM EST)
Reminder of tomorrow's ( Wednesday, January 10, 10am PST/1:00 PM EST) webinar on State Policy Approaches to Addressing Childhood Adversity Please join us for a three -part learning series hosted by the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity and ACEs Connection . We'll hear from states that are making great strides towards adopting trauma-informed policies and practices. Three-Part Learning Series: Webinar 1: Overview of State Level Efforts to Address Childhood Adversity and...
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Webinar - Tomorrow -The ACE Study: Measuring Childhood Trauma Exposure and Working to Change the Ending for Survivors and their Children
This is a Little Late but for Those on the Group who are Interested, I wanted to put this event here. I signed up. It is from 12:00 - 1:30 EST tomorrow. GoTo Webinars are easy to sign up for. Just register at the link in this Blog. ...
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Welcome Members of Northern Michigan ACEs Action
Hello everyone, we have our Northern Michigan ACEs Action group set up and so I am inviting everyone to join. Here we can share our ideas, get more information about ACEs, trauma, toxic stress and resilience, share our meeting...
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What If I Told You?
What if I told you that I was a victim of child sex abuse? As a survivor of child sexual abuse , I have a clear understanding of the importance of addressing stigma and shame as it pertains to sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Victims, especially young children, often do not disclose sexual abuse. Those who are witnesses of child sexual abuse, or who are trusted by survivors enough that they confide in them, are often ill-equipped to handle the responsibility. And, many times, parents...
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Wisconsin state agencies end year one of trauma-informed learning community; goal is to be first trauma-informed state
Here in California, many people think that it’s only liberal Democrats who have a corner on championing the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and putting it into practice. That might be because people who use ACEs science don’t expel or suspend students, even if they’re throwing chairs and hurling expletives at the teacher. They ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" as a frame when they create juvenile detention centers where kids don’t fight, reduce...
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WORK-LIFE BALANCE Parental Benefits Where One Parent Counts for More
Companies are becoming more generous with family-friendly benefits, but in many cases they have a catch. They are awarded not to all parents of young children, but to so-called primary caregivers. At many companies, primary caregivers get...