March 2020

In times of crisis, it is critical that parents, teachers, and all caring adults are prepared to serve as sturdy, nurturing foundations that children can lean on for love and guidance. Regardless of the nature of the traumatic event, there are some universal factors we must always consider that are at play with how kids perceive events, and how those perceptions may impact their reactions and behavior. How we can all help our children: The most important thing a parent/adult can do is to...

This has been quite a week, and we are now facing major disruptions in our own family lives. There is no doubt that the events of this winter and spring will be memorable for children. In that spirit, here are a few ideas to help make those memories (at least somewhat) happy.

By Amy Dworsky, Colleen Schlecht, Gina Fedock, et al., Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, March 2020 The dramatic increase in the number of women in state and federal prisons in recent decades has led to calls for gender-responsive policies and practices that address the needs and circumstances of incarcerated women and recognize the central role that motherhood plays in many incarcerated women’s lives. This brief describes the results of a project undertaken by researchers from...

By Kathryn J. Murray, Kelly M. Sullivan, Maria C. Lent, et al., APA PsycNET, March 2020 Abstract The Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) is a workshop designed to promote trauma-informed parenting among foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers (i.e., resource parents). The ultimate goal of RPC is to improve placement stability and promote healing from traumatic stress in children who have been placed in out-of-home care. The current study examined data from multiple RPC implementation sites...

By Ingrid Giesinger, Jiehui Li, Erin Takemoto, et al., Jama Network Open, February 5, 2020 Key Points Question What is the association of mortality with baseline and repeated assessments of posttraumatic stress disorder in a population exposed to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, over 13 years of follow-up? Findings In this cohort study of 63 666 World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees, posttraumatic stress disorder was associated with an increased risk of mortality...

From Futures Without Violence, March 2020 Webinar Description: This webinar will explore findings from the Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads (PAIVED) study , and presenters will identify approaches that fatherhood programs take or could take to help prevent and address intimate partner violence among fathers.The PAIVED study examines the approaches that fatherhood programs take to help prevent and address intimate partner violence (IPV) among fathers. The webinar...

I remember last year on Mother’s Day, I was researching articles about complicated mother-daughter relationships and did not seem to find any that described my experience. What sparked this Google search? All the beautiful messages I saw on social media from daughters to their mothers. These messages described a relationship I did not know of. I wondered why instead of honoring my mom I was very angry at her, this time a type of anger that I could not hide, ruminate in silence as I had done...

By Katie Lear, Moms, February 28, 2020 Parents, teachers, and other professionals, who work with kids are increasingly aware of the impact trauma has on children's health. When you think of trauma, you might imagine an extreme scenario, like war or violent crime that primarily impacts adults. In reality, there are many forms of trauma, that regularly affect children, and the effects of trauma in childhood can be lifelong. One groundbreaking study by the CDC, called the Adverse Childhood...

By Lillian Mongeau, The Hechinger Report, February 29, 2020 Ameykay Stocks, a mail carrier and mother of five, has sent all of her children, now ages 5 to 16, to her local public schools here from the year they turned 3. Few families in America have such an option. Nationally, only 68 percent of 4-year-olds and 40 percent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in preschool in 2017, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.* Most, but not all, preschool programs receive some public...

The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is excited to share the seventh episode of In the Arena with NOW , a podcast series that lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. Episode 7: Community Data into Action: An African American Breastfeeding Blueprint Headquartered in Atlanta,...

By Adam Piore, Newsweek, March 2, 2020 In the mid-2000s, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris opened a children's medical clinic in the Bayview section of San Francisco, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. She quickly began to suspect something was making many of her young patients sick. She noticed the first clues in the unusually large population of kids referred to her clinic for symptoms associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—an inability to focus, impulsivity, extreme...

Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property. Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”