This Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child report identifies a three-step guide to understanding toxic stress. These steps include a definition of toxic stress (step 1), the science and social causes of toxic stress (step 2), and the prevention and ways to address toxic stress (step 3) with a fact sheet and video. The definition of toxic stress is also presented on the report’s home page.

This blogpost by the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) highlights the activities of ACYF’s Children’s Bureau and Family and Youth Services Bureau, which both support states, faith-based and community organizations, tribes, and other entities that provide necessary services to assist children, youth, and families in finding hope while experiencing trauma. The Commissioner outlines the importance of communities taking a whole child and whole family approach when developing multi-disciplinary systems of care.

This paper tests the relationship between maternal depression, parental quality, and child outcomes. It finds that experiencing adversity as a child is a factor in current maternal depression, which in turn affects parental engagement and sensitivity to children’s distress, but not non-distress. Thus, different interventions should be used for mothers who have experienced trauma depending on whether the goal is identifying and responding to distress signals or increasing parental sensitivity to their children overall.

This report from MDRC details the implementation study conducted for the PACE Center for Girls in Florida, a program that provides academic and social services to at-risk girls aged 11 to 18. There are 19 program locations across the state, and services are delivered with a trauma-sensitive lens that seeks to set girls on a positive track away from negative outcomes such as involvement with the juvenile justice system. The report details the program model, participant characteristics, and implementation results.

Thursday, May 10 is National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day 2018. This year’s theme, Partnering for Health and Hope Following Trauma, will focus on the importance of an integrated approach to caring for the mental health needs of children, youth, and young adults who have experienced trauma, as well as their families. Though often not behavioral health professionals, workforce system staff play an integral role in a youth’s well-being and growth. It is critical to recognize the signs of trauma as well as deliver services and supports in a way that aims to heal and avoid retraumatization. Join the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s Division of Youth Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for this joint webinar. Together, participants will learn how behavioral health and workforce agencies can collaborate to develop strategies to benefit the well-being of youth served. The webinar will be May 2, 2018 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. EDT.

This study examines county-level data on income inequality and rates of child maltreatment. Researchers assessed data on substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect from 2005 to 2009 and poverty data from the American Community Survey. Researchers found that child poverty rates were positively and significantly correlated with child maltreatment rates at the county level. Higher income inequality across counties was significantly associated with higher county-level rates of child maltreatment. The researchers concluded that their findings support the growing literature base linking income inequality to a range of poor health and well-being outcomes for children.

This issue brief explores what is currently known about intergenerational patterns of child maltreatment and implications for further research. The brief notes that there is limited research on intergenerational child maltreatment, but existing studies reveal that patterns of abuse and neglect are complex and nuanced. Findings suggest that most parents who experienced maltreatment will not abuse or neglect their own children; however, findings vary depending on how the study was constructed or the types of maltreatment reviewed. When intergenerational patterns are found, the adults who experienced maltreatment are not necessarily the perpetrators in the next generation.

This study assesses ways in which individual- and neighborhood-level risk and protective factors affect child abuse and neglect and whether these factors differed based on poverty status. Researchers estimated relationships between child abuse and neglect, neighborhood structural factors, neighborhood processes, and individual characteristics. Comparing lower and higher income families in California, researchers found that neighborhood-level disadvantage was particularly detrimental for families in poverty, and that neighborhood-level protective processes were not associated with abuse and neglect for poor families but did have protective effects for higher income families. Note: There is a fee to access this study, but we included because of its relevance.