Tagged With "Mind Matters"
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ACEs gets a day at the (Sacramento) Capitol!
No matter where you are, be sure to follow the events of the day on twitter: Follow @acestoohigh and #4CAKidsDay17 to get live updates all day.
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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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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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"Resilience" Comes to Santa Clara
In the first of a series of planned screenings of the film Resilience , the Santa Clara ACEs Connection community offered a panel led discussion about how to bring trauma informed practice and resilience building to the entire county. Rhoda Blankenship, Director of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health for County Public Health Department, emceed the event, along with Andrew Cain, both of whom sit on the Santa Clara community collaborative steering committee. Following opening remarks by...
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San Bruno, CA, police reduce stress, burn-out with mindfulness
When Officer John Hampton of the San Bruno Police Department in San Bruno, CA, first heard that mindfulness training was being offered to him and his fellow cops, he had two reactions. John Hampton “I think my major reaction was: ‘Oh, there’s some hippy thing that they’re trying to get cops to do,’” he said. “When I say that, it’s funny because that’s not my voice. It’s the caricature of a police officer-like voice. In the back of my mind, I was interested and open to it, but that police...
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San Bruno, CA, police reduce stress, burn-out with mindfulness
When Officer John Hampton of the San Bruno Police Department in San Bruno, CA, first heard that mindfulness training was being offered to him and his fellow cops, he had two reactions. John Hampton “I think my major reaction was: ‘Oh, there’s some hippy thing that they’re trying to get cops to do,’” he said. “When I say that, it’s funny because that’s not my voice. It’s the caricature of a police officer-like voice. In the back of my mind, I was interested and open to it, but that police...
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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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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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Youth court banishes blame; leads with ACEs science
YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...
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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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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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Looking for a way to explain the link between trauma and the current immigration child separations? Check out these articles from a host of experts
Here is a roundup of a few articles by experts in various fields that provide context and detail to the understanding that child separations are more than a saddening inconvenience- they are detrimental to the emotional and physical well-being of young people.
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Learning How to Convince Leaders to Create Trauma-Informed Programs, Systems and Environments.
How do you build a narrative around ACEs science, bolster it with data and convince your leadership that integrating it is critical for the community you serve? Representatives from San Francisco Bay Area health and social service agencies had an opportunity on December 5 to learn about ACEs science, find data sets to help them make a case for supporting ACEs education and resiliency programs, and then role play ways to deliver powerful messages. Donielle Prince, ACEs Connection Network’s...
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Everyday Heroes: Child Care is No Small Matter [nosmallmatter.com]
America’s early learning infrastructure was fragile even before COVID-19. But the pandemic has pushed it to the brink of collapse. Half of all child care sites are currently closed and the ones that remain open do so at great risk to the health of providers and their families. With no other option but to stay home with their infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, millions of parents will be unable to return to work, paralyzing efforts to restart the nation’s economy. What has suddenly become...
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Board of Supervisors Codify their Commitment to Black Lives Matter [gethealthysmc.org]
At the June 23 rd County Board of Supervisor meeting, the supervisors unanimously voted on a resolution supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and reaffirming the County’s commitment to racial equity. The most important part of the Board meeting was how many people turned out to express their deep commitment to racial justice. There were speakers on the overall agenda, the budget, the resolution, the measure to extend the eviction moratorium and the vast majority specifically spoke about...
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San Mateo County voted to recognize Black Lives Matter, then OKd 310 more Tasers [LAtimes.com]
By SUSANNE RUST STAFF WRITER JUNE 27, 2020 MENLO PARK — As Bay Area communities adopt resolutions supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, one Silicon Valley county this week voted to stockpile its Sheriff’s Department with nearly $1 million in new Taser guns. On Wednesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors approved a budget that includes the purchase of 310 new Tasers. The approval of the Taser purchase is coming under fire, in part because it occurred just minutes after the...
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Inspired by Black Lives Matter, BART will de-emphasize police for homelessness and drug use calls [sfchronicle.com]
Rachel Swan June 26, 2020 BART plans to shift police away from calls related to homelessness, drug use and mental health crises as the transit agency heeds reform calls from the Black Lives Matter movement. Over the next three months, the Board of Directors will work with General Manager Bob Powers to change the transit agency’s law enforcement model, emphasizing social services instead of officers with guns. Four progressive directors introduced the plan as an amendment to BART’s 2021...
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Affirmation Cards
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Culture of Care Affirmation Cards
These cards were first shared at the First 5 San Mateo County Culture of Care event in November 2019. We laid them out at the registration table, and let people choose whichever affirmations spoke to them. We didn't share the digital files earlier, but I recently came across them and thought people might be interested in using and sharing them now. Image files and a PDF are attached below. The PDF is also housed in our file directory here:...
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Antiracism in Social-Emotional Learning: Why It’s Not Enough to Talk the Talk [edsurge.com]
By Tony Weaver, Jr. Jun 16, 2020 If there’s one thing Americans are doing right now, it’s talking. Talking even more than usual when schools are out and many are still working from home. Every day, new stories of discrimination and violence emerge that prompt new conversations. The moment our country faces weighs heavily on the mind of an adult. But one must wonder: What does it do to the mind of a child? Black students around the country are faced with a reality where they are isolated...
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Racial Equity in Your PTO or PTA: What Are You Doing? [ptotoday.com]
Leaders and experts weigh in on involvement and communication strategies that can bring people together effectively. by Elizabeth S. Leaver 07/08/2020 What is your PTO doing to be more racially equitable? How are you reaching out to parents who don’t speak English? How do people of different cultures and backgrounds know you want them to have an equal voice? School parent groups are asking these questions, but the answers aren’t simple. While the ethnic backgrounds of Americans and their...
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From Good Guidance to Trauma-Informed Care: Meeting All Children's Behavioral Support Needs [naeyc.org]
Susan Friedman Young Children July 2020 Vol. 75, No. 3 I am drafting this editors’ note in the spring, when much of the country is living under stay-at-home orders in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. Most early learning programs and schools are closed. It’s a frightening and unusual time, with huge impacts on early childhood programs, teachers, children, and families. This cluster of articles was planned well before COVID-19 impacted the early childhood community. Our aim was to...
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How Can Local Government Address Systemic Racism? [governing.com]
Peniel Joseph, one of the nation’s leading civil rights scholars, has studied and written about the history of race and democracy. He has some ideas on how cities and urban areas can begin to dismantle racism. CARL SMITH, SENIOR STAFF WRITER | JULY 23, 2020 Peniel E. Joseph, Ph.D ., is the founder of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a joint professorship in the LBJ School of Public Affairs, as the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and...
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Embedding Equity into Emergency Operations: Strategies for Local Health Departments During COVID-19 and Beyond [barhii.org]
We are excited to announce our new brief jointly released by BARHII and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California titled “ Embedding Equity into Emergency Operations: Strategies for Local Health Departments During COVID-19 & Beyond. ” The brief outlines case studies, resources, and priority recommendations that counties and cities can take to explicitly and intentionally embed equity staff and practices into their emergency operations structures and throughout the public health...
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Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
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Let’s talk to our kids about suicide prevention [medium.com]
Narges Zohoury Dillon Sep 2 Parents’ role in suicide prevention is on my mind a lot this year with parents taking on the added responsibility of educator as many schools start remotely. Remote education means reduced access to the professional support resources schools offer which is particularly hard at this time of increased stress and mental health challenges for students and families alike. I have pictured talking to my own daughter about the topic of suicide more times than I can count.
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How to Avoid Doing Harm When You Discuss Race at Work [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
Race dialogues at work have the potential to leave minority employees feeling distressed, exhausted, or dismissed. BY SHANNA B. TIAYON | SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 The year 2020 has been a rough one, especially for Black Americans. The global coronavirus pandemic’s disproportional impact , combined with multiple police murders of unarmed Black people, cast a brighter light on systemic racism in the United States. In many instances, the killings were caught on phones and the images repeatedly...
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Think beyond ACEs screening, advises California funders workgroup in new report
Californians have experienced an alarming epidemic of adverse childhood experiences. Between 2011 and 2017, 60 percent of Californians reported experiencing at least one type of childhood adversity; about 16 percent experienced four or more. People who experience four or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease, 1.9 times as likely to have a stroke, and 3.2 times as likely to have asthma as people who have experienced no ACEs. (For more information about ACEs and ACEs science,...
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New Report: ACEs BRFSS Data Report- An Overview of Adverse Childhood Experiences in California
A newly developed document titled “Adverse Childhood Experiences Data Report: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), 2011-2017: An Overview of Adverse Childhood Experiences in California” has just been released and can be found following link and attached to this blog post. The purpose of this resource is to report state and county prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California; describe ACEs-related geographic and demographic disparities; and to offer details...
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This Election Is Traumatizing for Many Students (and Educators). Here's How to Help [edweek.org]
3 trauma-informed practices for your classroom By Anita Chari & Angelica Singh November 4, 2020 As our collective anxieties grow in the face of an uncertain presidential election result, many of us in the United States are wondering: What will we do when we enter our classrooms in these days after the election? Let’s name the situation for what it is: Many of our students are experiencing this period as a traumatic time. Amid the triple upheavals of the pandemic, the movements against...
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The 'war on drugs' was a war on people of color
In the spring of 1982, Susan Burton turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of her 5-year-old son, who had run into the street and was hit by a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer . Over the course of the next 17 years, Burton was in and out of prison. “Each time I left, I felt a little more broken,” she told me recently. What would have made a difference, she said, was “if there could have been a way to have therapy from traumatic childhood events, disappointments and...
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Resources for Teaching About Race and Racism With The New York Times [nytimes.com]
A curated collection of over 75 lesson plans, writing prompts, short films and graphs relating to racism and racial justice. By Nicole Daniels , Michael Gonchar and Natalie Proulx March 4, 2021 The summer of 2020 was not the first time that urgent conversations about race and racism were happening in homes, classrooms and workplaces. But the energy of the Black Lives Matter protests, believed by many to be the largest in U.S. history , was unparalleled. Though the demands and chants may have...
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New Resource: Strategies for Trauma-Informed School Communities
The California Essentials for Childhood Initiative is excited to share a newly developed attached, “Strategies for Trauma-Informed School Communities: Practices to Improve Resiliency in School-Aged Children and Address Adverse Childhood Experiences”. This new resource is intended to assist state and local public health programs, child-serving systems, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations in their efforts to educate about the need for trauma-informed school policies and practices that...
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Why I am Attending CRI’s 6th Annual Trauma-Informed: Moving to Resilience Conference June 23-24.
Written by: Catherine Dennis M.S., Ed.S | Early Childhood Specialist Trauma informed practice, ACES and resilience have been the focus of educators the last few years. The idea that trauma was something that happened in the early years and understanding that impact on learning in the long term. But the pause of this past year for all children has delivered another layer to this ever-evolving topic. Now, it doesn't really matter what the situation was at home, collectively, trauma was...
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Resource: Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic One-Pager (English & Spanish!)
English: The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , ACEs Connection , and the Yolo County Children’s Alliance co-created “Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in both English and Spanish. This material is intended for Californian families experiencing the severe economic consequences resulting from...
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FREE WEBINAR: The Impact of Mind Matters: Preliminary Evidence of Effectiveness in a Community-Based Sample
Becky Antle, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and esteemed University Scholar at the University of Louisville, won The Dibble Institute’s national competition to evaluate Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience in 2019. As a result, Dr. Antle and her colleagues have conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of Mind Matters on a host of outcomes related to trauma symptoms, emotional regulation, coping and resiliency, and interpersonal skills for at-risk...
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California advocates press for expansion of visiting rights to incarcerated loved ones
In a recent nightmare, 8-year-old Jovina dreamt that her father got COVID-19. He was getting sicker, but she and her mother weren’t able to get there in time. “There,” in her father’s case, is a cell at the California Correctional Center (CCC) in Susanville, California, nearly 300 miles from where she lives in San Jose. In Jovina’s mind are a swarm of worries about her father’s welfare, her mother Benee Vejar reports. If an earthquake shakes the Bay Area, Jovina says, “What if the building...
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What's "Mattering" In Young Children and Why Does It Matter? [psychologytoday.com]
By Rahil D. Briggs, Psychology Today, September 21, 2021 There are many ways to think about baby, toddler, and child well-being. Perhaps you relate to the phrase “early relational health” or maybe you read the recent journal article in Pediatrics that called out the importance of ensuring that young children have safe, stable, and nurturing relationships (SSNRs). There are conversations happening about buffering toxic stress , increasing resilience , and promoting infant and early childhood...
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Toxic Stress & ACEs
I’ve packaged my best, tried-and-true stress management techniques from the past three decades of work with students, patients, and private clients into my flagship course, Less Stress Now. Dr. Felitti, the Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study, endorses this course as an effective treatment solution for ACEs and toxic stress. Read on to learn more.
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How Childhood Traumas Influence Us Now
IF WE CAN FACE OUR TRAUMAS, WE LESSEN THE RISK FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS, CHRONIC ILLNESS, AND MORE By Sue Morris We all enter the world a blank slate, free of thoughts and ideas. Who we eventually become is determined by the upbringing and experiences that fill that slate. We don’t get to choose who will raise us. We don’t control whether they’ll be caring and loving or distant and rejective. If you were born lucky, a home could be a pillar of strength. Supportive, safe, nurturing, and...
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Scholarships now available for Mind Matters Now!
Has the pandemic stressed you out? Want to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series, Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental well-being. (CEUs are...
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The Dismal State of Maternal Wholistic Health for Women of Color
Change is long overdue for this massive maternal health chasm of wholistic health disparities, transcending physical, behavioral, and psychosocial health, and particularly for women of color (WOC)
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February Collective Care Through the CRC & PACEs Movement: The Way Forward for Civil & Human Rights is Trauma-Informed
Nationally recognized days of awareness remind us of important civil and human rights movements led by Black and African-American communities and social justice advocates. February puts leadership, education, access, justice, policy, and governance under the spotlight. Through a PACEs science lens, this month is an opportunity to consider trauma-informed transformation through a PACEs science lens as the way forward.
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CRC Accelerator Hiatus Announcement: Limited Time Left to Complete the CRC Accelerator Program, Certificate of Participation Toolkit & The Road Ahead
March marks the final month of the granting period for the CRC Accelerator. Here are the next steps for certification or a certificate of participation.