Tagged With "Celebrating Parents as Heroes"
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University students seeking counseling learn about their ACEs
Dr. Diane Suffridge, a clinical psychologist and director of the University Counseling Services at Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif., has been interested in trauma for many years. But last summer that interest took a sudden and interesting turn. A student counselor she advised had written a research paper on the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) health and mental health outcomes in foster youth, and it gave the student a new view of the patients she counseled at the...
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Violence Profile of Sonoma County
Several months ago, the Violence Profile of Sonoma County was published online. The profile aims to deliver three messages: (1) Violence Impacts Health (2) Violence is More than Physical (3) Violence is Preventable In addressing these aims, the profile provides a strong explanation for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) having lasting effects on health and behaviors, including violent behaviors such as emotional abuse, intimate partner violence, and suicide attempts. The profile also uses...
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Want Another Chance to Participate in a Ripple Effect Training?
Did you miss your chance to participate in the Sonoma County Ripple Effect training? Mark your calendars for the Marin Prevent Child Abuse event: T he Ripple Effect: A Framework for Enhancing Trauma Informed Practice Thursday, November 9, 2017 8:30am-4:30pm Location: The Key Room, 1385 N. Hamilton Pkwy. Novato, CA 94949 Description: This all day workshop presents an integrative framework for understanding and communicating across systems about how trauma can affect a child, a family, and a...
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"What Happened To You? A Journey From Childhood Adversity to Resiliency" Explained by a Compelling Pamphlet
I found a manila envelope on my desk this morning. Inside was a heartfelt letter wrapped around a small stack of pamphlets. I can't remember the last time I held a paper resource guide in my hand, and there is something quite satisfying in this small, tangible resource. As I thumb through the pages, I feel myself drawn into a simple, relate-able story. I'm eager to keep turning pages and to discover how those of us with similar stories can find resources and support. "The pamphlet is...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting 7-26-17
Dear Friends, We look forward to coming together to continue our efforts to raise awareness around Adverse Childhood Experiences & Resiliency. Join our community coalition’s meeting on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 12:30 at 625 5 th Street, Santa Rosa in the City View Rooms. Attached is the agenda for our meeting and last months meeting minutes. Your voice, community insight, and local action is helping us achieve community healing. We thank you for your participation and support! (Please...
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Agenda 3/21/18
Hi everyone, Attached is the agenda for today's meeting. I look forward to seeing you all there!
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting - Agenda & Minutes
Attached is the agenda and minutes for the Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting that took place on August 22, 2018.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Agenda October 2018
Attached is the agenda for the General Assembly meeting on October 24, 2018.
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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 4/25/18
Attached are the meeting minutes for the Sonoma County ACEs Connection General Meeting on 4/25/18.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Minutes June 2017
Attached are meeting minutes from the Sonoma County ACEs Connection General Assembly.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Minutes October 2018
Attached are meeting minutes from General Assembly meeting on October 24, 2018.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Minutes September 2018
Monthly meeting minutes for September 2018.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Meeting Minutes September 26, 2018
Here are the meeting minutes for the General Assembly meeting that took place on September 26, 2018.
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Notes from 2-22-17
(For a picture-filled and engaging version of these notes, please see the attachment.) 02-22-17 Dear Sonoma County ACEs Connection Friends, Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Kate Jenkins started us off with a prompt to learn five things about two of our neighbors in the room. This “mindful moment” encouraged us to focus on listening, while also paying attention to the different sensations that were occurring in our body and mind. Were we focused on what we wanted to...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Notes from 3-22-17
(For a picture-filled and engaging version of these notes, please see the attachment.) 03-22-17 Dear Sonoma County ACEs Connection Friends, Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Kate Jenkins started us off by inviting us to close our eyes and focus on being present in the moment. This “mindful moment” encouraged us to focus on our breath, while also paying attention to the different sensations that were occurring in our body. Javier Rivera-Rosales from Positive Images...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Notes from 3-23-16
(Please see the attachment for the version with photos and colors - it is much more visually interesting!) 3/23/16 Dear Sonoma County ACEs Connection Enthusiasts, Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Today, we started the meeting with a quiet mindful moment . Susan Barnett-Hampson led us in a short meditation, using her soothing, slow voice to ground us in the present moment. A few deep breaths and positive affirmations can help us refocus whenever needed! “ A...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Meeting Notes from 4-26-17
(For a picture-filled and engaging version of these notes, please see the attachment.) 4-26-17 Dear Sonoma County ACEs Connection Friends, Thank you to all that participated in today’s ACES meeting. Holly White-Wolfe started us off with a meditation app (voice recording) that was shared at the MARC Gathering in Philadelphia. This “mindful moment” encouraged us to focus on our breath, noticing the rise and fall of our chest as a way to center ourselves throughout the day Nick Dalton from the...
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Sonoma County ACES Connection Steering Committee Meeting Notes from 1-10-18
These are the meeting notes for the Sonoma County ACEs Connection Steering Committee meeting from 1-10-17.
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Sonoma County ACEs Connection Strategic Planning Session Update
Thanks to all of the members who contributed to our Strategic Planning Session on 6/29/16. The engaging agenda is attached to this post, as is the presentation on the scope of the problem of ACE's in Sonoma County. Our fabulous facilitator, Selena Polston (Innovation Team Program Manager for Public Health) captures some of our meeting highlights in these notes: ACES Connection Retreat: Developing a Vision Statement Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Elsie Allen High School What Makes A Great Vision...
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Sonoma County Field Nursing was highlighted during 2018 ACEs Conference Project Showcase
On October 15-17, the Center for Youth Wellness in collaboration with the ACEs Connection presented the 2018 ACEs Conference and Pediatric Symposium. The theme this year was, “Action to Access,” and communities from around the United States shared current research, programs, tools, and initiatives that use ACEs science to address childhood adversity and its impact. The Sonoma County Field Nursing team was selected to showcase their work to address ACEs with caregivers during home visits.
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Sonoma County Goes to Sacramento with 4CA on Policymaker Education Day on Childhood Adversity 7/11/17
Carla Denner, Health Information Specialist II at First 5 Sonoma County, plans traveling to our state capitol next week. Under her arm she'll have a stack of handouts (see attachment) for policy makers educating them about how adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma affect our community and what they can do to help. The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) is coordinating this Policymaker Education Day in Sacramento. "Join with allies from across California to...
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Sonoma County Office of Education January Bulletin: Trauma-Informed Teaching and Fostering Resilience
This month the Sonoma County Office of Education dedicated their January Bulletin to raising awareness on Trauma-Informed Teaching Knowing Our Students’ Stories and Fostering Resilience. "Recent social and scientific research calls upon educators to provide student with not only academic learning, but also the social and emotional tools needed to be successful in life. We once though subjects like math and history to be disconnected from basic social skills and emotional resilience. Now,...
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Sonoma County’s parklands are already showing signs of recovery from fire (sonomanews.com)
Nearly every tree species affected by the Tubbs and Nuns fires has a strategy for returning. Some, such as coast live oak, have thick bark and may still be standing with green canopies hanging over blackened understory in places such as Sonoma Valley Regional Park. Trees in this condition will be helped in the years to come because the competition around their bases is gone. If burned, coast live oak have an amazing ability to sprout from the trunk. This can happen as quickly as two months...
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Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Writes About ACEs and Our ACEs Presenter Fellowship
I’d like to tell you about one of the greatest obstacles to the health, well-being, and educational success of Sonoma County’s youth: childhood trauma. Statistics suggest that nearly one in five children in our county has suffered two or more of these negative experiences, which range from death of a parent to physical or emotional abuse at home to extreme bullying at school. Research tells us that this exposure dramatically increases children’s risk for behavioral problems in school as well...
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Sonoma County Trauma and Resilience Network One Pager
Attached find a 2018 version of Sonoma County community profile detailing information about your community ACEs initiative. This will be shared with CA legislators at the Trauma-Informed Policymaker Awareness Day on May 22nd in Sacramento. I attach it here as a PDF ready to print and share! I also have uploaded into 'Resources for Downloading' the same PDF, and an editable Word document so that you can update or otherwise improve it. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to...
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State Dropping Ball in Dealing With Childhood Trauma, New Report Says
This article is re-posted from California Health Line, and originally appeared on January 7, 2016. To read the full article, click here . The lowest of 31 grades issued in the 2016 California Children’s Report Card released on Wednesday was for dealing with the effects of childhood trauma. In Children Now’s biennial assessment of the status of California kids, researchers gave the state a “D-” for how it deals with childhood trauma. The report contends...
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Stop Dreaming & Start Doing
With graduation season upon us, I have been thinking a lot about one of my favorite graduation speeches. It’s the speech that Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, gave in 2014 at Dartmouth College. She references the typical expected advice from a graduation speech: “Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big..." And then she says, “I think that’s crap.”
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Strategic Plan Survey- Santa Rosa’s Violence Prevention Partnership
The City of Santa Rosa’s Violence Prevention Partnership, funded by Measure O , has launched a Strategic Plan Survey in order to better serve the needs of our community . Please find links to the survey below in both English and Spanish. We ask that you share the survey with our youth and families in-person, through email, and various social media outlets, so together , we can continue to create change for our community. If you’d like to print out the survey and have youth & families...
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Students with no schools. Teachers with no homes. Will Sonoma schools ‘get back to normal’? [sacbee.com]
SANTA ROSA - Teacher Linda Severs lost her school but not her house. Parent Matt Todhunter lost his home but not the school his children attended. And Debra Sanders, who has spent the last six years providing school services for homeless families, suddenly found her own family in that same classification. Northern California’s Oct. 8 wildfires were among the most destructive in U.S. history, and in Sonoma County, they uprooted an entire school system. As the fires raged, nearly all of the...
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Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma passed on to children's genes
In 2015 researchers from New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital looked to epigenetic inheritance as an explanation for why Children of Holocaust survivors have an increased likelihood of stress disorders when compared to Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during the war. “Epigenetic inheritance is the idea that environmental influences such as smoking, diet and stress can affect the genes of your children and possible even grandchildren” (Thomson, 2015). This idea of epigenetic...
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Study unearths patterns in San Jose homeless population's ACE scores
Photo by Terabass/ CC-SA-3.0 It was around 2010 that Dr. Angela Bymaster was seeing a disturbing pattern in the histories of her adult patients. She already knew that patients who saw her at the Valley Homeless Health Care Program in San Jose, CA, where she worked at the time, were homeless or recently homeless. What was most troubling to Bymaster was knowing that their current precarious existence could have been prevented. Dr. Angela Bymaster “Over and over and over again I was hearing the...
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Supporting Parents & Children after a Disaster: A Training for Providers on 3/2/18
The recent fires have had a profound and lasting impact on the entire Sonoma County community, including its youngest residents. Parents and providers may be unsure about how to best respond to questions, emotions, and behavior following the fires. Please join us for a presentation and discussion for providers on how we can best support parents and their children. The training will cover: How to manage children’s emotions and behavior after a fire. Answering children’s questions. Why some...
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Syrian Children in a state of Toxic Stress
An article posted by BBC News captures what the children of Syria are experiencing and how many of these children don't know anything but war. This is a huge public health concern that could lead to irreversible damage to an entire generation of children. Save the Children shares, "Millions of Syrian Children could be living in a state of "Toxic Stress" due to prolonged exposure to the horrors of war." I have attached the Report, Invisible Wounds produced by Save the Children if you're...
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Wildfire Mental Health Services Collaborative Invites You to RSVP to August 2, 2018 Meeting
Dear Colleagues, Summer is flying by and we want to honor our commitment made to you at the May wildfire mental health services mapping session by reconvening our group for an update on August 2 from 9:00 to 11:00 am. The location for our meeting is Medtronic, 3850 Brickway Blvd, Santa Rosa, CA, 95403. There are no special parking instructions. Enter through the main entrance and check with the receptionist. There will be signs to direct you to our meeting room. Because this is a secure...
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You're invited: Saturday, June 25
On Saturday, June 25 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm, Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) and ACEs Connection Sonoma County are hosting an interactive conversation on Resilience at the First Methodist Stony Point Worship Center at 2150 Giffen Avenue, Santa Rosa. Please spread the word, come learn about ACEs and the Resilience Scale from our own Grace Harris, and experience AVP interpersonal exercises! Refreshments and socializing are on the agenda, too. We hope to see you 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...
Ask the Community
Help our public radio station with a story: How did separation from your parents as a child impact you?
KQED is the National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How has it impacted your connection to others and how you build relationships? If you're a parent, how does it influence how you parent? We’re...
Calendar Event
ACEs Enthusiasts Community Meeting
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Birth, Breastfeeding and Beyond Conference
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Child Parent Institute hosts live webcast of 2020 Mom forum
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Child Poverty and the Social Safety Net, June 20th FREE
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Embracing Your Child with ADD/ADHD
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Father Engagement Training
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Heart of Leona Film Premiere
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Interactive & Experiential Discussion on Resilience
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