September 2016

Russell Wilson, an ACEsConnection.com member from New Zealand, posted a question to the community in which he noted that a “heck of a lot of people” with ACEs who enter treatment are often never asked about those histories, and that this approach is not honoring their right to appropriate and adequate treatment. It’s an issue that’s come up often in many ways and in many settings besides mental health. Some trauma-informed training never mentions the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood...

I wrote about my personal experience at the Partnering for Excellence conference earlier this month. Here, I write as an activist observing attempts at system change utilizing ACEs science and trauma-informed approaches. Please share your ideas, brainstorms and observations about what you see happening (or not happening) in organizations or agencies you rely on, work at or run. I’ll admit, as an activist, I’m often in fight the system mode. I approach even do-gooders with defensiveness. Why?

My cultural pride is shame. My cultural pride is shame. My native tongue is a memory I try to scrape clean so mud doesn’t cake out of my mouth. My greatest gift of maternal love is to insist she get no heirloom. My gift is to break the cycle. And what I give her is something I didn’t own as a child. Safety. Comfort. Responsiveness. Love. Attachment. I am not a child-girl-victim. I’m a mother-woman-adult. OK, I am, and will always be, both. (This is an except from “ Little Girl Riding Shotgun...

Svava Brooks interviewed Dr. Felitti for an online summit held earlier this year. The interview with air again this Sunday. So, if you love hearing from Dr. Felitti, as many of us do, and missed it the first time, here's your second chance. It's free to watch but you do have to register and share one email address. Here's the link .

I write about parenting as a high ACE scorer. But many here (in this group and in the wider network) have lower ACE scores than their children. This is an essay by a father with secondary trauma writing about anger and self-care as he parents, advocates, educates and manages day to day challenges. The full article in entitled, How Did I Become So Angry , written by Donald Craig Peterson. Here's an excerpt: Constantly fighting battles on the front line can consume anyone. And the symptoms of...

Teen stress is on the rise. According to a new study, learning mindfulness and self-compassion can help a teen cope. In a 2014 national survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, 31 percent of adolescents aged 13 to 17 said that their stress increased in the previous year, and 42 percent said they were not doing enough to manage their stress. Adolescents who experience frequent stress are more prone to depression and perform worse in school Many teens turn to external...

The need for self-control can feel like a tease at times and a bit of a pity, but its influence is spectacularly powerful. A landmark study conducted over three decades has found that the level of self-control children have as five-year olds, is one of the greatest predictors of their health, wealth and success as adults. Knowing how to increase self-control in children can help them on a path that sees them thrive. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study , a New Zealand...

Written by a pediatrician and based in proven-effective mindfulness techniques, this book will help you and your child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) keep calm, flexible, and in contro l. If you are a parent of a child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you probably face many unique daily challenges. Kids with ADHD are often inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive, since ADHD affects all of self-management and self-regulation. As a result, you might...

Gail Kennedy , our own Director of Programs here at ACEs, shared this fantastic resource with me last week. It's called: Trauma-Informed Parenting: Supplemental Resources and is available through the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) . It was originally called Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma and as part of a workshop for resource parents in the child welfare system. Resource parents, I believe, are are long-term and temporary foster parents as well as adoptive...

Great essay by Lisa Qualls from two parents (through adoption, fostering and birth) who created the Thankful Moms website. So, while this particular website has a lot of ads and a faith-based emphasis that won't resonate for all, it also has good resources and some stories about parenting and discuss trauma, attachment, grief, love, family and healing as well as their faith. My writing partner, Jennifer, once quipped that she wanted to write a post about how being a foster parent made her...

Thanks for sending this, Allen Nishikawa!

Survivor-led. Free. Online summit about trauma. Any of these things would get my attention but put them all together and I'm intrigued. Yesterday, I heard that Svava Brooks is hosting an online summit about trauma recovery with over 20 guests that she's interviewed and making the content available for free. I had to know more about her and the summit. A Little Bit About Svava Brooks Svava Brooks, mother of three children, has dedicated her life to ending the cycle of child sexual abuse...