January 2021

As we wave goodbye to 2020 and warmly embrace a new year of ever growing community power and collective change, we want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the great contributions that you have made to the Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Innovation Forum . When the NOW Innovation Forum was launched 2 years ago, the idea was that it served to promote shared learning and networking across the field by bringing together resources, stories, discussions,...

Worried that your child may be secretly cyberbullied? There are signs and changes in your child’s life that can serve as a telltale. This may include subtle or not-so-subtle behavioral changes in your child’s school and social life, how they handle the use of technology, and changes in their emotions and behaviors. You’re a parent, right? You know your child like the back of your hand. Their daily behavior and routine. And even if you find it hard to keep abreast with the latest toys (read:...

Posted on behalf of the Transform Trauma with ACEs Science Film Festival team: Robin Cogan, The Relentless School Nurse Erin Connolly, Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy & Practice (CTIPP) Whitney Marris, Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy & Practice (CTIPP) Cissy White, ACEs Connection Thank you for signing up to attend the Dec. 15th discussion about parts one, two, and three of the Whole People documentary series about trauma which streamed on ACEs Connection . We are grateful to...

By Mark Hurtubise, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2021 For more than a decade, I was president and CEO of Inland Northwest Community Foundation (now known as Innovia). In early 2017, after I had announced my goal of pursuing other interests, we discovered overwhelming evidence to deny a donor-advisor’s recommendation of a grant. He wished to award it to VDare, a charity that supports white supremacy. The board approved the grant anyway. During my last six months as the...

By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, January 20, 2021 Amid escalating political tension nationwide, California’s school counselors are urging students, families and school staff — especially in politically conservative communities — to talk about the insurgency in Washington, D.C., and the importance of non-violent communication. While many teachers have used the Jan. 6 insurgency and the peaceful transfer of power as a lesson in history and politics, the topic has been decreed off-limits in some...

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2021 Every college has its brag sheet. But the University of California has taken it to a whole new level with a 123-page report of exhaustive detail on jobs created, research performed, start-up businesses launched, tax dollars generated and students served. The report, released Tuesday, may not have the most lyrical title: The University of California Systemwide Economic, Fiscal and Social Impact Analysis. The data are mind-numbing: What...

From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, January 2021 The pandemic has exposed a stubborn, harsh truth about life in America, and revealed glaring failures in our public policies. The COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted the lives of everyone living in the United States and around the world, but the most severe health and economic impacts have been concentrated among people of color, those with low and middle incomes, and people who live in places that were already struggling financially before the...

This webinar will include a discussion and concrete example of a trauma-informed network of care , a group of interdisciplinary health, education, and human service professionals, community members, and organizations that support adults, children, and families by providing access to evidence-based “buffering” resources and supports that help to prevent, treat, and heal the harmful consequences of toxic stress. Speakers will present: Definitions and guidance on key elements of a...

By Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel, January 19, 2021 Florida’s 150 years of treating tourists to gushing springs, lolling manatees, curious fish and emerald grasses undulating in invisible currents is about to take a turn because of a chance remark. In 2015, Paula Russo, a volunteer for the Florida State Parks Foundation, set up a table for a public event at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park near Gainesville. Russo, relying on a powered scooter because of childhood polio, was there to tout...

By Alia E. Dastagir and Alia Wong, USA Today, December 22, 2020 It has been almost a year of pandemic parenting, an all-consuming, ever-changing chaos that has tested American families in unprecedented ways. Schools closed, then opened, then closed again. Playdates were fewer and fraught with new rules. Working parents often did their jobs without child care, while parents of teens did their best to buffer against a litany of losses – friends, sports, proms, graduations. For many low-income...

By Anne O'Connor, Nursery World, December 21, 2020 While some tabloids have been screaming that children have ‘gone backwards’ in their learning and development during the pandemic, it has also being said that our youngest children have bounced back easily into school and nursery, despite all the changes to their provision. This seems to be proof to many that babies and young children are hardy, resilient and ‘coping fine’ – so, we needn’t worry about them? Head teachers, managers and...

By Elizabeth Gehrman, Harvard Medicine, January 21, 2021 Maybe it hasn’t actually been the worst year ever, as internet memes are calling it, but for most of us, 2020 really has been “extra.” Against the backdrop of a pandemic that has created economic havoc and kept people from loved ones and purpose-defining work, the country has endured its greatest social unrest in decades, largely driven by a relentless daily barrage of horrifying racial incidents delivered up close and in real time.