Tagged With "Call to Action"
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Case Statement on Trauma Informed Approaches
Attached is a Case Statement on Trauma Informed Approaches--it is a review of the Greater Harrisburg Area's and beyond's ACE scores, the outcomes of these ACEs and some ideas of how to resolve the negative consequences of this crisis of epidemic proportions. Please use it to advance the cause of moving from the bad news of ACEs towards the good news of becoming trauma informed and resilient. I would also welcome your comments, questions and recommendations! Thank you.
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Community Health Worker Peer Training/Certified Peer Specialist Training Academy
Training Opportunity Do you know what it is like to be impacted by violence in your neighborhood? Do you want to use your experiences to help other people heal from their injuries? We invite you to learn more about becoming a Community Health Worker Peer/Certified Peer Specialist! The Drexel University Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice is currently seeking applicants for our 9-week Community Health Worker Peer (CHWP)/Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) Training Academy . This program,...
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Community Voices: Creating a Just, Healthy and Resilient World
Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) is a vibrant learning collaborative of fourteen sites actively engaged in building the movement for a just, healthy and resilient world. Using the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resiliency as their organizing framework, these communities have built strong cross-sector networks to help heal and prevent early childhood adversity. From October 2016 through May 2017, we were privileged to travel to all fourteen MARC...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACE Messaging Work Group met on Tuesday, February 14, 2017. The three messaging groups, Youth, Older Adults, and Parents of Young Children reported in on their progress and current projected timeline for completion by end of June 2017, and provided feedback and questions to each other for each messaging theme. All groups have met within the last two weeks. The Work Group explored challenges that arose around the “what” that we are connecting people to through the messages, and how much...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Community Education Work Group Meeting
The Community Education Work Group met on Tuesday, January 19th at the CityLife Neighborhood Clinic in Philadelphia, PA. Representatives from the CityLife Neighborhood Clinics gave the group an overview of the work that they do, explaining that they often see the impact that ACEs have throughout the life course in the seniors they serve. Group members were interested in potential opportunities to develop intergenerational programming. The majority of the meeting was spent reviewing and...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Full Body Meeting
The Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) met on Tuesday, February 16th. The group began with brief introductions and members expressed excitement for the meeting. The PATF staff and leadership then provided updates about recent accomplishments including new funding from the First Hospital Foundation to develop and disseminate messages about ACEs, trauma, and resilience; the success of the premiere Philadelphia ACE Film Festival, which featured the premiere of Paper Tigers and a screening of...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Full Body Meeting
The Philadelphia ACE Task Force held their full body meeting on September 26 th , 2016. The meeting began with a brief community meeting – the group was generally energized and excited. Philadelphia ACE Task Force Staff did a report out on the launch of the website: philadelphiaACEs.org on August 15 th . In a little over a month, the website had over 700 views from all over the US and from outside the country. The website had been visited every day since the launch and many spent a good deal...
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Philadelphia devotes $4.4 million to 'holistic' anti-violence programs [witf.org]
(Philadelphia) -- Mayor Jim Kenney announced on Thursday that the city would dedicate more than $4 million to "interrupting" violence on neighborhood streets. Flanked by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, members of City Council and anti-violence advocates, Kenny introduced a set of new programs that will focus on gun violence as a public health problem. He said the city would seek to promote a more data-driven and "holistic" approach to stanching the city's rising homicide rate.
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Philadelphia's Village of Arts and Humanities a finalist in A3C Action Initiative
A3C strives to empower, engage and energize the community that shape and define hip-hop culture. The A3C Festival will continue to provide the best platform for artist discovery, while celebrating hip-hop’s trailblazers, influencers and milestones. In partnership with Atlanta’s Center for Civic Innovation, the committee is pleased to announce seven finalists for the second annual A3C Action initiative, where organizations across the country submit ideas that use art and music as a vehicle to...
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Podcast Episode, "The Power of Peer Learning and Capacity Building: Improving Access to Quality Early Care and Education in Philadelphia"
The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) at Vital Village Network is excited to share the fourth episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. In our fourth episode, The Power of Peer Learning and Capacity Building , we speak with...
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Putting the Power of Self-Knowledge to Work [New York Times]
David Bornstein, journalist and author on positive social change, describes the work of the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) medical and social change movement, in this article, which references ACEsConnection and the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) network, of which Philadelphia is part. Read below for thought-provoking commentary: " Putting the Power of Self-Knowledge to Work. " "Thirty years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing gave a series of...
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Register Today! Building Community Resilience Advocacy Event
There is still time to register for the Children's Crisis Treatment Center Annual Advocacy event on June 7th from 8:30 - 12:00 noon at WHYY . This year's event, titled: Building Resilient Communities to Address Child Adversity will feature Wendy Ellis, DrPH (c), MPH , who directs the Building Resilience Communities Initiative and has advocated for the "Pair of ACEs" perspective. Panelist will include Philadelphia ACE Task Force co-chairs, Joel Fein, MD and Sandra Bloom, MD, along with Kansas...
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Ripple Effect: Two Philly Activists Share ACE Knowledge Close to Home
Anthony Ballard grew up with multiple adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) before those disruptive childhood experiences had a name. Ballard was raised, along with 11 siblings, in a North Philadelphia housing project by “a beautiful God-fearing mother and a loving father who suffered from alcoholism.” Ballard witnessed relatives who developed addictions or landed in prison; in his early 20s, he, too, abused alcohol. He got sober. He became a firefighter. And when he learned about ACEs a few...
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Seed, Soil & Light: A Young Revolutionary's Journey (dailygood.org)
Three to four houses had recently burned down in Tommy Joshua’s North Philadelphia neighborhood. In an empty lot behind his home, Tommy came to figure out the origins. The youth of the neighborhood used that space to hop around on the furniture, play with the debris, and kick the wood. From an early age, Tommy questioned the suffering in the world. His earliest memories are of the broken school system, dysfunctional families, and homelessness. He turned to his mother for answers and she...
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Study of Trauma Informed Transition at Hopeworks
Please check out this amazing research study about Hopeworks and our transition to a trauma informed model prepared by Rutgers Center for Urban Research and Education! Special thanks to Dr. Natasha Fletcher and New Jersey Health Initiatives for making this study possible!
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Task Force highlighted at Atlantic Health Systems Summit
The development of the P hiladelphia ACE Task Force and other communities that are working on resilience are highlighted in this video clip of Leslie Lieberman, from the Health Federation, presenting a compact introduction on ACEs and their...
Calendar Event
The Reflective Early Childhood Educator: What, Why, and How?
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Re: Research on Effectiveness of TIC in Camden
Dan, I am very interested in this as a funder and as a Philadelphia representative for the Mobilizing Action for Community Resilience. Best, Alyson
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Re: Moving from Vision to Action: Philadelphia ACE Taskfoce Updates
On April 6th, 2015, the Philadelphia ACE Taskforce convened the members for the quarterly meeting. The meeting included two presentations from experts on adverse childhood experiences and trauma. Jonathan Purtle, PhD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Management & Policy, School of Public Health Drexel University Presentation: Trauma Policy Research: Charting a Course (download it from the bottom of this post) Jane Aronson, MD Orphan Doctor-World Wide Orphans Foundation...
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Re: ACE Screening as Part of Routine Medical Practice?
This is wonderful news and the kind of legislative activity that could really start building momentum towards routine ACE screening and trauma-informed care in the general health setting. I was also encouraged by this quote within the article: Hentcy says the high noise level of the breakout sessions reflected the energetic engagement among participants, some of whom, before the day was out, made immediate plans to meet locally. That is exactly the kind of activity we hope to generate in...
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Re: Children and Toxic Stress: The Discussion Continues
I think what is critically necessary is better integration of systems. This is a concept that is very important in behavioral health and I think it applies here. Screening for ACEs in routine medical check-ups is a great step and something that I hope gains more and more momentum. However, there also needs to be be better communication and interconnectedness among various social service systems. Obviously, it is much, much easier to say that than it is to implement it, but conversation is...
Comment
Re: PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL, EDUCATION COMMITTEE Hearing on Standardized Testing NOTES
Hello Nick, City Council reacted with much interest, and maybe a little surprise, and (I am hoping) eventually some follow through and action. Time will tell. Their questions to-date are all about statistics, or quantitative research learning. I take the fact that they are even asking questions, as a hopeful positive signal. Daun
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Re: Philadelphia ACE Task Force 2019 Highlights
This has such a powerful action. I wish this were true today, across the US. Thank you. Karen Copied from the resolution - RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That this Council calls upon the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to recognize Secondary Traumatic Stress as a workplace hazard, recommend steps to address mental health injury as a psychological hazard in the workplace as they do with physical injury , and create a standard for Secondary Traumatic...
Blog Post
Local Affiliates Accelerate ACEs-and-Resilience Movement in Montana
In Toole County, Montana, deputy sheriffs call a school counselor, from their patrol cars, after responding to a traumatic incident—a domestic abuse call, an overdose, an arrest—that involves a child. “Handle with care,” they tell the counselor, and they give the child’s name. The counselor passes that information to teachers: a quiet heads-up that the student might be hungry or sleepy, tearful, angry or distracted by whatever happened at home. “My teachers love it,” says Mary Miller, chair...
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Re: Philly Youth Speak Out: Transforming Trauma & Violence in School
This event is hosted by Black Lives Matter Week of Action - Philly @BLMPhlED
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Workplace Stress? Real-world workplace action steps for wellness in this Virtual Cafe [healthfederation.org]
Ayana Bradshaw, MPH is the Administrative Director for the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) and the Violence Prevention Initiative (VPI) at The Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. In this capacity she oversees all financial, administrative, operational, managerial, human resources and strategic planning components of the Center. Ms. Bradshaw has over 20 years of experience in multiple facets of public health, including but not limited to developing community health...
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Wolf Administration Releases ‘Trauma-Informed PA’ Plan with Recommendations and Steps for the Commonwealth and Providers to Become Trauma-Informed [PA Governor Tom Wolf Press Release]
July 27, 2020 As a companion to Governor Tom Wolf’s multi-agency effort and anti-stigma initiative, Reach Out PA: Your Mental Health Matters, the Office of Advocacy and Reform (OAR) is releasing the “Trauma-Informed PA” plan to guide the commonwealth and service providers statewide on what it means to be trauma-informed and healing-centered in PA. This plan is the result of four months of work from OAR and the Trauma-Informed PA Think Tank, formed in February. The think tank was made up of...
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"It's All Connected": NJEA ACEs Task Force Reaches Beyond Educators
The March meeting of the New Jersey Education Association’s ACEs Task Force opened without an agenda. It was a virtual gathering with more than 50 people—educators, social workers, professionals in pediatrics, juvenile justice and child abuse prevention. The pandemic had landed emphatically close to home, with a governor’s order to close all schools on March 18, and participants were grappling with what that meant for their students, their families and themselves. So ACEs Task Force co-chair...
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ACE Impact Team Aligns Efforts to Help Newark Residents Reach Greatest Potential
Five years of convening Newark’s ACE Impact Team has taught Keri Logosso-Misurell a crucial lesson: Fight the urge to reinvent the wheel.
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Pathway for Trauma is Pathway for Resilience: Fresno Network's Message Inspires Hope
In Fresno, volunteers from local churches were already working with the schools, mentoring kids and running weekend recreation programs. Community-based non-profits were in conversation with educators; pastors were talking to social-service providers. The problems were clear: nearly 30% of Fresno’s residents living in poverty (the rate tops 40% for Black residents), with a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest parts of this sharply segregated city. For several years,...
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LAUNCH Together Supports Social Emotional Well-Being in Southwest Denver
As the COVID-19 pandemic blurred from days into months, the leadership team of LAUNCH Together Southwest Denver began hearing about the sense of anguish and confusion felt by directors of early-childhood learning centers: Should I re-open? Is that financially feasible? Is it ethical? And how do I decide, in a sea of fast-changing information about a virus scientists are still struggling to understand? LAUNCH Together SW Denver, a collaborative formed in 2016 to boost community capacity to...
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"Who's in Your Canoe?": Ho‘oikaika Partnership Draws on Hawaiian Values to Promote Protective Factors
Title image: Jeny Bissell, Ho‘oikaika Partnership founder and Core Partner, gives a shaka at a Child Abuse Prevention Month mayor's proclamation and concert. A brochure from the Ho‘oikaika Partnership shows four people paddling a slender boat, their bodies silhouetted against an apricot-hued sky. The tagline: “When it comes to parenting, who’s in your canoe?” The image and the metaphor are intentional, says Karen Worthington, coordinator of the 60-member, cross-sector Ho‘oikaika Partnership...
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Data-Driven, Cross-Sector: Bounce Coalition Boosts Trauma-Informed Change in Kentucky
Student suspension rates dropped. Teacher retention rose. Membership in the PTA swelled from zero to more than 200. More kids said in a survey that there was at least one adult at school whom they could talk to if they had a problem. The data—a comparison of the Bounce Coalition’s pilot school and one with similar demographics—told the Kentucky resilience-boosting group that they were on the right track. The Bounce Coalition formed in 2014; the catalyst was a grant from the Foundation for a...
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Youth-Led Advocacy Creates Healing Opportunities in Baltimore City
After a shooting at a historic Baltimore high school in February 2019—a 25-year-old man, angry about the school’s treatment of his sister, who was a student there, shot a special education assistant with a Smith and Wesson handgun—conversation in the city centered on whether school resource officers should be armed. Students said that was the wrong question. When City Council’s education and youth committee, chaired by council member Zeke Cohen, held hearings on school violence following the...
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'A Better Normal:' Can universal ACEs screening be equitable? -- Concerns and solutions
Can universal ACEs screening be equitable? A conversation about concerns and solutions. When: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2-3:30 pm PDT/5-6:30 pm EDT This webinar explores what it takes to ensure that equity is built into the process of screening and providing support for families who have experienced trauma and want help. REGISTER HERE Background At the beginning of this year, California, through the ACEs Aware initiative began rolling out universal screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs),...
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Ripple Effect: Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe Partners with Schools and Service Providers to Build Trauma-Informed Community in Michigan
The week of the fall equinox was Mino-Bimaadiziwin Wellness Week at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy (SCA) in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, a pre-K through 5th grade school of about 130 students. “Mino-Bimaadiziwin” is an Anishinabe phrase meaning “to live the good life.” At the school, it started with “Mindfulness Monday”—students were encouraged to wear their favorite “thinking cap”—then segued to “Take care of our bodies Tuesday,” a “Love Your Community Wednesday" that included talking circles, and...
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Spreading the Science: Michigan's NEAR Collaborative Aims to Infuse ACEs Science into State Departments and Agencies
Mary Mueller likes to call herself an “opportunistic infection.” What that means is that Mueller, project coordinator for trauma-informed systems in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), is determined to share the science of ACEs and resilience wherever she goes. After Mueller attended the state’s first ACE master trainer two day session hosted by the Michigan ACE Initiative , she wanted to bring the foundational science shared by ACE Interface back home—to her MDHHS...
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"NEAR Science in Partnership with Communities": Local ACEs Collaboratives Grow Across Minnesota
The third annual gathering of Minnesota ACEs collaboratives—“Growing Resilient Communities: Collaboratives Addressing ACEs”—began with a sober recitation of inequities: We acknowledge that the wealth of this country was built on stolen land and with enslaved and underpaid labor of African American, Native, and Immigrant people…We acknowledge that the recent global uprising, which was sparked by the murder of George Floyd right here in Minnesota, paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, makes for a...
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“Unite in a Common Cause”: Minnesota Tribal Communities Use NEAR Science to Address Trauma and Promote Healing
As the Minnesota trainers expected—and welcomed—the ACE trainings in tribal settings began late and lasted for hours: multiple generations of people from the White Earth and Fond du Lac communities gathering around simmering Crock-Pots of food, sharing stories, standing in line to talk with the trainers afterward. Once, a White Earth elder was the only person to show up for a presentation, recalls Linsey McMurrin, Director of Prevention Initiatives and Tribal Projects for FamilyWise Services...
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100% Community Initiative Builds Vital Services So New Mexico Kids Can Thrive
The deaths of several New Mexico children in recent years—a 13-year-old whose father was accused of fatally torturing him; an eight-year-old who was kicked to death by her mother; a girl raped, strangled and stabbed by her mother’s boyfriend the night before her 10th birthday—drew horror, outrage and scrutiny of the state’s child welfare system. Those incidents drove child welfare and public health specialists Katherine Ortega Courtney and Dominic Cappello to examine the data. Cappello and...
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Listening, Learning and Showing Up: Central Oregon's TRACEs Focuses on Root Causes of Trauma
TRACEs’ work group on youth and children in foster care spent a good portion of the last year’s monthly meetings examining holes in the system: How would foster families be affected by changes in funding from the Oregon Department of Human Services? What would it mean for kids if Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) positions were cut? Most important, what did foster children and youth, their families of origin and their foster families need in order to thrive? “We put together a...
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Nashville’s Purposeful Twist on ACEs: All Children Excel
In 2015, the pieces that became ACE Nashville began to fall into place. A five-year Community Health Improvement Plan included the support of mental and emotional health as one of its three goals. A core team of individuals from the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD), Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee and the Family Center, a non-profit focused on breaking generational cycles of child trauma, began to meet weekly. And a citywide “consensus workshop” in April of that year—drawing 44...
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Empower Action Model Provides Framework for Strategic Coalitions in South Carolina's Marlboro County and Beyond
Lauren Szymonik kept posing the same questions to members of the Empower Action coalition in Marlboro County: “What is the data telling you? What is the data saying about education? What is the data telling you about trauma?” The numbers were clear: according to 2014-16 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys, 56% of the county’s 24,000 adults had experienced at least one ACE. In 2017-18, there were 212 cases of child maltreatment, including abuse and neglect, among the...
