March 2019

US-based paediatrician Nadine Burke-Harris had a glut of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) cases at the clinic where she worked in Bayview, a poor area in San Francisco. She felt in her bones that these cases didn’t come out of the blue, and were directly linked to high levels of toxic stress in the community. Toxic stress, experienced through consistent exposure to violence, abuse and the consequences of poverty and inequality, has a lasting effect on the brain, notably in the...

Kathy Reiner is a Colorado school nurse who champions climate justice. She is clear that the science is irrefutable and what is needed is immediate action. I learned of her passion for saving our planet through her tweets. Kathy showed me why climate change is an issue for school nurses. Follow Kathy Reiner on Twitter and you will learn to view the issue of climate justice through a nursing lens. One example is Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, an organization I learned about...

POETRY SPEAKS WILL YOU LISTEN? RESPONSE TO THE NIHILISTIC QUESTION WHAT’S THE POINT & DOES ANYTHING MATTER? WALKING TOGETHER WE MANIFEST HUMANITY MY MIND MATTERS! YOUR MIND MATTERS! HANDS EMBRACING HANDS HEARTS TOUCHING HEARTS FEAR & ISOLATION MELTING AWAY ENLIGHTENED BY INNER LIGHTS GLOW HEALING ALL BROKENESS CREATING SACRED WHOLENESS EMPATHY’S POWER IS PROFOUND LEARNING WE GROW & CHANGE LIVING BRAVELY WE LEARN TO LET GO THANKFULLY WE LEARN TO LET BE LOVE’S COURAGE IMAGINES...

According to many sources in the mainstream medical literature , anywhere from 60-90% of illnesses have stress-related emotional underpinnings, which can be translated into one word—trauma. Indigenous healers, shamans, energy healers, and gurus have known this for millennia, but in spite of statistics thrown around in medical journals, the medical community’s approach to disease treatment has been slow to catch up. The good news is that things are changing, and this idea that...

Do you ever get STUCK in thoughts of the trauma you endured in your childhood -- and of all the hardships that hindered you as a result? It's almost like being hypnotized... the dark thoughts cast a spell that makes it almost impossible to imagine feeling better. But there is a way to break the spell. In this video I talk about the powerful idea that stopped my trauma-thinking, making a soft and quiet space where I became aware of the little sparks of hope and goodness all around. Anyone can...

By A. Hosack, P. Berman, & K. Hecht Davy had been going to Head Start for months now ; sometimes he fussed getting ready, but he always seemed happy when he got off the bus at the end of the day. Claire has been going to some parenting programs Head Start offered on the weekends. She was learning a lot and had begun to trust Davy’s teachers and the program -- they really understood kids! When Claire thought back on the night when Larry hurt Davy, she felt th a t a ll the problems were...

I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down with this compassionate soul whom I personally consider to be a trauma-informed guru in the trauma movement. Thank you, Jim Sporleder (I now know how to properly pronounce your name! Ha!) for all you have done and continue to do to spread awareness about the critical need of becoming trauma-informed individuals so as to meet the growing need in our schools and society.

You can do the work necessary to live fully alive in spite of ACEs. It takes persistence, a constant connection to the part of you that knows without a doubt that you can heal, that you no longer want to just survive among the living dead. Sometimes it’s messy and even painful to resolve but from my perspective it’s totally worth it. Feel that primal urge inside you to come alive and live authentically whatever that means to you. Back then you had to compromise to survive. Now it’s time to f

This initiative will develop, pilot, evaluate and implement an evidence-based, infant mortality-focused home visiting curriculum to support maternal and infant health, prenatally through age one. Who: NICHQ is working in partnership with these Ohio organizations: Ohio Department of Health; Stacy Scott, PhD, MPA, of the Baby 1st Network and the Global Infant Safe Sleep Center; and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Two communities will pilot the model. Funder: The project is funded by the Ohio...

Dr. Petering and the MyPath Program are part of an ongoing partnership supported by SPY’s 4-year Innovations contract with LA County’s Department of Mental Health. “You need to try mindfulness and Yoga. It’s hard to live in the streets when you are homeless, people can’t live like that. The pain is too much, it’s too stressful and some people can’t handle it, so they take their own life. Let’s try these mindfulness techniques and yoga poses and see how much it will change, and things will...

Mental health is at the forefront of gun violence prevention conversations among Texas legislators this session, but advocates for people with mental illness are wary of that focus. After the Santa Fe High School shooting in May that left 10 dead and 13 others wounded, Gov. Greg Abbott held a series of roundtable discussions around school safety that resulted in proposals like more resources for school safety personnel and closing gaps around mental health access. He named school safety as...

Last Wednesday, March 13th, I had the opportunity to present a Legislative Lunch and Learn to legislators, legislative staff, administrative staff, and the public in the Alaska State Capitol Building. To a room of ~ 30 - 40 people munching on lunch provided by the Alaska Children's Trust , and broadcast live via Gavel to Gavel (now archived here ), I had the honor to premiere the policymaker version of our History and Hope curriculum. This curriculum, and the policy-maker version, was...