Tagged With "human rights"
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Shifting the focus from trauma to compassion
photo: Rolf Schweitzer/CCO Dr. Arnd Herz, a self-described champion for ACEs science, would like nothing more than to witness a greater appreciation of how widespread adverse childhood experiences are. Herz, a pediatrician and director of Medi-Cal Strategy for the Greater Southern Alameda Area for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, would also like to encourage more people in health care to engage in a trauma-informed care approach, a change in practice that he says not only benefits...
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Simple Resilience Tips
(This is a written version of a presentation I gave at our January Meeting.) For the past year, Sonoma County ACEs Connection worked to make more people aware of Adverse Childhood Experiences. But especially after the big fires, it feels important to also talk about resilience. I want to start a discussion about simple resilience techniques that anyone could apply in their work, social and/or personal life. This is not new information, because the best resilience methods have been used by...
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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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SOLVITUR AMBULANDO - THIS LATIN PHRASE WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU MANAGE PROBLEMS [Quartzy]
From Quartzy, By Ephrat Livni May 25, 2019 All the conveniences of postmodern life don’t seem to be relaxing us. Pop songs are increasingly about anxiety and depression . “Burnout” has become the buzzword of 2019 . We’ve all got problems and don’t know how to solve them, though there’s surely never been a time in history when more advice, self-help books, mindfulness apps, and wellness gurus were so widely available to so many people. Maybe the proliferation of advice is one of our issues.
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting 10-26-16
Dear Friends, We’ll be gathering at the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home for our next meeting of the Sonoma County ACEs Connection. (Many of you may already plan to be there for the “ACEs, Trauma Informed and Self Care” workshop with Brian Farragher.) During this compelling meeting we’ll hear about the Master Training event with ACE Interface and Dr. Anda, the California ACEs Conference hosted by the Center for Youth Wellness, among other exciting announcements. We will also be doing the...
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2017 Kids Count Data Book [aecf.org]
Wednesday June 14th the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the 2017 Kids Count Data Book - State Trends in Child Well-Being. This comprehensive report is " a premier source of data on children and families." You can download the report from this post, as well as on the Kids Count website , where you can also access an interactive data map in their Data Center . This is an invaluable amount of data available to the public, relevant to anyone working with children and families - with the...
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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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9/27/17 Meeting Minutes
(For a colorful and well formatted version, please see the attached .pdf.) Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Lisa Manthe lead us through a meditation that she does with her students. Lisa shared with us that she begins and ends every school day with meditation to help foster routine and a sense of grounding for the mind body connection. Lisa Manthe from New Directions School joined us to share her experience using art therapy as a way of healing. New Directions...
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A Year of Ripples and Streams: Sonoma County MARC Update
Holly White-Wolfe, an analyst for the Sonoma County Human Services Department , marvels at the changes that have happened in a short amount of time. A few months ago, she and Karen Clemmer, then Coordinator of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health for the County Department of Health Services , were comparing notes on how their respective agencies were building trauma-informed capacity among employees and trying to embed that knowledge in practice. “A year ago,” Clemmer said at the time, “we...
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ACEs, biomarkers and the cost of adversity
How useful and necessary are biomarkers in telling the story of how toxic stress from adverse childhood experiences and resilience can impact a child’s long-term health? In the introduction to an article in the journal BioEssays , Dr. Kathryn Ridout, a Kaiser Permanente San Jose psychiatrist, and her co-authors examine what is known about two biomarkers and quote data on child maltreatment and its economic burden over time that says it all. “When totaling the costs of health care, child...
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ACEs Connection, our Cooperative of Communities, and....Pando!
Last month, we officially launched the ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities. We are SO excited about this! And the communities that are part of the handful of ACEs initiatives that are piloting the Cooperative are, too! Before describing the Cooperative, I want to reassure our 40,000+ members and 277 ACEs initiatives (plus another 100 in development) that have communities on ACEs Connection that nothing on ACEsConnection.com changes! Membership is and remains free ! And it will remain...
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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ACEs screening in CA — a Q and A with Dr. Dayna Long
Last year, the California Department of Health Care Services rolled out its plans for universal screening for trauma among its pediatric and adult Medicaid population. Beginning January 1, 2020, California physicians were able to receive an incentive payment of $29 for each pediatric patient screened for ACEs using the PEARLs ( Pediatrics Adverse Childhood and Resilience Study) tool. Dr. Dayna Long talked with ACEs Connection staff reporter Laurie Udesky about ACEs science, what led to the...
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ACEs/toxic stress color wheel for schools!
If you've seen the documentary Paper Tigers , you may remember the stress target -- or color wheel -- in Lincoln High School Principal Jim Sporleder's office. Now you can have one, too! The steering group members of the Yolo Resilience Network in Yolo County, CA, (you can find them on the Yolo County ACEs Connection group) realized the needed to have some tools that they could give to local educators for whom they did presentations about ACEs and trauma-informed practices. "We'd see people...
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After 5-year journey to integrate ACEs science, Santa Rosa, CA, pediatric clinic is trauma-informed, from head to toe
Dr. Meredith Kieschnick was among the first physicians in the U.S. to hear the term, "adverse childhood experiences". That was in 1998, early on in her career as a pediatrician, when the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) published its initial findings in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine . “I attended a conference at which (Dr. Vincent) Felitti spoke,” she recalls. Felitti, at that time director of the Health Appraisal Center at Kaiser Permanente...
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Artists in the ACE and Resilience Movement: Creative Avenues to Change
This story was written by Anndee Hochman.
They began with a song and ended with a poem. In-between, there were photographs and giant graphic renderings, movement exercises and a “human pulse” formed when 90 people stood in a circle and squeezed each other’s hands.
At a June summit in Whatcom County, Washington, titled “Our Resilient Community: A Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity,” the arts played a starring role.
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Assisting Refugees: Lessons on Trauma and Resilience
Making do with what you’ve got There are a lot of stories about refugees in the news. Some years ago, I helped resettle refugees from the Vietnam War. Trauma and resilience define what it means to be a refugee. All of them had lived through years of warfare. They had seen friends and family members killed. They had to flee the familiar towns and villages they had lived in all their lives. They arrived in a new country with hardly any resources, in a land where nobody spoke their language or...
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Beyond Paper Tigers Presenter Showcase! Lincoln High School’s Trauma-Informed Strategies: Jim Sporleder Reflects on Lessons Learned
“We had no clue whatsoever what it would turn out to be” Jim Sporleder, former Principal, remarks as he looks back on Lincoln Alternative High School, the growing movement of CRI’s trauma-informed community initiative, and the production of the documentary Paper Tigers. Jim’s story is an iconic one. In fact, many have inevitably heard of Jim’s work if they have seen the documentary Paper Tigers; it chronicles the profound impact on Lincoln Alternative High School as Jim, the staff, and the...
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Building trust is now a critical part of health care
In a video clip , a hospital patient turns away in protest as a physician enters the room. “Why do you all keep coming in my room!” she asks in frustration. The physician moves a chair out of the way and sits down at eye level with the patient. “You’ve had to see so many people,” he acknowledges. “And I’m tired of it!” she yells. “I already know I have to get both of my legs cut off. That’s what they keep saying. I don’t have a choice!” “You don’t feel like you have a choice,” he repeats...
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California Child Welfare Policy and Progress, Winter Issue
The California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership Report This issue of in sights provides an overview of the latest legislative developments in California, including data and perspectives on the policy and practice transformation taking place with the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). Beyond a comprehensive summary of child welfare state legislation, this issue also includes a discussion on the key provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act. The issue concludes with...
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Changing Minds and Creating Trauma-Informed Communities Convenings - South and North
Last week, on two separate days in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, about 150 people (total) convened to listen and brainstorm about creating trauma-informed communities. Futures Without Violence, which is rolling out its Changing Minds campaign later this year, hosted both events. Some very interesting and important themes emerged from the two days: Residents with lived experiences should participate in the decision-making bodies of service providers and vested...
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Coalition Conducts Human Trafficking Prevention Campaign on 23 St. [richmondstandard.com]
By The Richmond Standard, September 28, 2019 A group of Richmond residents are partnering with local law enforcement agencies today to walk 23rd Street and offer free LED and solar-powered lights and other security devices as part of a human trafficking prevention campaign. Richmond police reported that over 100 houses along the corridor were visited by me. Home Depot provided support with free security lights, cameras, and fence repair to residents along the 23rd Street Corridor to improve...
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Stress-related hormone cortisol lowers significantly after just 45 minutes of art creation
I know that I'm preaching to the choir with this article ( Stress-related hormone cortisol lowers significantly after just 45 minutes of art creation ), but I'd like to share a personal story and along with it a some floating hopes I have in all of this trauma-informed work that we strive to do. My Brief Story I didn't always like to paint. In fact, I hated it because I was high-achieving and didn't think I was good enough to do it. One day my senior year of college, a friend of mine (let's...
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Do You Have a Story to Tell? Speak at the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference
Beyond Consequences is excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference has been extended. If you have a great story to share about your experience in working with students who’ve had adverse childhood experiences, we would love to hear from you! Here are some examples of sessions that fit in at our nationally recognized conference: Administrative/School-Wide Track • Mindfulness Instead of Suspension • Special Education Law & Advocacy •...
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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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Documentary Wrestling Ghosts tracks a journey from trauma to resilience
When prompted by a life coach to comfort the child inside of her, Kim Montleon, a young mother at the center of the documentary film, Wrestling Ghosts , says emphatically: “I can’t do that; I’m afraid I won’t come back!” That’s the beginning of Montleon’s two-year struggle to dig deep into her own harrowing childhood trauma to find a way to heal so that she can nurture her young children. The documentary by filmmaker Ana Sofia Joanes was screened to more than 140 people on Saturday,...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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DULCE helps pediatricians in Oakland, CA, prevent toxic stress in newborns
On a recent day in early March, Laura Lopez met a former patient of hers in the waiting room of Highland Hospital’s pediatric clinic in Oakland, CA. The patient had forgotten her Medi-Cal card and called Lopez asking for help. But in the brief conversation, Lopez, a family specialist with the DULCE program, learned about some dire changes in the patient’s life. Laura Lopez “Without me even asking, she shared with me that she had separated from her partner, that she needs to apply for food...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The Population Health Learning Network [CHCF]
In partnership with the Center for Care Innovations (CCI) and Blue Shield of California Foundation, CHCF launched the Population Heath Learning Network in March 2018. The PHLN aims to improve the health and well-being of more than 1.2 million Californians by bringing together safety-net primary care organizations to strengthen and advance their population health management strategies. There is ample evidence supporting the implementation of population health management approaches in primary...
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Thoughts About Next Steps for Sonoma County ACES Connection
At our September meeting, we talked about creating an organizational structure for Sonoma County ACES Connection. I have attended plenty of community meetings (perhaps too many) where the deliberations about Vice-Chairs and Secretary-Treasurers...
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Tough and tireless, Kathleen Pozzi is transforming the Sonoma County Public Defender’s Office [PressDemocrat.com]
Kathleen Pozzi is like the mother Christopher Hohmann never had. When the 23-year-old former foster child got in trouble for the second time, the Sonoma County public defender took up his cause, keeping him out of jail and hooking him up with a program where he could learn job skills. The gravel-voiced attorney sold the idea to a judge, assuring that Hohmann had been coaxed back onto the right track. “I had to smack him around to make him listen to me,” she told Judge Dana Simonds earlier...
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Tracking Trafficking [pacificsun.com]
By Will Carruthers, Pacific Sun, February 5, 2020 North Bay residents don’t appreciate the scale of a crime happening all around them, despite an increased effort at public outreach over the past decade, according to a local nonprofit director. “Human trafficking happens every single day,” says Christine Castillo, the executive director of Verity, a Sonoma County nonprofit that offers services and support to trafficking victims and sometimes coordinates with law-enforcement agencies...
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Trained: Sonoma ACE & Resiliency Fellowship Offers Science, Compassion, Community
In Sonoma County, invitations to speak about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resilience kept pouring in. There simply weren’t enough qualified trainers to go around. When Sonoma County ACEs Connection leaders applied for the MARC grant, they proposed using some of the money to develop a speakers’ bureau. Then they decided to expand that vision: Why not a nine-month fellowship for a cohort of 25 “master trainers”—two days of intensive education with Robert Anda and Laura Porter,...
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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 Agency Champions
On December 11, 2017, more than fifteen agencies sent representatives to participate in our Trauma Informed Agency Champion training. Many folks expressed an interest in continuing to come together and to share resources. We invite all of the workshop participants and other interested community members to find connection right here via ACEs Connection! I encourage you all to use the ACEs Connection websites and live groups which offer many resources for you including: The new online Becoming...
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Trauma Informed Pocket Card Inspires Praise from Community Member
Do you read the Press Democrat or the North Bay Business Journal? If yes, you may have seen Prevent Child Abuse Sonoma County's special newspaper insert. This colorful and helpful resource guide offered stories, tips, resources and tools for helping to strengthen families and reduce child abuse. Page 7 featured an article about "Trauma Informed Care" and included a pocket card folks could use as a tool for letting doctors, dentists, and other care providers they might need some extra care to...
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Trauma-informed practices may lower rate of school suspensions [Reflector.com]
By Amber Revels-Stocks The Times-Leader Saturday, November 3, 2018 Pitt County Schools is implementing a new practice in an attempt to decrease the amount of discipline referrals in its schools. Trauma-informed practices take into consideration adverse childhood experiences or ACEs that can affect physical, mental or emotional health, according to Karen Harrington, director of student services. Examples of ACEs include having a household member in prison, having divorced or separated parents...
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Trauma Informed Schools Webinar Archive
Did you see the September 22 webinar the National Child Traumatic Stress Network hosted? If you missed it look for it here: http://learn.nctsn.org/ The handouts are also attached. Policy Issues in Implementing Trauma-Informed Schools In this webinar experts will explore policy challenges and lessons learned in promoting and supporting trauma-informed schools. Speakers will share key NCTSN resources related to the development and implementation of trauma-informed schools; discuss the...
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Understanding childhood trauma: James Redford screens documentary in Helena [Helenair.com]
Jamie Redford said that there was standing-room only at the screenings of Paper Tigers at the event in Helena, MT, last week. And standing ovations! If you want to see Paper Tigers soon, there are two screenings at the Mill Valley Film Festival...
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We Need a Healing Movement
What if you had developed a cure for the most painful and costly public health problem in America, you had proven that it worked, and you were offering it for free, but could not reach those who need it most because no one wants to talk about the problem? Tragically, this is my reality and the truth about human nature. It is easier to suffer in silence than acknowledge the painful things that happen to us. Over 20 years ago, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser...
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Webinar announcement— The State of Childhood Adversity Legislation: Lessons from a National Scan of State Policies and Legislator Experience
The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) in collaboration with ACEs Connection is hosting a three-part webinar learning series for advocates and policymakers interested in addressing childhood adversity through public policy. Advocates across the country are asking how best to address childhood adversity at the local, state and national levels and support the right policies to advance these efforts. Momentum is growing across the country to do just that. In this learning...
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What Do Caregivers Do?
This story occurred in the early part of the AIDS epidemic. In 1991, I was part of a coalition working to develop local home care options for AIDS patients. This was before the first AIDS treatment drugs became available, so the prognosis for someone with AIDS was not good. They got sick. If they recovered, they were likely to get sick again soon. Back then, HIV disease was still an unfamiliar and frightening illness, even for medical personnel. The general public was concerned about...
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What has changed in Sonoma County around ACEs since 2015?
Friends, have you noticed any changes over the past two years in relationship to childhood adversity and resilience? Are people talking about ACEs more? Did your employer send you to a training? Is your doctor talking to you about ACEs? Do you work for an agency that is trying to go trauma informed? We'd like to find out, "What changes occurred in our community related to addressing ACEs and promoting resilience since MARC funding?" Can you please leave a comment below to tell us how you've...
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What Wildfires Do to Our Minds
A Northern California community offers mental health first-aid to survivors of devastating fires. Yes Magazine-- posted Aug 07, 2018 https://www.yesmagazine.org/ issues/mental-health/what- wildfires-do-to-our-minds- 20180807/ It’s late spring, and I’m hiking Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County with therapist, ecopsychologist, and California naturalist Mary Good. A mist is drifting down, and we have the park mostly to ourselves. In October 2017, 80 percent of Sugarloaf’s 3,900 acres...
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting February 28, 2018
The Sonoma County ACEs Connection has had some exciting meetings the past few months, exploring the many directions our group can and will take in the coming months. Attached you will find a typed up version of our brainstorm sessions from the February, 28, 2018 General Meeting of the Sonoma County ACEs Connection. The topics addressed included: (1) What will the be the group's norms and dedication to safe space look like? (2) What type of resiliency events should our group engage in? (3)...
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Minutes 6/26/19
Breathing and presencing Introductions - small stories Inquiry around ACEs training for County staff Regional Parks hosted a training that was well received Allison noted that Behavioral Health had budget issues Jesus is looking for someone to do ACEs education. David - Karen’s attachment of ACEs flyer and MARC history was very helpful Allison’s team established peer support CREW - committee for resilience and employee Well Being Had an ACEs training as part of professional development...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Minutes 9-28-16
(Please see attachment for a colorful and engaging version of these minutes.) Dear Sonoma County ACEs Connection Friends, Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Today, we started the meeting with a mindfulness activity where we used our sense of smell and touch (but not sight!) to explore an object. Tuning into our senses is an easy mindfulness activity we can incorporate into our daily life. Ellen Bauer shared a brief overview of the “ Self-Healing Communities ” model...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Notes from 11-27-17
Attached you will find the Monthly Meeting Notes from Sonoma County ACEs Connection meeting that took place on 11-27-17.