August 2020

August 25 Webinar Will Feature a RWJF Culture of Health Prize-winning Community's Green Initiatives A green vision for economic growth can have a positive effect on health outcomes in a community, something 2019 RWJF Culture of Health Prize-winner Gonzales, California has experienced firsthand. Join us for a webinar on August 25 to learn from the City of Gonzales about the Gozales Grows Green (G3) initiative, and how a collaborative, multi-sector enterprise like G3 can foster environmental...

PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC ART INTERVENTIONS FOR NAVIGATING TRAUMA PAINT (Psychotherapeutic Art Interventions for Navigating Trauma) Are you a California school-based mental health provider working with students covered by Medi-Cal? Do you want to deepen your knowledge of evidence-based, trauma-informed and relationship-centered practices? Do you want to learn about innovative and engaging art-based interventions that have been adapted for Telehealth delivery? ‍ TRAINING SERIES START DATE: Sept. 22,...

Local Sebastopol non-profit Peacetown is spreading joy and community engagement through the Family Village's project called Peace Bags. Every week for 13 weeks a different local organization "sponsors" a week by providing printed resources and an activity that supports community connection, family engagement, and some fun. The bags are distributed for FREE in collaboration with a local toy store. I happen to come across a conversation on one of the posts I made regarding Peace Bags. The post...

Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, has a lot in common with the vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris—Jamaican heritage, surname, home state—and a commitment to addressing ACEs and toxic stress. As reported in the New Yorker article by Paul Tough, “The Poverty Clinic,” Dr. Harris told Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, about ACEs in 2008 and in response, she offered to help. District Attorney Harris then introduced her to professor of child and...

NOTE: This summer, the Center for Youth Wellness was extremely proud to host intern Alan Huang, a rising Senior at UC Berkeley double-majoring in Neurobiology and Music. During his internship through the Boston Consulting Group Ambassador program, Alan wrote the following post about ACEs in the Asian American community. Although the link between adverse childhood experiences and subsequent health outcomes has been well-established, there is still much that is unknown about the nuanced...

From Addressing Social Determinants of Health through Cross-Sector Collaboration, UC Berkeley, August 2020 Irán Barrera, PhD., LCSW is a professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work Education (DSWE) at Fresno State (College of Health and Human Services). Professor Barrera is examining the impact of a six-week parent child engagement intervention using a coloring book focused on educating families about the impact of ACEs on child development. Strikeout Toxic Stress! is designed...

In Fresno, volunteers from local churches were already working with the schools, mentoring kids and running weekend recreation programs. Community-based non-profits were in conversation with educators; pastors were talking to social-service providers. The problems were clear: nearly 30% of Fresno’s residents living in poverty (the rate tops 40% for Black residents), with a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest parts of this sharply segregated city. For several years,...

From CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY, Academy on Violence & Abuse, August, 2020 CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY (CAA) , funded by ACEs Aware , is providing free online training to Medi-Cal providers and others featuring: · Practical strategies for integrating trauma-informed health care into your team’s practice that improves patients’ well being and the productivity of your practice. · Meet colleagues with experience and success providing trauma-informed health care in their practices. · Learn from...

The Catalyst Center seeks to hire a dynamic Technical Assistance and Training Specialist! The Technical Assistance and Training Specialist is a dynamic position that will be an integral part of a small staff team who implements projects that help the Catalyst meet its mission. The Technical Assistance and Training Specialist, under the supervision of the Director of Strategic Initiatives, will be responsible for acting as the subject matter expert for trauma-informed and prevention care,...

By Matt Levin, Nigel Duara, and Erica Yee, Cal Matters, August 11, 2020 Like any parent, Jamie Burson didn’t want her 11-year-old son to discover how frightened she really was about the novel coronavirus. But it’s hard to mask anxiety when you’re living and sleeping together in the same car. After Burson was evicted from her two bedroom apartment in Vacaville the second week of April, she heeded Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order to shelter in place by cooping up in a two-door sedan near her Walmart...

By Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2020 After weeks of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a new poll shows that a majority of Californians support sweeping reforms to law enforcement — including measures that would make it easier to prosecute and sue police officers, limit the negotiating power of police unions and shift police funding to social workers and mental health providers. The backing for such measures comes amid growing concern about race relations in the...

By Maria Zate, Noozhawk, August 13, 2020 Pediatric Resiliency Collaborative (PeRC) and KIDS Network of Santa Barbara County have received a total of $350,000 in grant funds from the Office of the California Surgeon General and the Department of Health Care Services to participate in the state’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Aware initiative. ACEs Aware grants are funding the organizations to design and implement training and education activities for providers and organizations that...