September 2019

I’m Peter Chiavetta, 1st Assistant Fire Chief in my local fire department. I respond to EMS 911 calls every week. I received this dispatch during the evening. Meet PD for mental health transport. Upon my arrival I am briefed by PD that I have a victim of a suicide attempt. My patient put a shot gun in their mouth and pulled the trigger. 99.9997 percent of the time a bullet primer will fire. That’s how reliable it is. This time there was a missed fire. My patient gets a second chance at life.

Soon after being appointed California’s first-ever surgeon general , Nadine Burke Harris took off on a barnstorming tour across the state to talk about adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress, an issue she calls “the biggest public health crisis facing California today.” Before the pediatrician was appointed to her position in January by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Harris had founded and led the Center for Youth Wellness, organization focused on addressing toxic stress and the study of...

Looking on the bright side helps me reframe many adverse childhood experiences. Earlier this week, a first-of-its-kind study (Bethell et al., 2019) from Johns Hopkins University reported that adults over age 18 who self-reported having more positive childhood experiences (PCEs) tended to have better adult mental health, a lower risk of depression , and healthier adulthood relationships. The seven items on a PCE psychometric assessment include answering "yes" or "no" to a prompt, "Before the...

Peace Day in the Park September 21st, 2019 When: Sept. 21, 2019 Time: 9 a.m. – noon Location: Central Park 150 W Morse Blvd Winter Park, FL 32789 The Peace and Justice Institute at Valencia College will partner with the City of Winter Park to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Peace on Saturday, Sept. 21, in the city’s Central Park. Each year, Valencia College celebrates the Day of Peace on its campuses, but this year, the college’s Peace and Justice Institute is inviting the...

By Juli Fraga, National Public Radio, September 8, 2019 "Before I became a dad, the thought of struggling to soothe my crying baby terrified me," says Yaka Oyo, 37, a new father who lives in New York City. Like many first-time parents, Oyo worried he would misread his newborn baby's cues. "I pictured myself pleading with my baby saying, 'What do you want?' " Oyo's anxieties are common to many first-time mothers and fathers. One reason parents-to-be sign up for prenatal classes is to have...

There’s some rare good news for Central Florida’s kids — the poverty rate dropped significantly from 2012 to 2017, juvenile arrests were down and more children were covered by health insurance. The findings were released Wednesday by the Florida Kids Count 2019 Child Well-being Index, produced by researchers at the University of South Florida and based on 16 measures of health, financial stability, education and social welfare in each Florida county. On the whole, St. Johns County — in the...

Almost half of all American children have experienced at least some form of childhood trauma. Many of these adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, can be tied back to drug and substance abuse, but their impact may be more widespread than many perceive. In Tennessee, an estimated 49% of children have at least one adverse childhood experience, and 24.1% have at least two. Nationally, those numbers sit at 45% and 20.5%, respectively. Children with ACEs, such as neglect, physical and sexual...

This free Trauma-Informed Care case-based virtual course is offered by Aquifer and the Office of Women's Health. Here is the website: https://www.aquifer.org/courses/trauma-informed-care/ Overview Trauma-informed Care provides a training tool for a broad range of healthcare providers and their staff to learn about the prevalence and impact of trauma and how to integrate the principles of trauma-informed care into clinical practice. By understanding the behavioral, neurological, and health...

As we prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian's effects later this week, certainly there are feelings of anxiety and confusion. Already? We haven't even finished recovering from Hurricane Florence! Let's choose to remember all the things we have learned from one another about being resilient in the face of stress over the course of the past year. We have learned about the body's response to stress and trauma, and that adding "stressors" and triggers to these can cause us to feel even...