November 2021

By Alexa Imani Spencer, Black Enterprise, November 2, 2021 This math teacher came up with a pretty cool solution after learning his students weren’t focused because they were hungry—make them healthy, all-natural breakfast smoothies to kickstart their day. George A. Caesar, an educator at Liberty City High in Miami, founded Smoothies 4 Students in 2018 after noticing many of his students were struggling to pay attention in class. The social entrepreneurial nonprofit provides nutritious...

By Aaron Hutcherson, The New York Times, October 26, 2021 An award-winning author who has been writing plant-based cookbooks for the better part of two decades, Bryant Terry calls his latest project, “ Black Food ,” “a communal shrine to the shared culinary histories of the African diaspora.” He writes in the introduction: "These pages offer up gratitude to the great chain of Black lives, and to all the sustaining ingredients and nourishing traditions they carried and remembered, through...

Please join us today at noon for our WCCI Wednesday Conversation. We will be talking with Alysia Hoover-Thompson. She is a licensed psychologist and health service provider and the Director of Behavioral Health Integration at the High Country Community Health Center. She will be talking with us about how she sees trauma in the people she works with, how she helps them build resilience, and how she stays well. Read more here about HCCH: https://www.highcountrycommunityhealth.com/about-us Hope...

By Darby Saxbe and Sofia Cardenas, The New York Times, November 8, 2021 After President Biden left paid family leave out of his Build Back Better Act last month, a familiar marshaling of forces took place. Women’s groups and female leaders protested. Senator Patty Murray of Washington said Democrats should not “ tell all the women in this country that they can’t have paid leave .” Democratic leaders, well aware that women are the base of the party, have restored four weeks of family leave,...

The CDPH Injury and Violence Prevention Branch ’s California Violent Death Reporting System (CalVDRS) Project has released four new injury data briefs and an infographic on suicide, homicide, firearm-related deaths, and violent deaths involving multiple victims using data from 2018. These briefs summarize vital statistics data as well as supplemental data from coroner/medical examiner and law enforcement reports to identify trends and circumstances in violent deaths in California. These...

The CDPH Injury and Violence Prevention Branch , on behalf of the CDPH Violence Prevention Initiative , has released a new report on household firearm storage titled “ California Household Firearm Storage Practices, 2017-2019 .” Using survey data from the 2017-2019 California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the report shows that one in five California adults reported a household firearm. Of those who reported a household firearm, one in ten also reported storing it...

Members of PACEsConnection, intimately exposed to the pandemic of interpersonal violence, must be especially sensitive to contemporary medicine’s shortcomings. All of us spend most of the time coping. If we are victims of violence or abuse we search for the path towards personal strength, integrity and resilience. If we are therapists we accumulate strategies and tactics to help rebuild shattered souls—one at a time. Few of us have the time, the energy or the interest to explore larger...

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not but rejoices for what he has.” ~Greek philosopher, Epictetus It is that time of year in which the leaves are changing color, the days are getting shorter, and as we prepare for family meals and holidays, we witness a lot more folks talking about what they are thankful for. The days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday lend themselves to a shift in our focus onto what we appreciate in our lives, and we notice folks...

For the past six months, I have been working with Jeff Ikler, a professional podcaster, and Dr. Chris Mason, executive director of the Center for Educational Improvement, to find ways to encourage schools to create trauma-informed practices to meet the unmet needs of their staff and students. We are pleased to announce that our series on alleviating student trauma is officially launched. You can access the available episodes on an ongoing basis — including your own! — at Trauma in Schools .

Please welcome these three new communities to the PACEsConnection.com network! ND PACT: The North Dakota Prevention and Action Coalition on Trauma PACEs & Latinx Communities Trauma Informed Barry (MI) Details about each of them are below as is information about starting and growing your community initiatives and joining the Cooperative of Communities . ND PACT: The North Dakota Prevention and Action Coalition on Trauma : ND PACT is a trauma-informed collaborative of agencies,...

Dysregulated stress is central to the ACEs/health outcomes link. The healing journey starts with regulating stress arousal that is stuck on too high or too low.

By Mark Kreidler, California Healthline, November 8, 2021 In 1972, just 18 days after he was selected to run for vice president with Democratic Sen. George McGovern, Thomas Eagleton was forced off the ticket. The issue? Years earlier, Eagleton had been hospitalized and treated with electroshock therapy for depression. The disclosure of his mental health history was a blow from which the Missouri senator could not recover. Eagleton’s torpedoed candidacy has been a cautionary tale for elected...