Tagged With "Empowering Children with Resilience"

In 2020, New Jersey, a state with about 9 million people spread over the rural countryside and dense urban areas like Newark, launched a new entity: the NJ Office of Resilience (NJOR). The NJOR is unusual because it is a public-private partnership. It brings together three private foundations as well as the NJ Department of Children and Families to provide community-driven strategies for preventing, treating, and healing from ACEs. Like a ship’s navigator laying out a course on charts, Dwana...

A webinar offered by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) Thursday, September 30, 1:30 - 3:00 pm EDT Register today . Addressing the mental health needs of child care providers and children in care is vital in the face of the pandemic, a population-level traumatic event. CTIPP is offering a "plug and play" framework to ease the process of developing a continuum of training, reflective coaching, and consultation to build the capacity for supporting relational health...

Child maltreatment continues to be a devastating and pervasive problem in the United States. Most children are referred to protective services for neglect. Methods of possible intervention and treatment from a community and family systems approach to maltreatment, rather than societal castigation, is of the utmost importance. Neglect is often an unintended consequence of poverty, limited resources and lack of family support. One could go further and find that adverse environments are...

The Power of Partnerships In the forward to the NJ ACES Statewide Action Plan , the Executive Director of NJ Office of Resilience, Dave Ellis, provides essential insight into New Jersey’s vision of collaboration and partnerships in building a trauma-informed and healing-centered state. Nowhere in the plan are identified silos of service. Families, schools, businesses, early care programs, community health care programs and more are now identified as the community where comprehensive services...

How do childhood experiences shape our lives? And are there particular events or chronic issues that cause long-term harm? To answer those questions, a great deal of research has been poured into studying ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, over the past 25 years. ACEs are defined as traumatic events that occur before the age of 18 including, but not limited to, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, and neglect. Following the landmark Kaiser-Permanente study of 1998, where it was found that...

When we think of Adverse Childhood Experiences, we often think of the fallout being chronic illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized symptoms of anxiety or depression. One additional, potential consequence of ACEs is the development of a personality disorder (PD), which are quite common as approximately 9% of adults in the United States, or about 30 million, experience them. Defined as “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the...

Mental health is an integral aspect of overall well-being, yet millions of children and adults face significant barriers in obtaining services while navigating a complex web of requirements. New Jersey is at the helm of progressive initiatives, with efforts being made to dismantle theses barriers to access mental health services and provide families with supportive networks necessary for well-being. Inequitable access to mental health care is shaped by numerous factors. Financial constraints...

Back in the 90’s I grew up in a bit of an old school household: dad worked while mom tended to domestic matters. Her days were filled with never ending heaps of laundry, meals to cook, dishes to wash, mail to open, and bills to pay. She took me and my brother to school, sports, and friends’ houses, picked us up, helped us with homework, and functioned as the only true parent in the home. As if those responsibilities were not enough, she addressed other issues that came up and regularly...

The juvenile justice system is a complex web of services with intent to reform and rehabilitate. It plays a crucial role in addressing the needs of young offenders while simultaneously considering their age, development, and potential for rehabilitation. However, concerns have been raised over the disproportionate representation of certain demographics, young black males and those with behavioral or mental health disorders, within the system. Poor minorities often receive harsher treatment...

The First Round of RAC projects, funded by DCF's Office of Resilience, is now five months into the grant period and we have seen some outstanding results. While three of our projects in the Central RAC are preparing to launch, five others are up and running. We are seeing creative project activities and curriculums, participants experiencing success, and programs evolving. Projects are currently serving Hunterdon, Union, Mercer, and Middlesex counties. One of the most exciting, inspiring...

Norwescap Child and Family Resource Services will be hosting a virtual Connections Matter training on August 7 th , 2023, at 12:00 -2:00 pm. Connections Matter is a program funded by NJ Department of Children and Families and led by Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey. This training is designed to engage community members in building caring connections to improve resiliency. Please share this flyer and the link below with anyone who might be interested. We hope you can join us! Questions: Molly...

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) encompasses a wide range of possible traumatic events or conditions that children may face during their earliest stages of life. These experiences, including abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, and community violence, can have profound and lasting impacts on a child's development, social relationships, and emotional well-being. Furthermore, there are additional conditions more recently recognized, such as forced migration and war, climate change,...

Beyond Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), our members seek to deeply understand strengths-based insights embedded in the remaining ACEs quadrant: Adverse Community Environments, Adverse Climate Experiences, and Atrocious Cultural Experiences.

At the start of 2023, in partnership with DCF’s Office of Resilience, the Central RAC (Regional ACEs Collaborative) distributed microgrant funding to nine projects that began their respective journeys toward launching, expanding, or transforming their programs. After eight months, we’ve seen great success with well over a thousand individuals being touched by these initiatives. From youth learning financial literacy and decision-making skills, to families spending more quality time together,...

Something amazing keeps happening in our CRC Accelerator program that we want to shout out from the rooftops this December. Thanks to our committed participants, the number of CRC graduates keeps increasing! The number of graduates has increased by 15x this year. As we head into a new year, w e are grateful for the unique role CRC Accelerator participants have played in expanding the PACEs movement through the willingness to explore healing-centered practices through a PACEs science lens.

As the holiday season comes to a close and life has returned to its pre-pandemic state, it's easy to forget our struggles during the COVID-19 outbreak. Looking back, it's fascinating to think about how we managed to stay indoors for such an extensive period. Although things seem to be back to normal, the lasting impact, particularly on children, remains evident. The loss of parents and caregivers has become a significant concern, with over 229,000 children losing one or both parents, 252,000...

As we head into our full CRC curriculum this January, we invite current and future CRC Accelerator participants to join us with collective care and self care in mind.

Great piece. The term Collective Responsibility resonated with me as well as the information with "Neptune". Thank you Kelly for all you do!

New data presented by the CDC on Adverse Childhood Experiences ( https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html ) as well as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) ( https://www.samhsa.gov/child-trauma/understanding-child-trauma ) converge in acknowledgement of the urgency in developing a sustainable coordinated system care to support identified high-risk families with complex health and behavioral health care needs. Utilizing integrated data from multiple...

Nationally recognized days of awareness remind us of important civil and human rights movements led by Black and African-American communities and social justice advocates. February puts leadership, education, access, justice, policy, and governance under the spotlight. Through a PACEs science lens, this month is an opportunity to consider trauma-informed transformation through a PACEs science lens as the way forward.

March marks the final month of the granting period for the CRC Accelerator. Here are the next steps for certification or a certificate of participation.

Introduction A few weeks ago, I was asked to read a critique of positive psychology and provide feedback of the critique. Despite being relatively unacquainted with this topic I decided to do the exercise anyway. As I read the critique, one of the points that stood out to me was that positive psychology does not offer much perspective on social factors that impact our development, and rather argues more for a perspective based on personal responsibility. Given what I know about Adverse...

As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.

Part II In Part I of this blog post we explored and laid the foundation for Parts II and III by looking at the effects of ACEs including toxic stress, atypical brain development, and behavioral implications. In Part II we will be looking at different proactive strategies we can implement on a societal level to ensure that children’s needs are met in the early years, including implementation of paid maternity and paternity leave, continuation and improvement of home visit programs, and access...