October 2021

Something I’ve seen in my work with patients is a connection between ACEs and an unhealthy relationship with food. In these cases, food is used to cope with toxic stress and unresolved ACEs, and a frequent side effect of that relationship is weight gain. Losing this weight requires healing the root cause (the trauma), not just fighting the symptom (the weight) with diet and exercise. Read on to learn more.

By Guest Author, 10/21/21, positiveexperience.org/blog We met Melody Centeno when she spoke at the National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect this spring. She embodies so much of what HOPE stands for: the healing told of sustained nurturing relationships, and how safe stable and equitable environments promote child development. From her experience, we see how history is not destiny. She is now a licensed social worker in New York, and has used her own experiences to improve the lives of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been brutal on us all. Rising depression and anxiety plague our world more than any time in recent history, and it is not only adults who are affected. Children have been home from school living with adults who are out of work, out of money, and out of patience. This article will discuss the increase in childhood sexual abuse during the pandemic explaining the underlying causes and some possible solutions. Understanding the Problem The Centers for Disease Control...

By Peter Slevin, The New Yorker, October 18, 2021 Phyllis Ford-France didn’t know what to expect when the doors opened at Chicago’s Michele Clark High, on August 30th, but she was feeling anxious. For eighteen months, she had been teaching mostly into a pixelated void. “They were not really online. They just turned on their avatars, and they would go away,” she said. But, when the students arrived, they couldn’t get enough of her. Now, several times a day, just before the bell rings to start...

By Rahil D. Briggs, Psychology Today, October 19, 2021 World Mental Health Day was October 10 and the American Academy of Pediatrics, alongside the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association, just declared a national state of emergency in child and adolescent mental health. These kinds of public acknowledgments about the importance of mental health suggest we have come a long way toward recognizing its impact. Yet, infant and early childhood...

By Adaeze Umeukeje, Tennessean., October 19, 2021 As conversations on racial disparities in physical health have emerged all over the country, the disproportionate burden of mental health disparities on Black children and adolescents is a topic that is worth being widely discussed. Alarmingly high suicide and depression rates among Black youth, as documented by the American Psychological Associatio n in 2020, led pediatricians and child psychologists to question if early experiences of...

From Number Story, October 14, 2021 What happens when two powerhouse leaders team up to address one of the most pressing issues of our time? Find out here in this dynamic conversation between Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. Here are a few highlights … [ OPRAH ] “The realization of what happened to you literally colors your entire worldview … Your childhood experiences don’t define you, but they do leave an imprint. You need to be aware of what that imprint is.” [ Please click here...

Over the course of 15 years of research, I and my team at Sharpen have created a comprehensive system to help school districts accomplish all of the recommendations released in yesterday's report from Dept of Ed; including: enhancing mental health literacy, reducing stigma about mental disorders, implementing evidence-based prevention practices and establishing an Integrated Framework of social, emotional and behavioral health support.

Aligning Resources Across Georgia To Support Resiliency To Our Resilient Georgia Partners and Stakeholders: Please join us along with storyteller Chrishaunda Lee Perez for our two-year anniversary virtual celebration an intimate discussion about mental wellness, resilience, and perseverance with Georgia native, World Class Track and Field Athlete, and 2021 Olympian Kenny Selmon on Thu, October 28th from 11 am to 12:30 pm ET. We are so proud of athletes across the board who are speaking up...

By Mariel Padilla, The 19th*, October 15, 2021 In his early career as a law enforcement officer, Vernon Stanforth, the president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said he often saw arrests of grandfathers, fathers and sons of the same family — a generational cycle of incarceration. Now, he’s also seeing grandmothers, mothers and daughters enter the cycle. “Many of our children are being raised by grandparents, and I think today we’re even seeing some of our small children being raised...

By Eleanor Cummins, The Atlantic, October 18, 2021 Nothing about The Body Keeps the Score screams “best seller.” Written by the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, the book is a graphic account of his decades-long career treating survivors of traumatic experiences such as rape, incest, and war. Page after page, readers are asked to wrestle with van der Kolk’s theory that trauma can sever the connection between the mind, which wants to forget what happened, and the body, which can’t. The book...