October 2021

Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection Midwest and Tennessee community facilitator and criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and...

The state’s unprecedented investment in children and youth , which will roll out over the next few years , represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine our mental health system centered on equity and justice. California's bold action acknowledges a growing national consensus that the mental health crisis among children has become a national emergency. Key to achieving the state's vision is creating a workforce that engages people with lived experience as peer providers,...

By Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2021 Mirna Arana was pregnant and didn’t feel well. But if she didn’t clean houses, she wouldn’t get paid. So she went to work. She kept cleaning even as cramps racked her body. Then she began to bleed and eventually miscarried. House cleaners, nannies and others who work in private homes rarely get paid sick leave, sometimes forcing them to choose between their health and their paycheck. Now San Francisco is poised to become the first...

By Bill Bush, The Washington Post, October 25, 2021 The Department of Justice recently announced a civil rights investigation into widespread reports of “physical and sexual abuse by staff and other residents, excessive use of chemical restraints and excessive use of isolation” in five youth prisons operated by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Citing reports that 11 staff members had been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing youths, spokeswoman Kristen Clarke described “reports of...

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times, October 25, 2021 Democrats may — may — finally be about to agree on a revenue and spending plan. It will clearly be smaller than President Biden’s original proposal, and much smaller than what progressives wanted. It will, however, be infinitely bigger than what Republicans would have done, because if the G.O.P. controlled Congress, we would be doing nothing at all to invest in America’s future. But what will the plan do? Far too much reporting has...

By Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, October 25, 2021 I n August, Brené Brown, the Houston-based writer, researcher, professor, social worker, podcast host, C.E.O., and consultant-guru to organizations including Pixar, Google, and the U.S. Special Forces, met with a group of graduate students at the McCombs School of Business, at the University of Texas at Austin, to talk about emotions. Brown, fifty-five, was wearing a shiny maize blouse, jeans, and a black face mask. It was the first day of...

Your story has the power to heal. Now's your chance to share it in one of Hazelden Publishing’s anthology projects. Hazelden Publishing is collecting original meditations to compile into two new books—one for survivors of sexual trauma in recovery and another for military members in recovery. We believe there is strength in community and no one should have to feel alone in their recovery. A piece of your story may serve that powerful reminder to countless others who have journeys and...

By Anita Chandra, Neal Halfon, Jill Cannon, et al., Health Affairs, October 22, 2021 The pandemic has forced concerns about children’s health to the front and center: Is enough attention being paid to their well-being, including education and mental health? Have reopening plans taken children’s needs into consideration and have their potential losses been adequately measured? Could better preparation be put in place to help prepare children for the next pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic is...

By Karen Zraick, The New York Times, October 19, 2021 The New York City Board of Health declared racism a public health crisis on Monday, passing a resolution that directed the Health Department to take steps to ensure a “racially just recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic. The resolution called on the department to work with other agencies to root out systemic racism within policies, plans and budgets on a wide range of matters that affect health, including land use, transportation and...

By Robert Hansen, Everyone's Internet News, October 24, 2021 On October 5, 2021, Samual Nathaniel Brown, co-founder of the Anti-Violence Safety and Accountability Project (ASAP), creator of the 10P program, and author of the constitutional amendment proposal, The California Abolition Act (ACA 3), recently became one of the first along with 24 other men to graduate with a bachelors in communication from Cal State LA’s Prison B.A. Graduation Initiative on the yard at California State Prison...

By Mad In America, October 23, 2021 From Chronic Illness Trauma Studies blog: “If you’ve heard of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and have a low score (such as 1 or ‘zero ACEs’), you may still suspect that trauma has somehow affected your health but feel like your doctors and the research are missing something important. Or you may have a high ACE score and feel that it was the emotional abuse or neglect that was the hardest. In other words, you recognize that your childhood was...

When there is alcohol or substance abuse in the family, it is often a central theme around which the entire family is organized. For the most part, treatment is often just with the individual and does not actively involve the entire family that is traumatized. What is our point of entry and how do we approach the parent and child without scaring them away? This free webinar by Dr. Sells is for professionals who want concrete tools to bridge the gap from individual to family trauma treatment...