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PACEs in Pediatrics

Modifiable Resilience Factors to Childhood Adversity for Clinical Pediatric Practice / Abstract Link

 

I learned about a new research paper entitled, "Modifiable Resilience Factors to Childhood Adversity for Clinical Pediatric Practice" co-authored by Flora Taub and Renée Boynton-Jarret (pictured above). It was just published in Pediatrics which is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics).

Here's the link to the abstract.

I'm not going to pretend I subscribe to Pediatrics. I don't. However, I have been interested in the work of Renée Boynton-Jarret ever since writing a profile about her last year for ACEs Too High.

Here are two excerpts from that story which show why her work is relevant to lots of us in the Parenting with ACEs group - even if we aren't pediatricians:    

The Aces movement is filled with pioneers. There are physicians, professors and researchers who treat, teach and study. There are leaders of non-profits who partner with individuals, neighborhoods and organizations. Volunteers who give time. Experts who draw on wisdom gained in academia, clinical practice, community work and personal experience.

But rarely does one person do all of these things while parenting three children under the age of thirteen.

Meet Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett. She does all of these things. Pediatrician, social epidemiologist, university professor, parent, and advocate for integrating the new science of human development in communities to help them become healthier.

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“What I’ve learned from my perspective around prevention is that I have to put myself out there as a pediatrician in the community, and make myself accessible to parents outside my clinic, and make myself accessible to service providers and other organizing agents and agencies, because a trauma-informed framework can be really helpful for enhancing their work as well,” she explained.

Which is what her work as founding director of the Vital Village Network , the third hat she wears, is all about. A group of people and organizations founded Vital Village in 2010 to strengthen the well being of children, families and community within and across three Boston neighborhoods.

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Vital Village made the news last Fall after being selected by the Health Federation of Philadelphia to join 13 other communities as part of the Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) project. MARC is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. MARC award recipients collaborate for two years as they implement trauma-informed programs and policies that address ACEs. Best practices will be shared with the ACEs community.

Central to the work at Vital Village is “viewing well-being, particularly social and emotional well-being, as the foundation of a lot of other things. The focus can’t be only on poverty prevention but on creating capacity for individuals, organizations and the community,” said Boynton-Jarrett.

This is done in two ways.

  1. To build the capacity of existing community institutions, agencies and organizations. For example, a school might also be used a neighborhood community center to empower parents and solve community problems.
  2. To build the strength of individuals, especially as it relates to types of civic engagement that benefits kids and families. This can mean linking existing community assets with community residents. For example, evictions impact many low-income families; they can be connected with local legal resources and protections that they don’t know existed.

“We have to set a more ambitious goal beyond simply providing a more intensive level of services to folks who have been involved in the Dept. of Children and Families,” she said, because so many adversities are interconnected. In addition, adversity can exist without parental abuse, because many systems are traumatizing families.

She explains: “If we provide children who have been exposed to violence with therapeutic interventions — therapy, and medication — but they still continue to live in a very unsafe housing development or feel very unsafe at school, we are actually not going to have the impact on their well being that you could have if you could work across systems to establish a safe environment for that child in addition to therapeutic approaches.”

To read the full profile of Renée Boynton-Jarret go here. For the link to the abstract of Modifiable Resilience Factors to Childhood Adversity for Clinical Pediatric Practice, go here.

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Cissy, I think your perspective as a parent and parent advocate on this information helps us all connect more directly to sectors we may not feel most comfortable in, like pediatrics. Thanks for making the bridge! And what an inspiring example Renée Boynton-Jarret is.

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