Tagged With "A better normal"
Blog Post
An ACES Presentation as a Sermon
My 45-minute Understanding ACES teaching was delivered on Sunday to a church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. This will be followed by a special weekly series that addresses the Christian/biblical solution to the many spiritual risk factors that stem from early life trauma.
Blog Post
Building Resilience for Better Lives - from HelenaIR.com
Life is hard. “In this world you WILL have trouble,” Jesus said. The ability to successfully face the hardships that will inevitably come to us will determine our level of satisfaction, joy, and peace. Resilience isn’t just a desirable trait, it’s absolutely essential. And, it turns out that scripture has a lot to say about this essential quality for successful living. There are many passages we could examine to illustrate the point, but the letter from James is one of my favorites. Eugene...
Blog Post
Emotional Well-Being and Coping During COVID-19 [psychiatry.ucsf.edu]
From Weill Institute for Neurosciences, UCSF, May 2020 These are unprecedented times. We need to work extra hard to manage our emotions well. Expect to have a lot of mixed feelings. Naturally we feel anxiety, and maybe waves of panic, particularly when seeing new headlines. A recent article by stress scientist and Vice Chair of Adult Psychology Elissa Epel, PhD, outlines the psychology behind the COVID-19 panic response and how we can try to make the best of this situation. Our anxiety is...
Blog Post
Got time for a little brainstorming with ACEsConnection?
On Friday, March 20, 2020, you're invited to join me to talk about how we, as a community, can continue to guide and educate ourselves about to deal with the effects of the spread of Covid-19, and how to continue those efforts with people who don't yet know about ACEs science. And, given this last week, how we can provide more support to stay in the front of our brains instead of feeding our amygdala.
Blog Post
Investments in New Hanover County’s Resiliency Paying Off During Time of Pandemic
Cliff Barnett, Wilmington city council member; pastor at Warner Temple AME Zion, and chair of the Family Faith and Community committee for the New Hanover Resiliency Task Force (RTF), shares experience in using sign language during a regularly scheduled RTF meeting. (Other photos are from recent monthly RTF meetings). With training, community’s front lines are proving resilient to and aware of trauma’s impact WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA April 7, 2020 Two years ago, the Resiliency Task Force...
Blog Post
Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 14, 2020, trauma-informed housing
Andy Marlette This week, we're hosting 'A Better Normal' discussions: on Tuesday, April 14; and Thursday, April 16, 2020....12 pm PT/ 1 pm MT/ 2 pm CT/ 3 pm ET. Tuesday, April 14, 2020 Margaret Stagmeier, Atlanta real estate developer and social entrepreneur, has developed an affordable housing model that decreases income inequality and improves failing schools. Her nonprofits — EduHousing and Star-C — purchase blighted apartment complexes located next to failing elementary schools, a nd...
Blog Post
Nurturing relationships in childhood boost adult mental health, relationships
We're proud to announce major research that suggests that positive childhood experiences — such as supportive family interactions, caring relationships with friends, and connections in the community — are associated with reductions in chances of adult depression and poor mental health, and increases in the chances of having healthy relationships in adulthood. This association was true even among those with a history of adverse childhood experiences.
Blog Post
Personal stories from witnesses, U.S. representatives provided an emotional wallop to House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on childhood trauma
Room erupts in applause for the grandmother of witness William Kellibrew during July 11 House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. The power of personal stories from witnesses and committee members fueled the July 11 hearing on childhood trauma in the House Oversight and Reform Committee* throughout the nearly four hours of often emotional and searing testimony and member questions and statements (Click here for 3:47 hour video). The hearing was organized into a two panels—testimony from...
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Today's kids are experiencing a world full of trauma. Is your church trauma-informed?
In our world today, many children experience early childhood trauma. Through a lot of research, we now know that childhood trauma can affect children for the rest of their lives. ACEs too High explains in several articles and research reviews how trauma in early childhood can affect kids’ behavior and health during childhood and cause lifelong problems. We know early trauma causes toxic stress in the brains of young children—so much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a...
Blog Post
Trauma can bring about growth [NCROnline.org]
In the second article of this series, I focused on hope and healing for survivors of sexual abuse. Here, I extend the discussion beyond healing to discuss the possibility, now validated through research, that some trauma survivors actually experience post-traumatic growth. If healing can occur from the truly devastating consequences of adverse childhood experiences -- including sexual abuse by clergy -- can survivors also experience meaningful growth through their confrontation with trauma?
Blog Post
Trauma-informed churches
In our world today many children are experiencing early childhood trauma. We now know through a lot of research that childhood trauma can affect a child for the rest of their lives. The website ACEs too High (Adverse Childhood Experiences)...
Blog Post
USD Kroc Insight newsletter - Look Both Ways: Religous Leaders and the Challenge of Engaging Community and Police
Across the United States, including in San Diego where the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (Kroc IPJ) launched the Building Trust Partnership (BTP), relationships between communities and law enforcement are strained and plagued by mistrust. To build relationships and restore trust between police and communities while confronting difficult, emotionally and politically charged issues, religious leaders must engage with both sides and remain neutral, even when speaking to one may be...
Blog Post
When Hidden Grief Gets Triggered During COVID-19 Confinement
first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...
Comment
Re: Linear draft plan
My suggestions to the linear plan from Kimberly for tomorrows discussion from our most recent email: A. Under mission and Values: Create trauma-informed congregations that are able to address the co-occurring epidemics of Violence Against Children (ACEs) , adult violence, untreated mental illness... etc.... VALUES Prevention as Young as Possible ( T h ere needs to be a statement here somewhere as to preventing ACEs --- it needs to be specific.... such as our values are to protect the rights...
Comment
Re: You know I really believe!!!
Tina, Thanks so much for sharing your story. Nearly every week someone tells me how their childhood was nearly unbearable were it not for a little old lady who took him or her to Sunday School or took them into her home. Churches have a huge impact, but I'm afraid most pastors are unaware of how a traumatic childhood affects people. I recently read an article in a magazine intended for pastors about "high maintenance" people in church. It spent time bemoaning how some people take advantage...
Comment
Re: You know I really believe!!!
Originally Posted by Dave Lockridge: Tina, Thanks so much for sharing your story. Nearly every week someone tells me how their childhood was nearly unbearable were it not for a little old lady who took him or her to Sunday School or took them into her home. Churches have a huge impact, but I'm afraid most pastors are unaware of how a traumatic childhood affects people. I recently read an article in a magazine intended for pastors about "high maintenance" people in church. It spent time...
Comment
Re: Building Resilience for Better Lives - from HelenaIR.com
Chris, Great post. Thank you for the work you are doing. I would encourage you to include hope. There is so much in the Bible on the centrality of hope in people's lives. Hope is even more measurable and teachable than resilience. But thank you for connecting resilience to spirituality. It so crucial to so many that overcome trauma, violence, and adversity. My wife works at Mt. Miguel Covenant Village in San Diego and we attend a small Covenant Church. Mt. Miguel residents are huge...
File
SAMHSATIApproach.pdf
Blog Post
What Do We Do? What Do We Do Now?
People’s response to the great chasms of structural inequities glaringly laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic have been further inflamed by the murder of George Floyd and deaths of other African Americans in recent weeks. The acute emergency of the pandemic has eased, but the violence inflicted on racial minorities and now those who are protesting the inequities in our society has compounded the outrage. Right after the pandemic began running riot across the US, I often heard people ask: When...
Blog Post
A Better Normal Friday, June 19th at Noon PDT: LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma
Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our ongoing series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. LGBTQ+ Identity and Race in the US: An Intersectional Discussion On Historical and Generational Trauma With Panelists Rev. Dr. D. Mark Wilson and Alexander Cho, Ph.D., Moderated by ACEs Connection staff members Jenna Quinn and Alison Cebulla Friday, June 19th, 2020 Noon to 1pm, PT (3pm to 4pm ET) >>Click here to register<< Please join us...
Blog Post
A Better Normal Tuesday, June 30th at Noon PDT: Reinterpreting American Identity, a Community Discussion
"I think that all of us, regardless of our racial or ethnic background, feel relieved that we no longer have to deal with the racism and the sexism associated with the system of slavery. But we treat the history of enslavement like we treat the genocidal colonization of indigenous people in North America, as if it was not that important, or worse, as if it never happened." —Angela Davis, "The Meaning of Freedom" Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our...
Blog Post
'A Better Normal' Community Discussion Series: How to Grow a Resilient Community - July 7, 2020
Interested in learning what it takes to Grow a Resilient Community? Do you want to learn how to become a member of ACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities? If so, please join us Tuesday, July 7th, 12-1pm PDT for our next 'A Better Normal' community discussion series. In this discussion we will be talking with Brian Semsem of Fresno's Every Neighborhood Partnership. We will be talking to Brian about what led him to work with ACEs and resilience. In addition, we will be discussing the path...
Blog Post
GUEST EDITORIAL: We need a new model for mental health [heraldtribune.com]
By Andrea Blanch, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 27, 2020 People are really stressed out right now. A recent national survey reports that “serious psychological distress” — the kind that can lead to longer-term psychiatric disorders — has more than tripled since this time last year. We are already seeing the consequences in Sarasota County, with the number of opioid-related deaths in the first half of 2020 more than double the number in all of 2019. And based on experience with SARS, experts...
Blog Post
Donald Trump is the product of abuse and neglect. His story is common, even for the powerful and wealthy.
“In order to cope,” writes Mary Trump, “Donald began to develop powerful but primitive defenses, marked by an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absence and father’s neglect….In place of [his emotional needs] grew a kind of grievance and behaviors—including bullying, disrespect, and aggressiveness—that served their purpose in the moment but became more problematic over time. With appropriate care and attention, they might have been overcome.”
Blog Post
Trauma-informed policing: Learn how three highly experienced community leaders strengthen ties between police and community
ACEs initiative participants in communities where there is tension between the community and law enforcement will want to join Becky Haas in a compelling conversation on law enforcement, ACEs science, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Haas is a nationally recognized adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) science initiative builder and trainer. She and colleagues Renee Wilson-Simmons, the head of the ACE Awareness Foundation of Memphis, Tennessee, and Maggi Duncan,...
Blog Post
Baby courts: A proven approach to stop the multigenerational transmission of ACES in child welfare; new efforts to establish courts nationwide
The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...
Blog Post
A Shadow ACE in Christian Babycare
As a former La Leche League Leader I became familiar with the teachings of Gary Ezzo (“Raising Kids God’s Way,” "On Becoming Babywise") in the early 1990’s. Leaders in my area began getting a lot of phone calls on our warm line that followed the same basic story: a baby not thriving and a case of very low milk supply despite the Mom’s exclusive breastfeeding and a strong desire to breastfeed. It gradually emerged that a local church had begun promoting a rigid rules-based practice of baby...
Blog Post
Hope and Progress, No Matter What! — an ACEs Connection/Cambia Health Foundation “Better Normal”, Oct. 22, 2020
The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not.
What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.
Blog Post
"A Better Normal" Community Discussion Series- Our Reckoning with Race and Equity at ACEs Connection
Register for A Better Normal- Our reckoning with race and equity at ACEs Connection
Blog Post
"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise PNP, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be on...
Blog Post
"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise Proudfoot RN, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be...
Blog Post
A Better Normal- Education Upended 11/19, with special guest Robin Cogan, The Relentless School Nurse!
Hi Everyone! Welcome back. I am SO very excited to announce our special guest for this Thursday 11/19 12-1 PST. Please join us as we discuss everything school health and school nursing with rock star school nurse Robin Cogan. Along with all her amazing achievements in her bio below she has recently been featured on CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, and the NYT commenting on school health and the invaluable role of school nurses during a pandemic. Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN is a Nationally Certified...
Blog Post
ACEs Champion: The reintroduction of Michael Hayes — from ACEs awakening to ACEs community service
It wasn’t until his fifth prison term in a North Carolina county jail — his fourth conviction for driving under the influence — that Michael Hayes volunteered to take an ACE survey that changed his life. The 48-year-old father of six sons and one daughter had spent a number of years in and out of prison. During his last term, to get some time out of the cell where he spent 16 hours a day, he volunteered to attend a class offered by RHA Health Services, a nonprofit that incorporates the...
Blog Post
We’ve changed our name to PACEs Connection!
We have some very exciting news! As of today, ACEs Connection is now PACEs Connection. PACEs stands for Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences.
Blog Post
A Better Normal Friday, March 26, 2021: PACEs and HOPE with Dr. Christina Bethell
Please join us for our next installment of A Better Normal, our live webinar series in which we imagine and create our society as trauma-informed! You may have seen we changed our name recently from ACEs Connection to PACEs Connection. Please join us to learn all about the groundbreaking research of Positive Childhood Experiences and how this is going to transform the work we are all doing. >>Click here to register<< PACEs and HOPE Live Event Friday, March 26, 2021 Noon PT / 1pm...
Blog Post
Letting Go of Baggage (Wounds of Childhood)
Today, Dr Charles Stanley, founder of In Touch Ministries , shares a devotional titled Letting Go of Baggage. Although he does not use the term of Adverse Childhood Experiences, he refers to this type of trauma that a person can experience early in life. I'm making the entire devotional available here as it offers a brief biblical perspective of the impact of ACES and how to handle this 'baggage." ------------- HEBREWS 12:1-3 - "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses...
Blog Post
Learn how to secure federal funding for your community. A Better Normal with CTIPP, Dave Ellis, Dan Jurman
The nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan Act has several buckets of funding that can be used to promote trauma-informed and healing-centered projects. PACEs Connection communities can apply for this funding, according to leaders of the Campaign for Trauma-informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), the National Trauma Campaign, and PACEs Connection. The “Better Normal” webinar on Friday, May 14 at 3 p.m. EST; Noon PST, Dan Press, Jesse Kohler and Marlo Nash of CTIPP will begin by describing...
Blog Post
Bouncing Forward After Adverse Childhood Experiences
Once the healing of hidden wounds from adverse childhood experiences has sufficiently progressed, attention can turn to developing a richly satisfying future. Your innate inner strengths, experiences, and acquired skills will help rewire your brain for a brighter future.
Blog Post
Drug Addiction and ACEs: A Journey Through the Gates of Hell to Redemption
Attachment disruptions and other hidden wounds from ACEs can render one more vulnerable to drug addiction. Genuine, mature love from others, and for oneself, can change the course of one's life. A recent book highlights the path from childhood trauma to addiction to recovery.
Blog Post
What Children Really Need Is Adults That Understand Development
The brain doesn’t fully develop until about the age of 25. This fact is sometimes quite surprising and eye opening to most adults. It can also be somewhat overwhelming for new parents and professionals who are interacting with babies and young children every day, to contemplate. It is essential to realize however, that the greatest time of development occurs in the years prior to kindergarten. And even more critical to understand is that by age three 85 percent of the core structures of the...
Blog Post
Gifting Yourself Peace after Childhood Adversity: After Painful Memories Are Confronted, Healing Continues
Wounds of the heart may persist after troubling memories from childhood adversity have been rewired. Fortunately, pain from childhood adversities can spur us to create a peaceful heart of forgiving, kindness, calm, and purpose.