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There’s now a growing body of research showing the positive health effects of nature. At a recent conference in Oakland, CA, clinicians who prescribe nature to help buffer ACEs and toxic stress experienced by children and families shared findings from their own research and others.

When Sabrina Bugget-Kellum walked into a neighbourhood clinic in New York for a routine appointment in in 2016, she was desperate. Her son was in prison. She was trying to look after his two young children, who were aged one and two. Their mother was emotionally unstable. Bugget-Kellum did not want the chaos of the adults’ lives passed down to another generation. “We didn’t know if they would be safe with their mother,” she recalled recently. “I began to pray, please God, I need some help.

Penn State Scranton assistant professors of psychology Karin Machluf and P. Douglas Sellers II, along with their colleague, Christopher Aults from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, have found in a study that heart rate reactivity is a biological moderator between peer victimization (bullying) and internalizing problems (anxiety/depression) in adolescent girls. The researchers' paper, titled "Adolescent Girls' Biological Sensitivity to Context: Heart Rate Reactivity Moderates the Relationship...

Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children [Pediatrics] Addressing the social emotional needs of children in chronic poverty: A pilot of the Journey of Hope [Children and Youth Services Review] From Child Maltreatment to Adolescent Substance Use: Different Pathways for Males and Females? [Feminist Criminology] Adverse Childhood Experiences and Justice-Involved Youth: The Effect of Trauma and Programming on Different Recidivistic Outcomes [Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice] Quality of...

Adolescents with a particular variant of an opioid receptor gene have less response in a part of prefrontal cortex that evaluates rewards, compared to those with the other version of the gene, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). For the study, presented Monday at Neuroscience 2018, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (abstract #7517), the investigators scanned adolescents who have never used drugs or alcohol with functional magnetic resonance...

ACEs, Adversity's Impact Adverse childhood experiences increase prediabetes markers in adulthood How parenting affects antisocial behaviors in children Documentary broken places uses archival footage to tell stories of ACEs and resilience over time NYC's first lady urges reporters to tackle mental health issues A guide to toxic stress The quest to find biomarkers for toxic stress, resilience in children - A Q&A with Jack Shonkoff Parent-child bond predicts depression, anxiety in teens...

Texas’ southern border is ground zero in the nation’s immigration debate. We’ve covered concerns that the Trump administration’s family separation policy could have lasting traumatic effects on the migrant children separated from their parents at the border. A recent study looked at the health impact on kids who are part of families of mixed legal status, such as the roughly 1,800 kids in the Rio Grande Valley who had a parent deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year. Tania...

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises parents against the use of spanking as a disciplinary tool, citing multiple potential hards. APSAC agrees and offers alternatives for parents

Editor's note: A common interest among ACEs in Pediatrics members is finding research that shows how ACE scores correlate with high cost health care utilization. This study in Preventive Medicine Reports looks into that correlation. " To our knowledge, no other studies have examined the e ff ects of ACEs on utilization and cost, independent of medical condition acuity. ACEs exposure emerged as the sole factor independently associated with both initial and persistent high-cost status, aside...

Dear Illinois ACE Connection members, Children and families from all demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds in Illinois experience trauma, adversity, and chronic stress. Social determinants such as where we live, work, and play, can further exacerbate positive or negative physical, emotional, and behavioral health issues. The critical factor that determines if a child, family, and/or community can manage trauma, adversity, and chronic stress successfully is resilience : the process by...

October 27, 2018 8:45 AM 5:00 PM PDT Calling all health care providers! Save the date! Saturday October 27th, 2018 Join The Center for Nature and Health and Primary Care Clinic, UCSF Benioff's Children's Hospital: When: Saturday, October 27th, 2018, 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (Outdoor time included!) Where: CHORI Library, 5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, Ca Register now: www.bitly.com/ucsf- nature2018 Featured speakers: Daphne Miller, MD, Physician and author Jose Gonzalez, Founder, Latino...

Why do children exposed to the same level of adversity in childhood have different outcomes? Why do some thrive and others become completely damaged? These were the kinds of burning questions that prompted filmmaker Roger Weisberg to produce the documentary Broken Places , which was shown in a private screening at the 2018 National ACEs Conference in San Francisco. The film delves into the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that each of the adults profiled in it endured first as children.