Blog

Telling the story of America’s babies is more important than ever. Last year, the inaugural State of Babies Yearbook: 2019 revealed that the state where a baby is born makes a big difference in their chance for a strong start in life. New data this year shows that even among states with high averages, significant disparities exist in the opportunities available to babies of color to thrive, as well as those in families with low-income, and in urban or rural areas. Now as our country faces an...

Now that the July 4 th congressional recess has ended, negotiations around the fourth major COVID relief bill are underway between the Congress and the Administration. How the chasm between Congress and the White House will be bridged is a path uncertain, with massive differences between the House and Senate complicating the work. As the pandemic rages across the U.S., there is now at least a consensus that action is needed. But no agreement exists on a payroll tax cut, unemployment...

A newly developed factsheet, “Trauma-Informed Nutrition: Recognizing the Relationship between Adversity, Chronic Disease, and Nutritional Health” has just been released. This factsheet is intended for Registered Dietitians (RDs) and was designed to support and describe the connection between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), the impacts of trauma and its relationship to chronic disease, and trauma-informed nutrition practices. This factsheet was developed through a collaborative...

Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...

Health and Wellness Town Hall - August 5th, 2020 3-4:30PM PDT Adverse Childhood Experiences 101 Class How ACEs Impact the Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other Communities of Color This event will be led by Alfred White. Alfred is the founder of The League of Extraordinary People. After nearly 40 years experiencing homelessness, Alfred swallowed a 1/4 ounce of crack cocaine in 2004 and nearly died. He awoke paralyzed and that is when he made the decision to seek help for his history of...

Regulation Before Education: The Roots and Fruits of a Trauma-Informed School July 29-31st | 12:00 - 3:00pm EDT These times are unsettling in many ways. But the disruptions have widened opportunities for different ways of being, thinking and doing in education. The trauma-informed schools movement has never been more relevant. Schools committed to cultivating trauma-informed change can successfully buffer the adverse effects of the pandemic, economic collapse, and persistent racial...

Your voice matters! Your experiences, thoughts, perspective (and so much more!) matter! Want to see trauma informed practices? Efforts based on ACEs science? Mark your calendar and plan to participate - by phone or by Zoom. See details below. *See attached document for more background info :) Meeting notice: PartnerSHIP meets July 9th via Zoom What : A public meeting of the PartnerSHIP, which is tasked with developing the 2020-2024 State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP), to review and approve...

By Scottie Andrew, July 5, 2020, CNN. In the town of 172,000, they were the first responders for mental health crises, homelessness, substance abuse, threats of suicide -- the problems for which there are no easy fixes. The problems that, in the hands of police, have often turned violent . Today, the program, called CAHOOTS, has three vans, more than double the number of staffers and the attention of a country in crisis. CAHOOTS is already doing what police reform advocates say is necessary...

By Rachel Levy, May 20, 2020, Mad in America. On March 4, 2020, Rethinking Psychiatry (in Portland, Oregon) met for our monthly meeting. The topic was “Beyond the Buzzwords: What Does Trauma-informed Care Really Mean?” This subject turned out to be even more relevant, as we are now facing a global pandemic that is causing massive trauma. This was to be our last in-person meeting for the foreseeable future. We are continuing to meet online. Both our April and May meetings were held via Zoom...

By Jamie Parfitt, June 18, 2020, KDRV. MEDFORD, Ore. — Asante on Thursday announced the completion of its new Behavioral Health Unit at Rogue Regional Medical Center, heralded as the first in-patient mental health facility of its kind in the region. “Improving how our patients receive care in our community has been a priority for us,” said Mick Zdeblick, senior vice president and CEO at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center. “Completion of this project is the culmination of a master plan...

Whether or not to screen for ACEs in primary care is an important debate—and I hear and respect the passion from both sides of the argument. I fall in the “pro-ACE assessments” camp, but with some important caveats. I think that assessments for ACEs are dramatically different from screening for autism or developmental delays. In my opinion, assessments for ACEs in primary care should be primarily about building relationships.

By Evan Schreiber, June 18, 2020, KATU. PORTLAND, Ore. — Vital funding is coming to the state of Oregon to try and fill the treatment gap that exists between those who are addicted and those who can get access to help. Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) announced it's among 44 centers across the nation to be awarded federal funding to increase and enhance training of health care professionals to treat people with substance use disorder. The Oregon Addiction Medicine Fellowship at...