Blog

By Bob Sege and Kay Johnson, 11/19/20, positiveexperiences.org/blog This week, we focus on opportunities to spread HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) with the new Biden-Harris Administration. With the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, families feel more stress than before, adding to long-simmering concerns about child poverty and its implications. On a more positive note, the recent resurgence in calls for racial justice have spurred many more Americans to work...

By Gabe Salazar and Meryl Schulman, Center for Health Care Strategies, November 13, 2020 Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — such as abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, exposure to violence, and being subjected to prejudice and racism — can negatively impact a child’s developing brain and body, as well as long-term health and social outcomes. In New Jersey, over 40 percent of children are estimated to have experienced at least one ACE , and 18 percent are estimated to have experienced...

By Morgan C. Mullings, The Bay State Banner, November 5, 2020 U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley is introducing a bill to fight childhood trauma, as children across the nation witness multiple crises that will shape their future. The STRONG Support for Children Act targets the root causes of childhood trauma and the inequities that contribute to it through grant funding for public health services. In a virtual conversation on Oct. 27, Pressley brought together several Boston residents who...

Explore the untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and equality. Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner shake the foundation of the established history of the women’s rights movement in the US joining forces to shed light on the hidden history of the influence of Haudenosaunee Women on the women’s rights movement. Streaming online from 11.2.20 - 12.1.20 Click here: ...

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,...

A mother, frantic with worry, brought her newborn in for a checkup at the pediatric clinic at San Francisco General Hospital. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby. And over the next several months, no amount of reassurance could convince the mom that her child was eating, sleeping and growing just fine. If anything, the mother’s worry led to behavior that raised alarm bells for her health care providers. Dr. Kate Margolis “[The family] wasn’t returning calls from the provider, and...

The leaders of OK25by25 learned about Resilience and took it on the road. Pre-COVID, they traveled the state from Bartlesville in the northeast corner to rural Duncan in the south, showing Jamie Redford’s film about ACEs science and brain development to more than 13,000 people: teachers and attorneys, CASA workers and district judges, physicians and parents. Sometimes 300 people would gather to see the film and participate in a panel discussion; other times, it was an audience of twelve.

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...

By Marine Credit Union, October 20, 2020. LA CROSSE, Wis. , Oct. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Marine Credit Union is taking action and partnering with Resilient Wisconsin , a state wide initiative bringing together the latest evidence-based tools and trauma-informed practices. Resilient Wisconsin works with community partners to introduce the Resilient and Trauma-Informed Community (RTIC), a framework adopted by community partners to collaboratively respond to what we have learned from the...

By Ayanna Pressley and Carolyn B. Maloney, STAT, October 21, 2020 Like many nations across the globe, the U.S. continues to combat the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration’s deficient response has elevated the emotional, physical, and economic harm suffered by families in America. As we move through this moment of collective trauma, we must adopt focused, evidence-based approaches to make our country whole again and ensure that these approaches prioritize a...

Anthropologists have called Indigenous peoples the “original ecologists.” 19 Indigenous peoples were able to sustain their traditional subsistence economy for millennia because “they possessed appropriate ecological knowledge and suitable methods to exploit resources, but possessed a philosophy and environmental ethic to keep exploitive abilities in check, and established ground rules for relationships between humans and animals.” 20 Native peoples’ reciprocity with the natural and spiritual...

Mary Mueller likes to call herself an “opportunistic infection.” What that means is that Mueller, project coordinator for trauma-informed systems in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), is determined to share the science of ACEs and resilience wherever she goes. After Mueller attended the state’s first ACE master trainer two day session hosted by the Michigan ACE Initiative , she wanted to bring the foundational science shared by ACE Interface back home—to her MDHHS...