February 2023

By Donna St. George, Photo: Caitlin O’Hara/The Washington Post, The Washington Post, February 13, 2023 Teen girls across the United States are “engulfed in a growing wave of violence and trauma,” according to federal researchers who released data Monday showing increases in rape and sexual violence, as well as record levels of feeling sad or hopeless. Nearly 1 in 3 high school girls reported in 2021 that they seriously considered suicide — up nearly 60 percent from a decade ago — according...

Are you ready to transform your school to become a trauma-informed and healing-centered environment? Join us for the second annual PACEsConnection virtual Trauma-Informed School Leadership Institute. This institute is tailored explicitly for school leaders and leadership teams who want to understand the HOW of trauma-informed schools. Speakers will include current, and former building leaders engaged in the work and other national experts supporting schools through this transformation...

When caring adults are safe and available for children impacted by the disease of addiction, they bring them hope, support, and ultimately healing. COA Awareness Week breaks the silence that engulfs and traps kids and teens living with parental addiction and offers the chance for children at risk to become children of promise. We know that the trauma of this devastating adverse childhood experience (ACE) is so often accompanied by additional ACES such as child abuse and neglect. Join us...

By Joanna Cheek, Photo: Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press, The Toronto Star, February 4, 2023 On Jan. 28, 2020, Jennifer Kagan brought an emergency motion to court to suspend or supervise her ex-husband’s access to their four-year-old daughter, Keira. “I pleaded with judges that my ex-husband was abusive and dangerous,” the Ontario physician said. He had abducted their daughter, regularly breached court orders and was caught trying to deceive the court, she said. There were 53 court orders in...

By Thomas Dee, Photo: Sarah Blake Morgan/AP Photo, The Conversation, February 9, 2023 Student learning took a big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just how much is only becoming clear nearly three years after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic and nearly all U.S. public schools pivoted to online instruction for at least several months in March 2020. However, the data guiding the nation’s efforts to help kids catch up does not generally include the students who experienced...

By Aimee Picchi, Image: Screenshot from article, CBS News, February 10, 2023 A "hunger cliff" is looming for millions of Americans, with 32 states set to slash food-stamp benefits beginning in March. The cuts will impact more than 30 million people who are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in those states, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Among the states where recipients are facing cuts are California and Texas, which have greatest...

By Hannah Saunders, State of Reform, February 6, 2023 A new partnership will make mental telehealth services available to over one million students in K-12 public schools in Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), LA Care Health Plan, Health Net, and the LA County Department of Mental Health will use school-based telehealth company, Hazel Health , to provide free mental health support for students, creating shorter wait times to connect with qualified...

“This has been a really good talk on some of the variables related to/associated with the negative holistic health and wellness impacts of historical trauma upon BIPOC Communities. This a great intro-segue into the much larger dialogue of deconstructing and healing from ‘The Conditioning’ we all knowingly or unknowingly are experiencing. Thank you for your service,” remarked one attendant during PACEs Connections’ recent Historical Trauma in the American Northwest event. Facilitated by...

By Barbara J. King, Photo: Michael Probst/AP, National Public Radio, February 9, 2023 Climate activist Greta Thunberg who, at age 15, led school strikes every Friday in her home country of Sweden — a practice that caught on globally — has now, at 20, managed to bring together more than 100 scientists, environmental activists, journalists and writers to lay out exactly how and why it's clear that the climate crisis is happening. Impressively, in The Climate Book, Thunberg and team — which...

By Rhonda Crowder, Photo: Rhonda Crowder/Ideastream Public Media, Ideastream Public Media, February 7, 2023 More than three decades ago, Dr. Robert Needlman decided if he was going to improve the health outcomes of his patients he was going to have to fight illiteracy. “There is an association between racial disadvantage and low literacy and poor health outcomes,” said Needlman, now a pediatric physician at MetroHealth in Cleveland. It was a nexus at which he thought he could intervene. In...

By Adam Beam, Photo: Associated Press, Associated Press, February 9, 2023 A five-year experiment aimed at improving care for some of California’s most at-risk Medicaid patients — including homeless people and people with severe drug addictions — resulted in fewer hospitalizations and emergency room visits that saved taxpayers an estimated $383 per patient per year, according to a review released Wednesday. The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research said that for every 1,000 people enrolled...

By Alec MacGillis, Rahim Fortune/The New Yorker, The New Yorker, February 6, 2023 Corey Winfield was ten when he saw someone get shot for the first time. He and a friend were marching around with a drum in the Park Heights section of Northwest Baltimore, and a few older guys asked if they could use it; while they were doing so, someone came up and shot one of them in the back, paralyzing him. At eleven, Corey found his first gun, in an alley near his school. He sold it to a friend’s older...