Monthly Archives: October 2014

How can big data help improve child maltreatment response and prevention?

October 29, 2014 By in Child abuse, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Solutions
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Miranda Sheffield and her daughter

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By Daniel Heimpel

At 18, Miranda Sheffield got the shock of her life when a pregnancy test came up positive.

Sheffield’s first reaction was “devastation, disappointment, depression, tragedy: any- and everything that could be negative.”

She was a track star and a senior at Pomona High School, set in the vast urban tracts surrounding Los Angeles. Unlike anyone else in her family, Sheffield was on her way to college.

Even if she didn’t fully realize it as a pregnant teen in 2004, the prospects for her baby girl were less than optimal. She was single, on public health insurance and had been in foster care for almost half of her quickly fading childhood.

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Arizona ACE Consortium spreads awareness, influences prevention of childhood trauma

October 28, 2014 By in ACE Study, Adverse childhood experiences, Child abuse, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Resilience, Solutions 2 Comments

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Not long after Marcia Stanton stumbled across the original article from the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, she heard a conference presentation by Dr. Vincent Felitti, one of the study’s co-authors. She invited Felitti to do grand rounds with 100 pediatricians at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where she works.

“I thought they’d be all over this,” says Stanton, a social worker in the hospital’s Injury Prevention Center, where she coordinates child abuse prevention programs and promotes primary prevention. After all, the study revealed a direct link between 10 types of childhood adversity and the adult onset of chronic disease (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, etc.), mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. It showed that childhood trauma

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Three brothers, three different paths out of foster care

October 22, 2014 By in ACE Study, Adverse childhood experiences, Child abuse, Child trauma 2 Comments
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Joseph Bakhit keeps a 2010 photo of his brother, Terrick, left, and himself in his Berkeley, California apartment, September 29, 2014. Bakhit is a former foster child and UC Berkeley student, double majoring in Peace and Conflict and Art. California’s AB12 legislation provides him with a stipend of $838 per month until age 21, in an effort to ease the transition from the foster care system into adulthood.

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By Brian Rinker

The brothers escaped on a Sunday.

Matt, 14, Terrick, 12, and Joseph, 11 pretended to go to church that day in 2006, but in secret they had planned to run away and never come back. No more living with an angry grandmother who drank. No more beatings with the belt.

They stashed a black plastic garbage bag full of

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State data fuels the ACEs conversation in Iowa

October 16, 2014 By in ACE Study, Adverse childhood experiences, Child abuse, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Solutions 5 Comments

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Most Iowans didn’t learn about the Centers for Disease Control’s ACE Study until early 2011. But in the three years since then, the state has completed two ACE surveys, one of them published, with a third survey underway and a fourth scheduled for 2015. Iowa has hosted three ACEs summits; two statewide summits in 2014 focused on ACEs in early childhood, and education and juvenile justice. And nearly every sector—including health care, education, social services and corrections—is busy answering the question: How do we integrate this knowledge into what we do?

“To this day, I can’t find out who knew to bring him here,” says Suzanne Mineck, president of the Mid Iowa Health Foundation, referring to physician

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One-way mirrors, monitors and a whole lot of training — how Parent-Child Interaction Therapy works

October 13, 2014 By in Adverse childhood experiences, Child abuse, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Solutions
A typical setup for a PICT training, in which a counselor monitors interaction between parent and child.

A typical setup for a PICT training, in which a counselor monitors interaction between parent and child.

By Christie Renick

Carla Francis’ training session is fast-paced.

Francis, a therapist, sits in an observation room with two monitors in front of her; one displays her clients – a grandmotherly woman and a toddler (their names have been changed to protect their identity) — in the playroom next door, and through the other she sees her virtual trainer, psychologist Dawn Blacker, who observes from her office hundreds of miles north at the University of California, Davis.

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Los Angeles bets big on Parent-Child Interaction Therapy to reduce adverse childhood experiences

October 13, 2014 By in Child abuse, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Solutions Leave a comment

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By Christie Renick

In June 2014, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors began implementing the recommendations made by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection, which calls for augmented child maltreatment prevention efforts.

While implementation of the commission’s many recommendations is a long-term venture, leaders are hoping that the rollout of a maltreatment prevention initiative may improve child safety in the short-term.

First 5 LA, a taxpayer-supported initiative that provides a variety of services to families with young

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What happens when the teacher is the bully?

October 8, 2014 By in Adverse childhood experiences, Child trauma, Education, School discipline

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My second grade teacher considered left-handed kids mentally deficient. She assigned me and two fellow lefties to the Turtle table; everyone else was a Rabbit. Rabbit classmates taunted me and I came to equate left-handedness with stupidity. The teacher called the turtles stupid, admonishing us not to tell, because everyone would know we were stupid. I obeyed, although nightly crying spells told my parents something was wrong.

School Superintendent Newman Smith, a member of my church, had known me all my life. One Sunday he asked my mother “What’s wrong with Annetta?” The next morning, he visited my class, folding his 6’4” frame into the tiny chair beside me. We didn’t talk — I was terrified the teacher would think I broke the silence. He recognized a teacher bully, and immediately moved me to another class, although I wasn’t told why.

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Children’s Resilience Initiative in Walla Walla, WA, draws spotlight to trauma-sensitive school

October 7, 2014 By in ACE Study, Adverse childhood experiences, Child trauma, Community prevention programs, Resilience, Solutions, Washington State 10 Comments

RRocksbannerIn Walla Walla, Washington, the journey to implement ACEs research has been akin to a wild ride on a transformer roller coaster that arbitrarily changes its careening turns, mountainous ascents, and hair-raising plunges. And sometimes the ride just screeches to a frustrating halt.

The odyssey began in October 2007, when Teri Barila, Walla Walla County Community Network coordinator, heard Dr. Robert Anda, co-investigator

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