This essay is part of a special issue of PREE magazine that seeks to raise awareness of the causes and impacts of ACEs in the Caribbean and elsewhere. PACEs Connections is working closely with PREE to ensure the issue reaches a broad audience. PREE is a unique online magazine for contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean. This special issue on ACEs is co-edited by children’s writer Juleus Ghunta and PREE’s editor-in-chief Annie Paul. The initial Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)...

National Grief Awareness Week "Crying isn't the hurt, it is the process of being unhurt". Althea Solter ------------ The chronic grief of children and youth who are impacted by a parent's substance use can often go unacknowledged or be invalidated. As such, it is important for professionals to understand the chronic loss that can occur in a child's life when a parent struggles with addiction, particularly if both parents struggle. This grief can be compounded by a stigma that prevents...

Healing from complex trauma takes time, and having a treatment team that is supportive and well-trained in trauma-informed care can be an enormous help. In this article, we shall discuss together more disciplines you can have on your care team and how they can help you heal. Your Trauma Treatment Team In a former post , we examined what disciplines you might expect on a mental health treatment team: a psychiatrist and a therapist. We also covered some of the forgotten members who can also...

The Identified Patient is a concept where an individual in a family “acts out” in their behavior dysfunction coming from their family when it reaches a point where that patient can no longer tolerate it. What does that mean? Imagine you’re a child in a family where there is much more conflict and anger between your parents than there is cooperation and lovingness. As you step out into the world, something we refer to as Separation, and you run into an obstacle or a victory, you look back...

Women’s Resilience Circle Join Coach Kristie in this multigenerational approach to what it means to identify as a woman in our society. Using the We Are Resilient approach as the foundation, we will examine how our Cultural Patterns have shaped how we view the world, each other, and ourselves. Some topics include Protective Patterns and Safety, Resilience and Health, and The Power of Coming Together as Women. This circle meets once a week for six weeks. $79 to join, or join for free with...

We Are Resilient Coach Certification ––Q and A meeting Are you interested in: Reducing stress and burnout and supporting the mental health of those around you? Creating stronger, more connected teams that can better navigate equity issues? Support the implementation of We Are Resilient in your team, clinic, school or organization? The next round of We Are Resilient Coach certification is enrolling participants for the next session, beginning the first week of January 2022. (Date and time...

This is an urgent all call to those of us who believe in trauma-informed and healing-centered schools that support the whole person. After reading the recent NBC article “Parents protesting 'critical race theory' identify another target: mental health programs , ” I quickly put aside the blog I had been working on because I knew this was too important. Concerns from colleagues about the rising backlash against increased priorities of mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL) have...