Blog

The proposed paradigm shift from mandated reporting to community supporting is not a new idea, but one that has been proposed and championed by advocates, social workers, researchers, philanthropists, pediatricians, educators, and others across the country who have been informed by deep listening to families with lived expertise in the child welfare system. Creating a Child & Family Well-Being System: A Paradigm Shift from Mandated Reporting to Community Supporting from Safe and Sound...

This resource guide from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers guidance to help those working with youth involved in multiple systems (YIMS) and their families to use a traumatic stress perspective and provide trauma-informed care. This resource guide uses two case vignettes throughout to illustrate the concepts within. It describes what trauma and recovery might look like for YIMS, trauma-informed practices that could be beneficial, using trauma-informed screening and...

It's not too late to lead your own book study of What Happened to You? by Bruce D. Perry, MD PhD, and Oprah Winfrey in your community! Register NOW to attend the Book Study Leader Check-In with Children’s Trust Fund Alliance on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 7-8:30 p.m. ET This is an opportunity to share your experiences as a book study leader, raise questions, make recommendations, and celebrate with us. Open to all book study leaders and those who may want to facilitate a study! This event is part of...

Connect Our Kids' technology platform enhances the most successful family search and engagement programs in the country. Child welfare professionals use their technology tools to dramatically scale up their family search and engagement efforts and to ensure work is perfectly documented, organized, and reports are easily shared. Connect Our Kids' technology tools offer a strong foundation to meet legal requirements and quickly identify relatives of a child in the government's custody. Learn...

The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) invites you to join us for a discussion on Flourishing Families, Centering Justice: Policy Solutions for Prevention-focused, Trauma-informed Supports for Children and Families . This webinar will explore trauma-informed primary, secondary, and tertiary approaches to supporting struggling families and keeping them together. Our expert panelists will: Reframe our understanding of neglect Provide a brief overview of historical and...

By Brianna Bailey, Photograph: Brianna Bailey/The Frontier, The Marshall Project, September 13, 2022 Two district attorneys have targeted mothers with child neglect felonies. NEWKIRK, OKLA. — Early in her pregnancy, Amanda Aguilar struggled with severe nausea that sometimes made it hard to eat. A doctor had previously approved a medical marijuana license for her, so she used pot to ease her morning sickness. Aguilar, 33, said she stopped using marijuana after her third month of pregnancy and...

In 2020 when I first started working with Coastal Horizons, my co-worker Amy talked about the CRM Trainings she was giving. At that point I was new and wanted to learn more about it so I went to my first 8 hour CRM training. Little did I know this training would become a new way of communicating with the children in my home. See I am a single kinship/foster/adoptive/birth mother to at least four children, all of which have experience a great deal of trauma. At first I started by using the...

“Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media”, published today, is available at a pre-launch discount of up to $1.96 (from the $28 cover price to $26.04) via independent bookstores . The book is the seventh by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, acclaimed author, science journalist, international speaker and longtime friend of PACEs Connection. Jackson will join PACEs Connection for our second “Connecting Communities One Book at a Time”...

Grief is inevitable, essential, and universal. Like many of you, we at PACEs Connection have experienced a multitude of losses through the past several years. As a team, we have experienced financial instability, we have lost family and friends, and we have mourned our pre-Covid lives. We recognize that we are not alone. In the spirit of collective healing, PACEs Connection invites you to attend the Collective Trauma, Grief & Healing Conference. This unique and interactive conference...

For the last eight months the Medicaid plan provider has engaged community resiliency-building experts and organizers to help children, families, and caseworkers in the state’s foster care program to boost resilience and better manage stress. The innovative project is called the Healthy Blue Initiative . “We all know kids in foster care have higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than most children. They are often in foster care due to loss of a parent from death, illness —...

S.T.A.Y. Tuned: Supporting Transition-Age Youth Podcast is a podcast for young adults made by young adults with mental health conditions. It's designed to share useful information our research team has gained through studies of transition-age youth/young adults navigating school or work. We bring on guests, including our research collaborators from across the globe, and discuss the challenges and opportunities for youth with serious mental health struggles, particularly as they navigate...

Bodily autonomy—or the ability to make decisions about our bodies, health, and sexuality without policing or coercion by others—is essential to living a life with dignity, and yet, in this country, it is not guaranteed to all. The U.S. has a long and sordid history of exploiting and controlling people’s bodies, especially those of Black, Indigenous, and poor people. For youth in foster care, a glaring lack of autonomy and control over their lives and decision making is reflected in their...