Tagged With "Mental Health"
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Child’s behavior may be linked to parent’s adverse childhood experiences [contemporarypediatrics.com]
Parents who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction, are more likely than parents without these experiences to have children with behavioral health problems, according to an analysis of data from several large, nationally representative surveys of US households that addressed ACEs and children’s behavioral problems and diagnoses. Of the more than 2500 children for whom researchers had data, one-fifth had a parent who reported...
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Column: Adverse Childhood Experiences Plague Oklahoma's Children [duncanbanner.com]
By Joe Dorman, The Duncan Banner, January 15, 2020 The latest report from America’s Health Rankings shows a slight improvement in Oklahoma on a critical child wellbeing area, Adverse Childhood Experiences also called ACEs. Sadly, Oklahoma is still the worst in the nation in the frequency of Adverse Childhood Experiences among our children, but awareness is making a difference. The study examined the percentage of children ages 0-17 who endured two or more of the following ACEs: economic...
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Compassion Fatigue: Resiliency and Self Care
Compassion Fatigue: Resiliency and Self-Care Every day we read about people all over the world who experience and endure traumatic life events such as natural and man-made disasters, violence, abuse, and other overwhelming adverse life situations. These occurrences are all too common. Research indicates that up to 60 percent of the U.S. population will experience a traumatic event during their lifetime and some experience multiple traumas first-hand. Traumatic exposure has been implicated as...
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Connecting Childhood Trauma, attachment, home-based services
Connecting childhood trauma, attachment, home-based services A nurturing bonding between infants and the primary caregivers (typically parents) or early attachment has a tremendous impact on the health and well-being of children. The most important stage for development of an infant’s brain is at the beginning of life in utero and first couple years of life. In the first three years of life, the growth of the brain is amazingly rapid with an estimated rate of 700-1000 synapse connections per...
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Creating hope from adverse childhood experiences
There is no doubt that the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences study by Anda and Felitti has shifted the landscape of how we think about childhood. The ACEs study established the link between early adverse experiences and later negative outcomes. A brief overview of the key areas of early adversity included in the ACEs study are: (1) physical abuse, (2) sexual abuse, (4) physical neglect, (5) emotional neglect, (6) having a parent with a mental illness, (7) having a parent with substance...
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D. D. Kirkland School features innovation, partnerships
A t the invitation of an early education expert with the Potts Family Foundation , I attended the Aug. 14 D.D. Kirkland Early Childhood Center Screening Day and Meet the Teacher event. I should add that this retired high school teacher did not grasp the importance of high-quality pre-K until I was schooled by Ray Potts (as well as John Rex) during MAPS for Kids. Back then, there were still some doubts as to the benefits of pre-K and full-service community schools like D.D. Kirkland. I should...
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Dekker: Mindfulness training at schools aims to help students cope
Tulsa has a variety of innovative health and wellness programs targeting the young to the elderly, including one aimed to prevent children from lashing out when faced with stressful situations. The new program, called “mindfulness training,” is coordinated through Family & Children’s Services and incorporates yoga, breathing exercises and other strategies. “There are groups of kids who have challenges with anger, getting along with others,” said Ginger Page, principal at Wright...
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Denwalt: A year after cutting child abuse prevention funds, state OKs new grants
The Oklahoma Department of Health has restored funding for child abuse prevention after it was cut during the state's budget crisis nearly a year ago. Nonprofit community agencies across the state will again receive their share of about $2 million, which will be used for in-home support of new parents. Before the program was defunded, it served 700 families who were expecting a child or had young children in the home. Beverly Washington, director of Youth and Family Services for Hughes and...
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Denwalt: Oklahoma trying to overcome top rank for emotional, physical childhood trauma
Oklahoma children are more likely to experience toxic, adverse conditions at home than children in other states, but there is hope for a better future, Senate lawmakers were told Thursday. State health officials said recent studies show Oklahoma ranks as the worst in the nation when it comes to the number of adverse childhood experiences. Such experiences include neglect and abuse, drug use in the home, exposure to domestic violence, living with someone who is mentally ill, having an...
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Dorman: Reducing childhood trauma may affect addiction, incarceration rates [JournalRecord.com]
With the upcoming task force formed by Senate Bill 1517, I am confident Oklahoma has taken a major step forward in overcoming the high rate of adverse childhood experiences that affects our residents. For those of you not familiar with ACEs, this is the study of childhood trauma and the associated health-related conditions that follow into adulthood. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on...
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DR. ROBERT BLOCK: A pediatrician’s perspective on ACEs, resilience
As an academic and clinical pediatrician with over 40 years of experience, I was impressed and amazed when I first heard Dr. Vince Felitti speak about his ground-breaking work on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), first published in 1998. For the last several years a multitude of professionals have been working on the clinical (practical) application of his work, and more have been learning about the genetics, brain chemistry, and other scientific explanations for his findings. The core...
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Early Childhood Is Critical to Health Equity
The first few years of life are crucial in establishing a child’s path toward—or away from—health and well-being across the entire lifespan. A report, produced in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, examines some of the barriers to health equity that begin early in life, and promising strategies for overcoming them. Key Findings Poverty limits childrens’ and families’ options for healthy living conditions. Poverty can limit where children live, and can lead to...
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Embrace OKC seeks to prevent mental illness in OKCPS
A t the Oklahoma City Public School System working board meeting Sept. 24, Oklahoma Department of Mental Health Commissioner Terri White introduced a “historic” collaboration. She explained that the OKCPS has committed to Embrace OKC , a holistic process to study and systematically address the district’s mental health challenges. Other districts have joined with the Department of Mental Health and other service providers in the past, but no other leader has tackled these health problems in...
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Eradicating the roots of childhood trauma [indianapolisrecorder.com]
On the east side of Indianapolis in late March, a barrage of bullets sprayed through a home, killing 1-year-old Malaysia Robson as she slept on the couch. It was a drive-by shooting in the middle of the night by two men in their late 20s. It’s the kind of violence that can shake a community, leaving its distraught members wondering how much more they can take. Community violence — and other forms of trauma — are especially harmful for children. They’re called adverse childhood experiences...
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Re: Killman: Day 1: Breaking the cycle
Good afternoon, Do you have the information on the showing of Resilience at Stillwater on July 24th? Thank you, Jennifer Jesse, RN-BSN Young Child Wellness Community Coordinator Research and Public Health Chickasaw Nation Department of Health 1925 Warrior Way Ada, OK 74820 Phone: (580)436-3980 Ext. 86200 IMPORTANT NOTICE: This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from...
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Re: New Community!!! Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative
Welcome Ardmore OK Behavioral Health Collaborative and Ashley! As fellow Oklahomans, we're excited that you now have a presence on ACEsConnection. We look forward to working together in the effort to raise Oklahoma from the bottom 25 to the top 25 of states with positive childhood well-being indicators.
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Re: Limited Dollars, Significant Influence: How We Advocate, Convene & Catalyze
Dear Ms. Pat Potts: I hope you will also be able to secure a position on the State's Adverse Childhood Experiences Task Force. You would be a mighty voice for action with on that team! I think everything you are doing is life-changing and life-saving work. You are making an impact and generational shift in our State that is launching us into a new direction of hope-centeredness with overall improved health, wellness and nurturing outcomes as we all partner to overcome trauma in Oklahoma.
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WIAIMH: Tips for Supporting Infants and Young Children’s Transition as we Re-Open
The global health pandemic has been stressful on everyone, including our children. As we look towards resuming life amidst evolving changes, it will take time as children and adults alike adjust. Our new normal may still include varying degrees of uncertainty, stress, change and exposure to trauma. As you support children in your care during this transition, the following may be helpful to keep in mind: You might notice changes in behavior, emotions, and social interactions. These behaviors...
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Kelly: Child Welfare Alarmism Paints Unfair Picture of Families
If we learn only one lesson from the pandemic, it must be that family is essential. Not just our own family or families that look like ours do, but all families. We should not need a public health crisis to remind us of this simple and very human truth. Most of us realize, although perhaps may not always fully appreciate, just how vital family is in our lives. Relationships can be complicated, and we might not always get along with all our family members, but at the end of the day family is...
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ACEs Connection reaches 200 participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau!
ACEs Connection is proud to announce we have reached 200 Speakers & Trainers participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau! What is the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau? The ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau is a service that provides subscribers of ACEsConnection a Database of ACEs speakers and trainers for hire. The development of the Speakers & Trainers Bureau was in response to a great need expressed by our communities. ACEs...
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2020 State of Babies & 2020 KIDS COUNT Databook
The State of Babies Yearbook is a national and state resource developed by ZERO TO THREE to tell the story of America’s babies through key indicators in the domains infants and toddlers need to thrive: Good Health , Strong Families , and Positive Early Learning Experiences . The State of Babies Yearbook , an initiative of Think Babies ™, provides policymakers and advocates with national and state-level data to help them advance policies to improve the lives of babies and families. Where...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
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...
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Offset trauma for students by promoting positive experiences [exclusive.multibriefs.com]
By Sheilamary Koch, Multibriefs: Exclusive, July 27, 2020 When Christina Bethell was little, she lived in a low-income housing complex in Los Angeles where her neighbor, a quiet lady the kids called Mrs. Raccoon, always had her door open for the neighborhood kids. Every Saturday she threw a little tea party with candy to celebrate any child with a birthday that week. Bethell fondly remembers the woman’s kindness as source of comfort during her challenging childhood. Dr. Bethell, now a...
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Oklahoma Turning Point Conference - 8.25.20
Please join us for this virtual conference of Oklahoma Turning Point. Keynote speaker is Tonier Cain “Healing Neen”, international trauma care expert and trauma survivor. There will also be panel discussions on the following topics: Handle with Care Oklahoma & RESTORE Task Force Tobacco Best Practices & Policy Updates/TSET & Shawnee Blue Zone A Culture of Hope & Community Health Planning Featured panelists include: Oklahoma First Lady Sarah Stitt; Oklahoma Secretary of Human...
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Resilience in the Face of Covid-19: What the Data Shows [positiveexperience.org/blog]
Dr. Robert Sege, 7/29/20, positiveexperience.org/blog In times and places when Covid-19 is on the upsurge, most of us worry about our own safety and that of the ones we love. Is it a safe to go to work? It is safe for children to go to school? When will the pandemic and this uncertainty ever stop? At other times, public health restrictions are first in our minds—we can’t gather to celebrate or mourn, we need to wear masks to protect others even if we don’t feel sick ourselves, and every...
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Oklahoma Association for Infant Mental Health (OK-AIMH) - Fall Conference
You are invited to join the OKAIMH's [virtual] Fall Conference, Wednesday, October 21st, 11:30 - 4:30, with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, based on her new book The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul. Whether we are overwhelmed by work or school; our families or communities; caretaking for others or ourselves; or engagement in social justice, environmental advocacy, or civil service, just a few subtle shifts can help sustain us. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, bestselling author of Trauma...
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Fugate: Opportunity [OK Representative Andy Fugate]
Each year the United States spends approximately $20 Billion to provide rental assistance to low-income families through Housing Choice Vouchers . What? You’ve never heard of Housing Choice Vouchers? Perhaps you know them by the more common name, Section 8 Housing. Under the law, this money can be spent in any neighborhood within a Housing Authority's jurisdiction. But most of the 2.2 million families using vouchers continue to live in high-poverty, low-opportunity neighborhoods. The...
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Hope and Progress, No Matter What! — an ACEs Connection/Cambia Health Foundation “Better Normal”, Oct. 22, 2020
The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not.
What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.
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O’Donnell: Opening 'so many doors for families': COVID-19 underscores importance of wraparound care for new moms and children
For once, being a biracial, low income, Medicaid patient didn't work against Selina Martinez. In 2015, two weeks after giving birth at a Manhattan hospital, Martinez arrived at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx where she was diagnosed with salmonella. During a monthlong stay, hospital staff members learned times were tough for the new mom. She'd been getting psychiatric care since the stillbirth of her last child, her husband was recovering at home from pancreatic cancer treatment and a...
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Enid News & Eagle: Online forum to tackle childhood trauma
Woodward Area Coalition, Evolution Foundation and the Potts Family Foundation will host a virtual screening and panel discussion, Nov. 11-14, of “Resilience,” a documentary that examines adverse childhood experiences and their long-lasting effects. The documentary “reveals how toxic stress can trigger hormones that wreak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at risk for disease, homelessness, prison time and early death,” and “chronicles the dawn of a movement determined...
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Building Equitable Futures for Oklahoma’s Children: An Early Childhood Research and Policy Series
Oklahoma’s top early childhood advocacy group and the state’s only early childhood research institute are partnering to offer a new, multi-session conference to highlight early childhood research, initiatives, and policy. “Building Equitable Futures for Oklahoma’s Children: An Early Childhood Research and Policy Series,” presented by Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness (OPSR) and the Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI), is Dec. 9, 2020, Jan. 13, 2021 and Feb 10, 2021 . Each of...
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Lesley: These Commonsense Measures Can Lift up America’s Children
Public discourse in this election year has largely ignored the plight of our nation’s children. Debates and position platforms have glossed over what the COVID-19 pandemic has meant for their stability and well-being. And despite a new study released last week finding that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children, candidates and elected officials have remained largely silent. Even as the virus has...
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Campbell: Exploring the Biological Inheritance of Childhood Trauma
We know from history that traumatic experiences in childhood can have long-lasting effects, impacting both the physical body and our mental health. Research has shown that these stressful experiences in life can also impact the offspring of individuals whom have endured trauma. This contradicts some of the basic underpinnings of genetic hereditary. How can experiences in life affect our gametes – the sperm and egg cells – which pass on hereditary information through DNA to our offspring?
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Knutson & Manaugh: Raising Resilient Oklahomans
Three years ago, the Potts Family Foundation began a journey like nothing we had pursued before. We purchased a license to show the documentary "Resilience - The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope." The film defines adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress, and explains the impact on the human brain, especially in early childhood. Since October 2017, we have shown the film 204 times to more than 13,000 Oklahomans. PFF is a dual-missioned, private family foundation...
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Staff: OK Policy: Census data, new Kids Count report show Oklahoma families facing 'unimaginable choices' during pandemic
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2020 Kids Count report, released Tuesday, states that “schools have been disrupted so profoundly (by the COVID-19 pandemic) that the effects could damage the prospects of an entire generation of young people.” The COVID-19 pandemic is having an “outsized” impact on children and communities of color, with a new report indicating that roughly 1 in 3 Oklahoma households with children expressed some belief in October that they would experience an eviction or...
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Cultivating the Growth of Resilience
Trauma impacts lives on the individual, familial, community and societal level. Historically, we have addressed the resulting symptoms of trauma with treatments of therapy, education, and all too often imprisonment. However, putting preventative factors in place can avert the symptoms, outcome and resulting negative impacts. Prevention begins with understanding how trauma impacts lives and why it impacts our brains and bodies before we can fully understand what we can do to mitigate its...
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Butler: Finding Resilience: How childhood trauma impacts future health outcomes
It's now well known that childhood experiences helps shape an individual’s personality long before they reach adulthood. Studies have also gone on to reenforce just how critical adverse childhood experiences can on an adult's health. These adverse childhood experiences are commonly referred to as ACEs. They fall into three categories: abuse, neglect and household disfunction. According to information compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as the number of ACEs a child experiences...
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Ardmore Hosts Successful Documentary Screening & Discussion
The Potts Family Foundation through its Raising Resilient Oklahomans initiative partnered this past week with the Ardmore Behavioral Health Collaborative and Ardmore Literacy Leadership to host a very successful virtual screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary Resilience: The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope. As we always do, the weekend screening period was followed by a moderated panel discussion of professionals, mostly local, who frequently work with children...
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Oklahoma bill promotes mental health resources
Rep. Jeff Boatman, R-Tulsa, filed two bills to provide mental health resources and training for students and educators. House Bill 1568 would add mental health instruction to health education curriculum. Starting in the 2022-2023 school year, the State Board of Education would collaborate with the Oklahoma Dept. of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS) to adopt standards and approve age-appropriate curriculum options for students in grades kindergarten through 12. Boatman said...
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Hope and Resilience Are Distinct Contributors to Survivor Well-Being
The purpose of this post is to provide a direct response to Cheryl Step’s “ Resilience: The Foundation of Hope .” First, we do not object to the term resilience in everyday conversation. However, in the research and practice literature, resilience (or resiliency) has suffered from a myriad of inconsistent definitions and conceptualizations that leave researchers and professionals with uncertainty about what it means to guide practice. We notice Cheryl considers resilience using several other...
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Educators embrace trauma-informed instruction in fourth statewide summit
OKLAHOMA CITY (Feb. 16, 2021) – While many schools across the state were close d Monday due to winter weather, thousands of Oklahoma educators spent their snow y President’s Day learning how to recognize trauma in students and create teaching strategies to overcome stress and fear that can obstruct learning. The Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) estimated up to 4,500 teachers, counselors and other school leaders attended its fourth statewide summit for trauma-informed instruction...
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NEAR Science is Coming to Oklahoma!
By the end of March, Oklahoma will have 30 certified Master Trainers prepared to canvass our state and engage and motivate individuals and communities to prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and improve well-being. The Master Trainer program is facilitated by Dr. Robert Anda and Laura Porter of ACE Interface , a company that provides education, analysis, process design, facilitation, and products designed to increase networks of trainers to disseminate education across communities.
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A Lifetime of Health and Wellness Starts Early
As we sit amidst a pandemic, I marvel at the difference in how each person is navigating this shared traumatic space. What makes some of us carry on with little impact on our mental health and wellness, while others struggle to get through life’s daily tasks? I believe it is Resilience. Resilience isn’t something you are born with. It is complex and developed over time, through personal experiences and environments, through parenting and opportunities, through responses from those who are...
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Heal the Forest for the Tree
“ Trauma always happens within a context, and so does healing. To understand the impact of trauma means being acutely sensitive to the environment—to the conditions under which people grew up, to how they live today, and to the journeys they have taken along the way .” (Andrea Blanch, Beth Filson, and Darby Penney National Center for Trauma Informed Care guidebook) Creating an environment that exudes calm, safety, and compassion is a goal of trauma-informed systems. It is a profound paradigm...