Blog

This issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry provides new insights into the biological, social, and health-related effects of early-life adversity and exposure to trauma. This issue, focused on early-life environmental factors that are associated with the development and treatment of psychopathology, provides new insights into the biological, social, and health-related outcomes resulting from adversity and trauma exposure. Published Online: 1 Jan 2020 at ...

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...

10-12PM PT, January 15, 2020 Promise Venture Studio and the National Family Support Network would like to invite you to Show+Tell, a first-of-its-kind series of online, interactive events showcasing the most promising innovations in early childhood development with the potential for scaled impact for children facing the greatest adversities. This first Show+Tell will feature a 3 min "demo" about Family Resource Centers, developed by the NFSN and selected by Promise Venture Studio for...

By Kim Phagan-Hansel, The Chronicle of Social Change, January 9, 2020 Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) announced yesterday she will create a new agency that houses child welfare and juvenile justice services at the state level. The new Kansas Department of Human Services will include the Department of Children and Families (DCF), Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) and the juvenile services division of the Department of Corrections (DOC). Current Secretary Laura Howard, who was...

Hello Community! Tuesday, February 11, 2020 11:30 AM – 4 PM (PST) Washington State Convention Center & Webstream Mark your calendars for the upcoming 2020 NW Children’s Foundation Forum: Community Trauma and Child Well-Being: A Deeper Dive into the Future of Healing . Historical and intergenerational trauma is real and far reaching. The cumulative emotional wounding from generation to generation can contribute to many negative health outcomes for individuals including PTSD, depression...

Please welcome these two new community initiatives from Idaho and Virginia to ACEs Connection . More information about each one of them is below. Caroline Virginia Community Resilience Network: Our local community network is newly formed in the Richmond, Va region and have a ton of support from local agencies, sheriff, Superintendent of Schools, and faith leaders who are passionate about changing the culture and trajectory of our community one family at a time. You are welcome to join the...

Do you feel like the “traditional ways” of helping traumatized children just aren’t working? You’re not alone and you no longer need to be frustrated. Recent discoveries in brain science has opened doors to new understanding and therefore, new approaches to helping traumatized children. HERE this NOW is thrilled to offer a 2-day affordable training workshop to introduce Dr. Bruce Perry's approach to assessing and treating trauma. An Introduction to NMT (Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics)...

From August to December 2019 I worked as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) at a small school district in Northern California. The location was in the Salinas Valley and the geography is agricultural. The primary language spoken in the community is Spanish. I arrived in August just after school had started. The best and most amazing memory is the welcoming I received from my colleague Luisa. She had been working in the district for 6 years. Upon meeting me for the first time she gave me the...

By Yair Oded, Fair Planet, January 13, 2020 Women are the fastest growing prison population in the United States. Other than constituting yet another indication of how deeply flawed the American criminal justice system is, this fact has brought to light the incompetence of federal and private prisons in providing female inmates (particularly pregnant ones) proper medical care and protection from the rampant physical and sexual abuse they are subject to in detention. A Change.org petition...

By Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, January 2020 Today’s health challenges are influenced by factors well beyond the clinic walls, from our access to economic opportunity to the safety of our surroundings. Through our leadership development programs, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports and connects change leaders nationwide who are working to build a Culture of Health. Applications open January 10, 2020 for Clinical Scholars, Culture of Health Leaders, Health Policy Research Scholars,...

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, January 13, 2020 Once a month, patients line up early at La Clínica de la Raza’s San Antonio Neighborhood Health Center in East Oakland. They arrive with grocery bags and $10 vouchers written by their physicians for the most basic — and yet surprising — type of medicine: healthful food. Since 2018, La Clínica has been running “food pharmacies” to help patients obtain fresh, locally sourced produce. The food pharmacy program is part of...

By S.I. Rosenbaum, NationSwell, January 13, 2020 There’s a story about three men hauling stones that the artist Ben Shahn famously retells in his 1957 book, “The Shape of Content.” The story goes like this: As the men are toiling, a nameless passerby asks each of the three “in what work they were engaged.” As Shahn tells it, the three men each give three very different replies: “The first said, ‘I toil from sunup to sundown and all I receive for my pains is a few francs a day.’ “The second...