December 2021

Forward-Facing Face to Face: Embodied Trauma-Informed Care Our bodies have the power to convince people we serve that we are trustworthy, but how? This workshop will equip professional caregivers to offer embodied trauma-informed care to traumatized communities by teaching them how to interrupt their threat response and offer cues of safety from a relaxed muscle body instead of cues of stress. Join us Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 5:00pm Arizona Time for 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝-𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞...

The Washington Department of Health sent out a reminder that while some are celebrating this holiday season others might be grieving. Please reference the article below for a few helpful coping strategies to use this holiday season. Behavioral health coping strategies focus on resilience this holiday season OLYMPIA -- The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) recognizes this holiday season may bring with it some unique emotional challenges. While some may be celebrating renewed...

By Avrum Weiss, Image: M.MEDDAH/Pixabay, Psychology Today, November 21, 2021 Saturday Night Live recently aired a brilliant sketch titled “Man Park.” In the sketch, a young man waits anxiously for his partner to return from work. He has few if any friends, and has had little social interaction all day. She listens, barely managing to feign interest in his data dump about the series of banal events of his day. As is often the case in heterosexual relationships, she reverts to the role of...

By Taylor Walker, Photo: WitnessLA, Center for Health Journalism, December 2, 2021 In April 2020, I read a brief report on Los Angeles County’s efforts to reduce incarceration among vulnerable groups — including people with mental health diagnoses and unhoused individuals — through diversion programs. The report from LA’s Office of Diversion and Reentry (ODR) revealed that, as of March 2020, the Maternal Health Diversion Program had removed 137 pregnant people from the county’s main women’s...

By Eva Corlett, Photo: Alamy, The Guardian, November 26, 2021 A fter more than 150 years of struggle for justice, truth and reparation, the Moriori people of Rēkohu, or the Chatham Islands, can turn a new leaf on the history book that rewrote their story and taught generations of New Zealanders they were an inferior race that was now extinct. Moriori were the first settlers to the archipelago, 800 kilometres east of New Zealand, between 600 and 1,000 years ago and developed a distinct...

Colleagues in this last month have had two trauma & resilience informed higher ed collections published: Lessons from the Pandemic: Trauma-Informed Approaches to College, Crisis, Change , eds. Janice Carello and Phyllis Thompson https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-83849-2 Trauma in Adult and Higher Education: Conversations and Critical Reflections Edited by Laura Douglass, Endicott College Aubry Threlkeld, Endicott College and Lisa R. Merriweather, University of North...

By Bernard J. Wolfson, Photo: E+/Getty Images, California Healthline, December 2, 2021 During her three-year battle with breast cancer, my wife, Leslie, graciously endured multiple rounds of horrifically toxic treatment to eke out more time with our two young children. But after 18 cancer-free months, the disease returned with a vengeance in June 2003. It fractured her bones and invaded her spinal canal, bathing her brain in malignancy. During the final six months, as she lay on her home...

By Zaidee Stavely, Photo: Julie Leopo/EdSource, EdSource, November 30, 2021 C alifornia made history in 2001 when it became the second state in the nation to pass a law that allows undocumented students who attended and graduated from high school in the state to pay in-state college tuition. Since then, it has benefited tens of thousands of students. But advocates say many undocumented students who qualify for in-state tuition and financial aid are not receiving these benefits, 20 years...

By Alice Feng and Jonathan Schwabish, Illustration: iStock/filo, Stanford Social Innovation Review, December 2, 2021 Through rigorous, data-based analysis, researchers and analysts can add to our understanding of societal shortcomings and point toward evidence-based solutions. But carelessly collecting and communicating data can lead to analyses and visualizations that have an outsized capacity to mislead, misrepresent, and harm communities already experiencing inequity and discrimination.

By Melissa Montalvo, Photo: John Walker/The Fresno Bee, Cal Matters, November 23, 2021 Más de un año después de lanzar un esfuerzo para cambiar el nombre de la comunidad de Squaw Valley, un grupo de aproximadamente 15 manifestantes se reunió en el centro de Fresno para instar a la Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Fresno a cambiar el nombre que muchos argumentan es racista y misógino. Varias personas hablaron durante la reunión de la junta de esta semana, que por momentos se puso tensa y...

We had the opportunity to chat with Beck Thompson, author of Chasing Normal, a memoir about her complex childhood trauma experience, healing path and journey to feeling peace and a sense of normalcy in life. Now an educator, speaker and presenter, Beck uses her story to help other educators understand the effects of trauma and the importance of creating a safe and stable school environment. Download the podcast

By Guest Author, 12/2/21, positiveexperience.org/blog The Spreading HOPE online learning course (HOPE LMS) was released in June of 2020. Since then, over 400 learners have signed up for the course through Tufts iLearn, and more than 120 completed the course. Through five interactive modules, learners gained a crash-course in HOPE, and learned important tools and strategies for incorporating the HOPE Framework into practice. When asked about their learning goals before and after completing...