Point on the Path Professionals

01/31/2021

More evidence of the impact of intergenerational trauma on individual development and potential disorders. This is the foundation of lots of important work in therapy treatments and hopefully policy. The care we give children lasts, not just for their lifetime but for their children and potentially beyond.

Early life experiences can have an outsized effect on brain development and neurobiological health. New research is showing that those effects can be passed down to subsequent generations, reporting that the infant children of mothers who had experienced childhood emotional neglect displayed altered...

10/24/2020

Rather than an exclusively private “symptom of mental illness,” self-injury may be a form of deeply embodied and complex communication.

10/15/2020

Here’s the danger of letting a state/ provincial government take over professional regulation. The social workers should be accountable to their code of ethics and the bigotry of the current government should not be a factor. Watch for this government control creep into health professions in Alberta.

A professional organization of social workers called the change "incredibly disheartening," while Gov. Greg Abbott's office said it was necessary to conform with existing state law.

10/01/2020

This is a little off from my usual posts— well for one because I’m writing it and not just sharing someone else’s post.

It’s Orange Shirt Day. I work with Indigenous Canadian children involved in Children’s Services everyday. And we still need so much reforming, it breaks my heart. 💔 The system tries. I see good people work so hard for children and try to find family, and work with struggling parents, but it’s not good enough for the kids. It’s just not.

Childhood is time-limited and we need to be faster to claim the stability they require: in families that will love them for a lifetime, yes- and with the support of community and professional run programs and services. These require money in the form of grants and better more stable funding at a level adequate to meet the needs.

The system causes secondary trauma because a bureaucracy is a s**t parent. S**t. And limited resources as the excuse to not provide well enough for the children in care right now— that’s not good enough.

I wore orange today to hold close to my heart the very confused foster child who thinks it’s their fault they are experiencing this reality; and the foster child who rages because they *know* it’s not their fault.

I wore orange for the child that never wants to leave fostercare because it’s the most stability they’ve ever experienced; and the 10-year old children in treatment facilities because they’ve “burned out too many foster homes.”

The resilience I see every day amazes me. And there is nothing over about our terrible systemic treatment of our Indigenous children.

Let’s remember those hurt so badly by residential school, but let’s not forget their descendants and those of the ones they left behind, because those amazing spirits are here right now.

09/08/2020

Interesting article- unbelievable. The damage of a system with too many moving parts and for-profit companies involved— huge cracks.

Texas foster children have contracted the novel coronavirus at nearly double the rate of the state's general population, according to testimony Friday in a...

08/15/2020

08/04/2020

Children growing under threat (with survival adaptation)- age faster on a cellular level. 💔

Children who suffer trauma from abuse or violence early in life show biological signs of aging faster than children who have never experienced adversity.

07/27/2020

😏

07/10/2020

Teens are so often stereotyped and teens living out of parental care much more so. Some of my favourite hours in the day are talking to teens involved with CS. As a group they are tenacious, resilient and socially insightful.

"We, as child welfare professionals, must stop dehumanizing foster children once they become teenagers."

06/18/2020

Yes. These two quotes are aligned with my practice philosophy and ethically should be for all helping professionals.

“In general, we are not socialized to think in term of interconnected systems....This process of trying to understand how a person’s behavior is connected to relationships with other people or to past events, rather than judging the person solely on the way he or she looks or acts, is called systems thinking.”
Dick Schwartz