Toxic: extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful. Stress: a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation.
Toxic stress is a regular companion for children living in families where abuse, neglect, and dysfunction are part of everyday life. The impact on children and on our communities is profound and far-reaching.
No one explains better than Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley how toxic stress triggers problems that have created a major public health crisis - the research, the risks, and the results. Highlighting case studies and cutting-edge scientific findings, the authors show how our innate fight-or-flight system can injure us if overworked in the early stages of life, triggering diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and addiction later in life.
The co-authors of Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence and Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease, will speak Monday, April 2, 2012 at 2 p.m. at the School of Social Welfare, University at Albany Page Hall.
Presented by Prevent Child Abuse New York and the University at Albany School of Social Welfare, the event is free and open to the public.
For more information or to register, e-mail Brittani Hanson, bhanson@preventchildabuseny.org.
You may view a video trailer about the book Scared Sick at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLF1jfWbj64
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Robin Karr-Morse is family therapist and a veteran of child welfare and public education systems in Oregon. Formerly the Director of Parent Training for the state child welfare system, she was the first executive director of the Oregon Children's Trust Fund, a consultant to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's Touchpoints Program and a lecturer on the Brazelton Seminar Faculty. She has worked with county, state and national officials across the country to create social policies which support families in children’s earliest development. Currently, she is working with a group of colleagues to build “The Parenting Institute” to provide parents with state of the art developmental knowledge, skills and support which focuses on building emotionally competent children from conception through adolescence.
Meredith Wiley is a former prosecutor and currently state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, a crime fighting organization of law enforcement leaders and victims of violence who work to educate policy makers and the public on what works to get kids off to a good start in life and keep them from ever becoming criminals. Meredith is a former prosecutor. She has been appointed to the New York State Children’s Cabinet Advisory Council, the Early Childhood Advisory Council, the Governor’s Task Force to Transform Juvenile Justice and the Juvenile Justice Advisory Group, and also is on the National Board of Advisors for the Nurse Family Partnership Program and the National Board of Advisors for the Parent Child Home Program.
I myself is a product of abusive parents. I was born and raised that abuse and corporal punishment have been a hobby for my parents. Fortunately, there were agencies who helped me to recover from that nightmare.
Posted by: Alexandra Thompson | December 06, 2012 at 08:25 AM