This Administration on Children and Families (ACF) bulletin summarizes the effects of early trauma on brain development and looks at steps child welfare professionals can take to screen for developmental delays and identify the trauma-affected children and youth in their care. It also looks at ways to access cross-sector, therapeutic, and evidence-based treatment to encourage healthy recovery for trauma-affected children and youth. HERE TO ACCESS MATERIALS. Document attached.

While the impact of maltreatment on a child and their family is devastating, child maltreatment also has serious effects far beyond those for the victim. Maltreatment results in ongoing costs to taxpayers, institutions, businesses, and society at large. Local communities bear the brunt of these costs in the form of medical, educational, and judicial costs, though more tragic signs are seen in homelessness, addiction, and teen pregnancy. To create a concrete understanding of the widespread...

To view the document, click on the following link:  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health      

2019 Webinar Series: Building Resilient Communities Thursday, August 8th, 2019 10:00AM PDT | 1:00PM EDT This webinar will explore integrating a biological based model to reduce the impacts of toxic stress for children and adults. It is a model both for prevention and to use in the aftermath of adverse event. The Community Resiliency Model has been integrated into the Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning Program, a curriculum for schools K-12, inspired by his Holiness the Dalai Lama.

On April 29, 2020, the California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative held a webinar entitled, “Trauma-Informed Care/Practices in Light of COVID-19: Applying Lessons Learned from Child-Serving Systems” and heard from special guest speaker, Dr. Melissa Bernstein, an Implementation Specialist with the Advancing California’s Trauma-Informed Systems (ACTS) Initiative . Dr. Bernstein shared considerations for practical application of key trauma-informed elements put into practice through...

Welcome to the California Essentials for Childhood Initiative ACEs Connection Group. This group is intended to be a means of communication for all Essentials Initiative members and partners. We encourage our partners to share information on the...

In recognition of Child Abuse Prevention Month, the California Departments of Public Health, Health Care Services and Social Services, and multiple community partners welcomed Dr. Kenneth Epstein to speak about his work highlighting trauma and resilience-informed practices. The event was also co-sponsored by ACEs Connection Network, Kaiser Permanente, and UC Davis Medical Center. Dr. Epstein leads the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s (SFDPH) Trauma-Informed Systems Initiative,...

From the CDC’s Injury Prevention & Control, Division of Violence Prevention: "Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are essential to prevent child abuse and neglect and to assure all children reach their full potential. The Essentials for Childhood Framework proposes strategies communities can consider to promote relationships and environments that help children grow up to be healthy and productive citizens so that they, in turn, can build stronger and safer families and...

Interesting report from Futures Without Violence: Safe, Healthy, and Ready to Learn: Policy Recommendations to Ensure Children Thrive in Supportive Communities Free from Violence and Trauma

California Essentials for Childhood has just released its fifth newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!

Yesterday, NPR published the following story: CLICK HERE "Childhood trauma causes serious health repercussions throughout life and is a public health issue that calls for concerted prevention efforts. That's the takeaway of a report published Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experiencing traumatic things as a child puts you at risk for lifelong health effects, according to a body of research. The CDC's new report confirms this, finding that Americans who had...

Such a complex conversation... This is an area of passion for me - having worked with high-risk perinatal population for many years, conducted focus group interviews with women who were "clean" and in a treatment program - and heard first hand how and why they became pregnant while using - I was always surprised what they shared, and came to realize my assumptions were not accurate. I would urge the group to seek opportunities to work further upstream focusing on "preconception" or...

This comprehensive and significant presentation of this large data set dramatically documents the potentially tragic effects of child maltreatment. It also inherently and forcefully criticizes other narrow minded studies - still accepted in the professional literature - which are blinded by the fact that psychiatry in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) does not recognize "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Due to Child Abuse or Neglect" as a diagnosis. See the attached study of youth...

In the Q&A portion of the webinar, an attendee asked the following question: "Ratios of probability tell one story, but underlying probabilities may tell another. For example, the report shows that 1.3% of those with 4 or more ACEs experience heart disease compared to only 0.9% of those with no ACEs. The bolded interpretation emphasizes that those with 4 or more ACEs are 1.5 times as likely to have heart disease despite the very low likelihood for all BRFSS respondents. Predicting an...

By Anita Chandra and Carolyn Miller, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, January 29, 2021 2020 was arguably one of the most difficult years in American history, challenging our resilience and surfacing enduring and systemic challenges to our collective health and well-being. As we continue to measure the pandemic’s impact on short- and long-term health, as well as other social and economic indicators, it is useful to note where we stood pre-pandemic. Understanding the conditions and trends that...

The California Essentials for Childhood Initiative is excited to share a newly developed attached, “Strategies for Trauma-Informed School Communities: Practices to Improve Resiliency in School-Aged Children and Address Adverse Childhood Experiences”. This new resource is intended to assist state and local public health programs, child-serving systems, non-profits, and philanthropic organizations in their efforts to educate about the need for trauma-informed school policies and practices that...

PACEs Connection and the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , a project of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have developed two new resources, “ Community Strategies to Address California’s Digital Divide and Its Impact on Children and Families ” Report and the “ Digital Divide Brief: Community Strategies to Address California’s Digital Divide and Its Impact on Children and Families ” . “ Community Strategies to...

“Reimagining Child Wellbeing: Local Policy Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California’s Communities” is a resource developed in collaboration with the All Children Thrive, California (ACT) project and the California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) ’s , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative . This resource was created...

As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.