Tagged With "COVID 19"
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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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A CALL TO ACTION: COVID-19, HOUSING INSTABILITY, AND HEALTH
From Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, March 23, 2020 COVID-19 – A Public Health Emergency Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness caused by a novel virus that is spreading rapidly across the globe. Currently, there are over 33,000 cases in the United Statesi . Globally, over 12,000 deaths have been attributed to the illness since it emerged three months ago. In the Bay Area, efforts to respond to the virus are increasing rapidly. On March 17, six Bay Area...
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A Message to California Health Care Providers About COVID-19 and Toxic Stress [acesaware.org]
By Nadine Burke Harris and Karen Mark, ACEs Aware, March 30, 2020 Our global community is facing confusing and uncertain times. As the unprecedented novel coronavirus continues to spread, the health and safety of our nearly 40 million Californians is the number-one priority for our state, the Office of the California Surgeon General, and the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS). This includes the physical, mental, and psychological well-being of all individuals. As the crisis deepens,...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus [tolerance.org]
Experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network share their recommendations for educators supporting students during the COVID-19 crisis. By TEACHING TOLERANCE STAFF MARCH 23, 2020 L ast week, as schools across the nation closed their doors to slow the spread of the coronavirus, TT reached out to our community to learn what support you needed at this time. Among the most common responses was a call for trauma-informed practices to support students over the coming weeks and months.
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AAPI Women Lead Community Care Series
COMMUNITY CARE SERIES An online series of workshops, interviews, exercises that are led by our community leaders to help us understand what is going on with the pandemic and what we can do (including health and wellness lessons), specifically as Asian and Pacific Islander communities. [Click here to access series of videos] Recent episodes: 10-min grounding meditation to support you though COVID-19 Dr. Jennifer Mullan from @DecolonizingTherapy Eastern Medicine's Response to COVID-19 with...
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ACEs champion pediatricians talk about life and practice in a COVID-19 world
With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers everywhere are changing how they care for their patients. I asked a few members of the ACEs in Pediatrics community what they’re doing differently. Dr. R.J Gillespie, pediatrician at The Children’s Clinic in Portland, OR. Dr. R.J. Gillespie Gillespie says that, as much as possible, they’re switching to virtual visits, which allows them “to comfort and reassure our patients face-to-face as much as possible without risking their...
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ACEs Connection's COVID-19 resources for parents, educators & people practicing resilience (all of us)
We are in uncertain times. Homelife has changed. School schedules have changed. Our communities are not the same. Work, if we have it, has changed, too. The world is different and we don't know for how long. We don't know what our lives will look like on the other side, either. We are worried about health, housing, security, and our loved ones. We generally have more stress and less support, as we are taking care of our families, ourselves, and each other. It’s a lot, and for those dealing...
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Opinion: Screenings Alone Won’t Prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences—We Must Address Community Trauma [calhealthreport.org]
By Rachel A. Davis and Howard Pinderhughes, California Health Report, December 19, 2019 Earlier this month, California’s Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris launched an ambitious campaign to reduce adverse childhood experiences, which can cause lifelong health problems. With more than 60 percent of Californians saying they were exposed to a traumatic childhood event, adverse childhood experiences are at crisis levels in the state. The ACEs Aware campaign will train and pay health care...
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Positive Childhood Experiences offset ACEs: Q & A with Dr. Robert Sege about HOPE
Tufts University medical professor Dr. Robert Sege directs the Center for Community-Engaged Medicine and is nationally known for his research on effective health systems approaches that address social determinants of health. He is also the principal investigator for the HOPE framework (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences).The HOPE framework is based on research that shows how positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Sege and colleagues...
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Primary Care & Telehealth Strategies for Addressing the Secondary Health Impacts of COVID-19 [acesaware.org]
From ACEs Aware, May 13, 2020 This webinar will focus on building understanding and identifying primary care and telehealth strategies and tools to address the secondary health effects of the COVID-19 emergency. Widespread stress and anxiety regarding COVID-19, compounded by the economic distress due to lost wages, employment and financial assets; mass school closures; and necessary physical distancing measures can result in an increase of stress-related health conditions. These secondary...
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Quakes and Tremors: What Foundations Can Do to Safeguard Childhood Wellbeing in the Wake of a Pandemic [fsg.org]
MARCH 31, 2020 | URSULA WRIGHT The world is experiencing a series of quakes and tremors caused by a global pandemic. The quakes are the unprecedented shocks and strains we are witnessing in our health, economic, and education systems. Tremors, on the other hand, are far less obvious because their disruptions occur at a much deeper level and during timeframes when the average individual may feel that they have successfully distanced themselves from the more pronounced quake(s). Both...
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Racial Minorities More at Risk in the Workplace and the Economy [escholarship.org]
By Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, May 6, 2020 The latest Berkeley IGS Poll reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic is having especially large effects on the safety and economic well-being of people of color in California. Racial minorities are significantly more likely to report having jobs that place them in regular contact with others and they are more concerned that their jobs place them at risk of contracting the disease. When it comes to safety in...
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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Safe & Sound: Integrating protective factors and ACEs science to end child abuse in San Francisco in 50 years
It was almost a ritual, but one that regularly disrupted the parenting class at a San Francisco-based child abuse prevention organization. Every time a siren blared in the streets below, a female participant bolted out of the room to seek safety in the windowless interior rooms of the multilevel labyrinthine white Victorian that houses Safe & Sound . Molly Jardiniano And it didn’t just happen in the parenting class. “When she heard the fire trucks, she said she would become paralyzed,...
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San Mateo County Child Care Response Team: Resources for Families
The San Mateo County Child Care Response Team has created a quick, easy-to-read, summary of essential community resources for families with children ages 0-18 who are struggling as a result of COVID-19. Available in English , Spanish , and Chinese . The resource pages are linked above, and attached in this post. They also live on San Mateo County Office of Educations's For Families page: https://www.smcoe.org/other/for-families/ Please help us share these documents widely! Thank you. SMC...
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Sesame Workshop and BTC Team Up to Help with Big Scary Feelings during the COVID-19 Crisis
Caring for Each Other: How to Use Sesame Street in Communities Resources for Health Emergencies with Families Now Wednesday, April 1, 2020 @ 3 PM ET We're all in this together, and that's why we're all coming together. Sesame Workshop and the Brazelton Touchpoints Center are partnering on a webinar series, beginning April 1st, to share online resources that can help us handle the sudden changes in our lives when we face health emergencies like the one that confronts us today. As a result of...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Special education in the age of coronavirus: How Bay Area parents and teachers are coping [mercurynews.com]
By SHAYNA RUBIN | srubin@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: May 21, 2020 at 10:59 a.m. | UPDATED: May 21, 2020 at 3:20 p.m. Distance learning in the COVID-19 era has put a strain on all families, but especially those with children with special education needs. “No one was ready. Obviously, we didn’t see this coming,” said Christina Schmidt, executive vice president of the Palo Alto Council of Parent Teacher Associations. And parents, she said, can be caught unaware of how...
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The Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants
The Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants (DRAI) project is a one-time state-funded disaster relief assistance for undocumented adult immigrants impacted by COVID-19. An undocumented adult who qualifies can receive $500 in direct assistance, with a maximum of $1000 in assistance per household. How do I apply for the DRAI Program? Starting May 18th, if you are eligible to apply for this assistance, you may seek assistance with the nonprofit organization(s) assigned to your county of...
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Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens [developingchild.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff and David R. Williams, Center on the Developing Child, April 27, 2020 The COVID-19 virus is ruthlessly contagious and, at the same time, highly selective. Its capacity to infect is universal, but the consequences of becoming infected are not. While there are exceptions, children are less likely to show symptoms, older adults and those with pre-existing medical conditions are the most susceptible, and communities of color in the United States are experiencing dramatically...
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Thrive, Alliance for Nonprofits for San Mateo County: COVID-19 Response
Thrive has put together a list of resources for non-profits in San Mateo County, including where to refer clients and staff for essential services, how to seek emergency funding, ways to stay connected with other nonprofits and more. Main page: https://www.thrivealliance.org/covid-19 Navigation pages: - Giving Opportunity - Essential Services - Request Help& Seek Connections - Resources for Nonprofits - Advocacy - Events - San Mateo County Updates - News for Nonprofits -Partners Resources
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Virtual Dialogue: Native American Communities and the Covid-19 Fight
From Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center: Our four-part series of race equity and COVID-19’s impact will conclude with a free virtual dialogue centering on Native American communities. As of mid-April, the health authority for the Navajo Nation, which includes areas of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, reported 1,197 positive coronavirus cases and 44 deaths. If it were a state, it would rank third in the country for confirmed cases per 100,000 people behind only New York and New Jersey,...
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'We Carry That Burden.' Medical Workers Fighting COVID-19 Are Facing a Mental Health Crisis [time.com]
BY TARA LAW APRIL 10, 2020 As a critical care doctor in New York City , Monica is used to dealing with high-octane situations and treating severely ill patients. But she says the COVID-19 outbreak is unlike anything she’s seen before. Over the past few weeks, operating rooms have been transformed into ICUs, physicians of all backgrounds have been drafted into emergency room work, and two of her colleagues became ICU patients. While Monica is proud of her coworkers for rising to the...
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We Must Address the Surge in Adverse Childhood Experiences [medium.com]
From the National Head Start Association, February 19, 2020 Day in and day out, in nearly every U.S. community, the nation’s 1,600 Head Start programs tirelessly serve children from at-risk backgrounds ages birth to five and their families with a comprehensive model specifically designed to strengthen families, promote school readiness, and improve child health. Head Start programs are heralded for their outcomes by researchers, praised by families, and widely-supported in their communities.
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We're All in This Together - COVID-19 Statement and Resources [childrennow.org]
From Children Now, The Children's Movement of California, March 18, 2020 Children Now is deeply concerned about the severe impact of the novel coronavirus on California’s children and families, especially children of color, families in poverty, families that are undocumented, and kids experiencing or who have experienced trauma. During this time, we are continuing to keep children and their families at the center of our work. We are diligently monitoring a range of national, state and local...
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Webinar on Becoming Trauma-Informed: What Does this Mean for Non-Clinical Staff?
Join this webinar to learn or teach staff how to understand trauma and identify how to apply trauma-informed principles even in non-clinical work.
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Webinar Series: Addressing Abuse and Neglect During COVID-19 [zerotothree.org]
Social distancing and sheltering are stressful. With little outside social support or respite, children are at a greater risk for harsh disciplinary practices, abuse, and neglect. And for those responsible for children, the stressors are tenfold and directly felt by babies and young children. Join us for a 5-part guided reflection webinar series to consider the impact on children, families, your staff and services. Connect with your community of support to gain actionable trauma-informed...
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April Webinars from Embrace Race
WEBINAR: Thursday, April 16th, 8:30 to 9:30 pm ET What the COVID-19 Crisis Tells Us about Structural Racism Even as COVID-19 leaves its mark across the length and breadth of the United States, we know that some communities are being hit harder than others. The overrepresentation of Black and Brown people among COVID victims in New York City has received lots of attention because of the huge numbers involved, but the pattern repeats itself almost everywhere we have the data to document it.
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BARHII: Seeking Consultants for COVID-19 Response
The Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) is the coalition of the Bay Area’s governmental public health departments. This unique collaboration of public health officials, senior managers, and staff have come together to transform public health practice in order to eliminate health inequities. BARHII is a forum in which health departments teach and learn from each other, as well as use the principles of evidence-based public health and the collective influence of local...
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Bruce Perry, MD, PhD. Staying Emotionally Close in the Time of COVID-19 [thetraumatherapistprojecect.com]
By Guy Macpherson, The Trauma Therapist Project, March 2020 Dr. Bruce Perry is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy and an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. In addition to having written more than two hundred scientific articles, Dr. Perry has coauthored with Maia Szalavitz two books for general audiences: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories...
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Bystander Intervention to stop anti-Asian/American and xenophobic harassment
As you know, anti-Asian and Asian American and xenophobic harassment are on the rise across the U.S. Unfortunately, anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia is not a new phenomenon. It has been part of our histories for a long time, and we have seen it manifested against different communities in many ways over the years. As the coronavirus pandemic escalates, we have seen more harassment, discrimination, and even violence directed at our communities. The Asian Americans Advancing...
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California 2018 State Profile
Hi, Everyone: Here’s the state profile for California. To review the entire profile, open the PDF that is attached to this post. If you have corrections or additions, please leave them in the comments section of this post. We’ll be reviewing the comments regularly and doing fact-checks. The information you give us will also help us determine how to organize and expand the information in the state profiles. We will be turning this post into a living profile that, with your help and input,...
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California’s Surgeon General Readies Statewide Screening for Child Trauma [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, Chronicle of Social Change, September 19, 2019 Soon after being appointed California’s first-ever surgeon general, Nadine Burke Harris took off on a barnstorming tour across the state to talk about adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress, an issue she calls “the biggest public health crisis facing California today.” Before the pediatrician was appointed to her position in January by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Harris had founded and led the Center for Youth Wellness,...
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Coronavirus underscores need for healing America’s racial divisions [sfchronicle.com]
By Shawn Ginwright, April 14, 2020 The reports of racial disparities among COVID-19 victims should not surprise us. African Americans and Latinos have typically experienced disproportionate exposure to a range of health issues. For example, African Americans are twice as likely to die of heart disease as their white counterparts. Consider that Latinos are 50% more likely than whites to die of diabetes or liver disease. These issues are not determined by biology, but by a history of policies...
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COVID-19: Mental health and well-being for ourselves and our children [news.berkeley.edu]
By Yasmin Anwar, Berkeley News, April 17, 2020 The intense social isolation, stress and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 is shaping up to be its own mental health pandemic. Already, spikes in post-traumatic stress disorder are being documented among vulnerable populations, health workers and other front-line personnel. In the latest in a series of Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19 live webcasts, UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner , Sonia Bishop and Frank Worrell offered advice on how to...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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Doctor-patient role-playing featured in ACEs Connection webinar
On an ACEs Connection webinar on Monday, Dr. Andrew Seaman, an assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, showed how he navigates his students through the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). And, in an unusual twist for a webinar, Seaman and O’Nesha Cochran, a peer mentor with the Mental Health Association of Oregon, role-played doctor-patient interactions to show how to develop the skills to communicate with patients with high ACE scores. About 90 people...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
All photos courtesy of Antioch Middle School staff Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up...
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Emotional Well-Being During the COVID-19 Crisis for Health Care Providers Webinar Series [ucsf.edu]
We know this is a difficult time for everyone, especially those of you who are serving patients. Please join us for an 8-week webinar series featuring mental health and emotional wellness experts showing how health care providers can reduce personal stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. These webinars are held via Zoom on Thursdays from noon–1:00 p.m. Advance registration is required. Participants are encouraged to submit questions in advance to help our speakers address the full range of...
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Family Caregiver Alliance: COVID-19 Webinar Series for Caregivers, Consumers, and Families
COVID-19 Webinar Series for Caregivers, Consumers, and Families Co-sponsored by the San Francisco Department of Disability and Aging Services Staying Well Together These are challenging times for all of us and this is especially true for those caring for someone who needs functional or cognitive support. This webinar will review the basics of the coronavirus (COVID-19), how to take precautions against its spread, how to be well while sheltering in place, and how to adjust to caregiving...
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First health-related cost of ACEs study shows $113 billion price tag for California; just one ACE costs $28 billion
Researchers who have been looking for a way to quantify the health toll of ACEs in dollar terms, now have an example in a newly-released study of California. ACEs exacted a toll costing an estimated $113 billion annually, according to the study in the journal PLOS One that was commissioned by the Center for Youth Wellness. ACEs-associated cardiovascular disease was the condition that lead author Ted Miller dubbed “the giant in the room.” It accounted for $29.6 billion in spending, more than...
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Four Core Priorities for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning [kqed.org]
By Kara Newhouse Apr 6 Trauma-informed teaching cannot be simplified to cookie-cutter practices. Take this example: a teacher worked with a student to develop a silent signal that he could use when he needed extra breaks during class. Hearing how well it worked, another teacher tried to apply the signal without first building a relationship with the student. It bombed. With the second teacher, the signal became “an angry ear tug instead of a trauma-informed ear tug,” said Alex Shevrin Venet...
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Got time for a little brainstorming with ACEsConnection?
On Friday, March 20, 2020, you're invited to join me to talk about how we, as a community, can continue to guide and educate ourselves about to deal with the effects of the spread of Covid-19, and how to continue those efforts with people who don't yet know about ACEs science. And, given this last week, how we can provide more support to stay in the front of our brains instead of feeding our amygdala.
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'Haven't Hugged My Mom in a Month:' Kids of Health Care Workers Feel the Strain [kqed.org]
By Sasha Khokha , Asal Ehsanipour Apr 17 As front line health care workers dedicate long hours to caring for patients during the COVID-19 crisis, life has changed for their own families — especially their children. Some hospital workers are staying away from their families to protect their kids. Others are living in the same house and taking extra precautions to avoid passing along the virus. Many children of nurses and doctors are navigating the unpredictability of life without regular...
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Healing in place: Game on to flip the COVID19 threat into a positive experience for our children
As I was considering the children sheltering-in-place this morning and reflecting on lessons from my own childhood, I wondered: Can we heal-in-place too? I was born after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, another collective trauma affecting everyone. Yet, it was nevertheless passed on to me by the adults in my life in the form of constant reminders that the U.S. could be blown into bits any second. When I started school, there were constant “hide under the chair” earthquake drills I took to be...
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Health Equity Policy Platform for COVID-19 Response and Recovery
From Human Impact Parters: A COVID-19 Public Health Response & Recovery Policy Platform Decades of underinvestment in our public infrastructure and neoliberal policies that gutted protections for working people, our healthcare, and our wider safety net are vividly exposing their consequences. People of color — most harshly Black, Latinx, and Native people — are disproportionately experiencing the consequences of these conditions. In this context, directly impacted communities are naming...