February 2019

Research shows African-Americans are less likely to access treatment for mental illness. Cultural norms and the stigma associated with having a mental illness are partly to blame, according to Shardé Smith , assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Smith studies the role that race-related stress and trauma has on entire families, and what strategies people use to cope. She spoke recently with Side Effects Public Media...

This article intrigued me, is this purely PTSD or did it included identifying CPTSD or developmental trauma?... MRC-funded research from King’s College London suggests one in 13 young people in the UK have had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before reaching age 18. The first UK-based study of its kind, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found 31% of young people had a traumatic experience during childhood, and those who were exposed to trauma were twice as likely as their peers to...

Finally it seems we are starting to map key events in lives experiences. The death of a parent can have a profound impact on children which may be felt throughout their life. However, there are currently no official estimates of the number of children who are affected by bereavement. Nick Stripe explains how ONS is starting to fill the evidence gap. In new statistics published today we have estimated the proportion of children born between the years 1971-2000 who experienced the death of...

Self-Regulation Begins with Dogs, Tense Knots and Calm Socks Originally posted to ORAEYC, February 19, 2019 | Janai Mestrovich, M.S. We were all barking like dogs that were upset on all fours in the preK classroom. Then I used the Breathing Sphere to guide 20 preK children to take slow, deep belly button breaths to release the mad dog tension. As we all slowly exhaled and released the tight knots of tension, we were able to become calm dogs. The sounds of tense mad dogs had filled the room...

By A. Hosack, P. Berman, & K. Hecht My life is so much better because the Carsons took me in. What if they could get someone to take in Larry? He really needed help, his parents were even scarier than hers. Claire got so excited watching the video her mind was racing. Larry’s parents had beaten his back raw with daily beatings. He had missed a lot of school because he couldn’t put on a shirt. When he turned 14, the beatings finally stopped when he grabbed the whip from his dad and fought...

That’s how my sister remembered the stairs incident, and that’s how I would, too, from now on. Cream cheese. Because it’s no longer about the presumption of a fall, the deeds that preceded it, the intent behind it. It’s instead the certainty of brotherly love. It’s the certainty, you see, of the cream cheese.

Becoming a Pilot Site is a great way to get the support you need! Identify and implement an ACEs screening protocol that’s right for your practice and patient population Help your peers in the broader NPPC network by sharing data, best practices and insights from your pilot experience If you are ready to apply, please click the link below to access the application. NPPC Pilot Site Cohort 2 Application For more information, you can find the recording of our informational webinar and the...

Every February, to honor Black History Month, students around the country are taught about America’s glorious victory in Brown v. Board of Education, the seminal moment that undid Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate but equal racial segregation. Desegregation is touted as a gold standard of equality and progress. But ending segregation is different from creating integration, let alone justice and equity, especially considering that as of 2011, according to PBS , the percentage of black students in...

Unconscious Bias, also called Implicit Bias, as a novel concept was first introduced in a paper of 2006, as “the new science of unconscious mental processes that has a substantial bearing on discrimination law”, and refuted the longstanding belief that humans are guided solely by explicit beliefs and by their conscious intentions. We receive 11 million bits of information every second. We can only consciously process 40 bits, and so more than 99.99% information is processed at the...

There were seven incarcerated girls at Louisville Metro Youth Detention Services when R.T. wrote that poem. Most days there are only one or two. Others there are none. Twice a week Tasha Golden walks through six secure doors to the classroom where she teaches poetry to the young women as part of their school day at Louisville Metro Youth Detention Services downtown. [For more on this story by Maggie Menderski, go to...

Never before have we gathered such a range of interesting, revolutionary and effective means of healing from trauma. If you don’t come for yourself, come for those you love and/or serve.

My typically happy, well-adjusted 11-year old daughter was having a melt downs of all melt downs. She was crying hysterically. I could hear her wailing downstairs as she was upstairs. I could feel my heart rate rising as her distress increased. I called up to my husband; “What is going on with Hannah?” Granted, the night before was a late Halloween night fueled by massive amounts of sugar. That right there renders a dire state in the body – little sleep, ample sugar. My gut twisted as I...