Tagged With "Toxic Stress"
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4 years after integrating ACEs science, Pueblo, CO clinic improves services for families; cuts ER costs, doctor stress
Four years ago, Dr. Leslie Dempsey would never have talked about ACEs — adverse childhood experiences — with her patients. Now ACEs is a common topic. “Just as I don’t feel awkward asking someone if they smoke or do intravenous drugs, I don’t really feel awkward talking about their childhood traumas in a way that it relates to their health. It’s just integrated into obtaining background and social history,” she says. Dr. Leslie Dempsey Dempsey is a physician in obstetrics who oversees a team...
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ACEs Research Corner — October 2018
[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Harris HR, Wieser F, Vitonis AF, Rich-Edwards J, et. al. Early life abuse and risk of endometriosis. Hum Reprod. 2018 Sep 1;33(9):1657-1668. PMID: 30016439 Using...
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ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...
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An imperative for those in "towers" to connect with the realities of trauma in schools
Boosting SEL in K-12's "Ivory Towers" Educational Leadership October 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 2 The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning Those of us in administration must lift our "social awareness" by getting closer to schools and the people inside them. The superintendent's leadership team for the district where I was working had just finished its Monday morning meeting. One member of that team stopped as he passed by my cubicle to view the large poster I'd recently hung up. It displayed...
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Balancing Gravity and Grace
Since we are all caught in the unpredictable, uncontrollable environment of Covid 19 right now, we are all experiencing trauma at one level or another. Some are experiencing much more fear, grief, anxiety, helplessness and overwhelming sense of vulnerability and loss of control. Others are just experiencing the creation of a work space at home, meeting co-workers virtually, and remaining at home as much as possible from obligation more than fear. Regardless of what level of stress you are...
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Belew: Oklahoma First Lady stops in Duncan, focuses on preventing adverse childhood experiences through tour and film screening
“The child may not remember but the body remembers.” That was the key saying behind the “Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope” film screening Thursday, Jan. 16 when First Lady Sarah Stitt brought the Hope Rising Tour to Duncan in an effort to educate and help prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) plaguing youth in the state. “Resilience” focuses on the concept of ACEs, which is now understood to be a leading cause of “everything from heart disease and cancer to...
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Better ACEs research, terms lead to better solutions by John Thompson
T here is a consistent pattern in the conferences sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation , such as its Raising Resilient Oklahomans! summit March 7 in Edmond. First, they update the cutting-edge scientific research on early education and on cognitive concerns, like the effects of adverse childhood experiences ( ACEs ). Then, national and local experts pioneer new ways of articulating these challenges in ways that advance a constructive search for solutions. The summit used new research and...
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Brannon: Tulane psychiatrist wins national award for research that shows how trauma seeps across generations
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) has selected Tulane child psychiatry professor Dr. Stacy Drury to receive the 2018 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement. The award recognizes the most significant paper published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by a child and adolescent psychiatrist within the last year. It’s a record fourth time a Tulane child psychiatrist has won the prestigious...
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Brene Brown: Why Experiencing Joy and Pain in a Group Is So Powerful
Today, our culture is in crisis. Many people have retreated to their ideological bunkers to hate from afar, dehumanizing others rather than risk having real, meaningful conversations across their differences. How will we find our way back to each other? It’s not by staying in our factions and echo chambers, pressured to conform to whatever viewpoints and ways of being are acceptable to our political and social groups. Instead, it will take a willingness to share our authentic stories,...
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Buchman: House Panel Takes Up Treatment of Childhood Trauma
WASHINGTON (CN) – During its first-ever hearing on the subject, the House Oversight Committee met Thursday with experts and survivors of childhood trauma, a day after an immigrant mother gave emotional testimony about the death of her baby daughter following their stay at a detention center. Thursday’s hearing comes on the heels of testimony delivered by Yazmin Juarez, the mother of a 19-month-old girl who died after 20 days in detention at a facility in Texas. Her story detailed the...
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Building Resilient, Self-Healing Communities
An exciting and somewhat logical outgrowth that has followed the Resilience documentary screenings sponsored by the Potts Family Foundation has been the creation of multidisciplinary teams formed to think about and take next steps within their communities. Led by Resilient Payne County, formed over two years ago, other communities are following a similar path in bringing key leaders together to assess their community’s strengths and define community needs around mitigating and preventing the...
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Caroline Miller: Back to School Anxiety - How to help kids manage worries and have a successful start to the school
The start of the new school year is exciting for most kids. But it also prompts a spike in anxiety: Even kids who are usually pretty easy-going get butterflies, and kids prone to anxiety get clingier and more nervous than usual. Parents feel the pain, too: Leaving a crying child at preschool isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. And having to talk a panicked first grader onto the bus or out of the car at school can be a real test of your diplomatic skills. Kids who normally have a little trouble...
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Child Mind Institute: Not All Attention Problems Are ADHD
Trouble paying attention is often first identified by a teacher who notices that a student seems more easily distracted than most other kids his age. Maybe the child takes an unusually long time to finish schoolwork in class. Maybe when the teacher calls on him, he doesn’t seem to have been following the lesson. Maybe he seems to tune out when instructions are given, or forget what he’s supposed to be doing. Maybe homework assignments often go missing. While all children, especially those...
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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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Conley: Month of May ushers in final weeks
As promised, I have diligently worked on putting kids and families first. I have worked with the Potts Family Foundation to move the conversation of children in trauma forward in House District 20. The Potts Family Foundation has a powerful video called, Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope. Together we brought this video to two of our school districts in HD20 and are working to bring it to the others for teachers’ professional development in August. Through House Bill...
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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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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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Eger: Day 5: ACES: Breaking the cycle: 'Waking up was miserable'
The kids at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore changed Kristin Atchley as an education professional. Tragedy there changed her as a person. Today, Atchley uses what she learned and lived through to teach others about the impact of chronic stressors on growing kids and how trauma rewires our brains. “I had a fully-developed brain as a 30-year-old. I knew I could get help and get through. Kids don’t always understand that,” she said. Atchley didn’t have the personal or professional...
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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: The Power of Hope to Mitigate Vicarious Trauma and Burnout
Thank you for posting this Casey! We have several groups now in Oklahoma working with Chan and many more in line! We love the Science of Hope and are incorporating it into our Resilience documentary showings and our work with the 20 Self-Healing Community teams.
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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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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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Ray: Translating Mindfulness to Distance Learning
The many challenges of this year have required people to cope with a range of external stressors. The United States is still navigating community response to George Floyd’s killing and racial inequities. Many are physically distancing and trying to survive economic fallout from the pandemic. As an adult, I find it hard to take things one day at a time, focus on my breath, and move forward with purpose and gratitude. Young people are looking for ways to cope and heal as well. At our middle...
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Study looks at kids' behavior at school [paulsvalleydailydemocrat.com]
From Pauls Valley Democrat, October 6, 2020 State Rep. Sherrie Conley, R-Newcastle, recently hosted an interim study examining the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress on children’s behavior in the classroom and efforts schools can take to help avoid suspension. The study was held before the House Common Education Committee. “Violence in the classroom has become a nationwide epidemic,” said Conley, whose District 20 includes an eastern portion of Garvin County. [...
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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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Online forum to tackle childhood trauma [enidnews.com]
By James Neal, Enid News & Eagle, November 6, 2020 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...
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Zeedyk: Casting long shadows: Children, young people and trust in a Covid world
In a new book, Scotland After The Virus, edited by Gerry Hassan and Simon Barrow, some of Scotland’s leading thinkers, writers and commentators contemplate the Covid pandemic and what it means for our future IN the winter of 1944, Nazi forces cut off food supplies to the Netherlands. Famine ensued, with people reduced to eating tulip bulbs, including mothers-to-be carrying babies yet unborn. Luckily, the famine was short-lived, although not before 20,000 people died. It ended when Allied...
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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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The Research Behind the Resilience Documentary [careinnovations.org]
By Center for Care Innovations, January 15, 2021 The Resilient Beginnings Network at CCI recently screened Resilience: The Biology of Stress and The Science of Hope a documentary by the late James Redford, a film that traces the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and resilience. As the makers of Resilience explain, “Toxic stress can trigger hormones that weak havoc on the brains and bodies of children, putting them at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, incarceration, and...
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What I Learned From Presenting a Trauma-informed Class to Police Chiefs by Christopher Freeze
I'm pretty sure I learned as much or more about trauma-informed policing while presenting the class as did the police chiefs who attended. After not presenting at all during 2020, I was excited to be invited to present a block of instruction on Trauma-Informed Leadership for Police Chiefs at the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police 2021 Winter Conference. There were about 50 chiefs in attendance on January 14, 2021, and while we all had to deal with the COVID precautions, it was good...
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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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Resilience: The Foundation of Hope
I respect and appreciate the research and science of Hope and think people should learn about Chan Hellman's work. I do not believe you can replace resilience with Hope. They are two distinct concepts that work together to bring about trauma integration. I believe, and science research supports the idea, that children or adults living in adversity and toxic stress must first achieve some aspects of resilience before we can ask them to strengthen their decision-making and goal setting skills...
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3Realms of ACEs
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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.