April 2020

"As COVID-19 deaths rise, domestic violence is rising, and domestic violence murder-suicides are rising as well. In just the last week, domestic violence murder-suicides have increased 100%."

One hard thing about my work is — I get hate mail sometimes. Maybe you do too — or you just get exposed to other people’s hurtful messages, and feel “punched in the gut” or outraged when you’re just going about your business reading articles online or scrolling through your social media feed — in a pandemic! But there is a miracle going on of people rising up and helping each other and taking risks and doing everything they can think to do — and especially if they’re in a leadership role —...

By Sally Lockwood, Sky News, April 6, 2020 At the time of writing this, 80 doctors and 21 nurses have lost their lives to COVID-19 since February. In that time, two more nurses have taken their own lives. As medics grieve for the colleagues they have lost, they are working to compensate for so many others that have been infected and are in quarantine. [ Please click here to read more .]

I just posted an updated version of a training I'm doing for clinicians working with trauma survivors during the pandemic. Here's a link to the post where you can download the file: https://www.acesconnection.com/clip/trauma-treatment-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-4-6-2020-pdf . Please share freely if you find this useful. And thank you for being a helper!

By P. Berman, & K. Hecht, A. Hosack I am so tired. But it was a good day. Claire is on the bus traveling home. She’s gotten so used to the routine, that she’s not really observing much of what’s going on around her. She’s completely oblivious to the fact that she’s been under observation since getting on the bus. There is a young man dressed in a suit and tie who’s been watching her for the last 10 minutes. She is beautiful. And she’s always alone. Craig had been watching Claire for the...

By A. Hosack, P. Berman, K. Hecht You can do this. Know on the door! You been friends for years! Lisa will let you in!! Mrs. Carson was outside of Lisa’s house. She’d walked down the street with a firm step. But as she got closer she began to remember the look on Lisa’s face when she’d met her at the party and her steps began to slow down. Here she was now standing so close but so far from the front door. Mrs. Carson was feeling frozen between wanting to go up the walkway and….run away. No,...

Here I am, self-isolating (because of the virus) which is compounding the isolation I have felt for so many years. I isolate within myself because no one will try to understand just how deeply damaged I was by the extreme abandonment trauma and neglect I experienced in the first thirteen-months of my life due to my father's extreme shell-shock from WWII. I feel very alone in this work. No one. That includes the people in my life, mental health professionals, my landlady, my grown children.

Melissa Merrick PhD and Robert Sege MD, PhD wrote this timely and interesting article for CNN online. We encourage you to check it out! Also, please visit and join our Balancing ACES with HOPE community . Just as prior generations were deeply affected by the Great Depression, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys and the horrors of 9/11, the COVID -19 pandemic may well be the defining moment in the lives of today's children. That's why we owe it to our children to focus...

I have attached a research article, the first chapter in my PhD. This was published last year before the pandemic. Many of the women experienced significant ACE's in their lives. I wanted to post this, to keep them in our thoughts during this pandemic

By Akilah Johnson and Talia Buford, ProPublica, April 3, 2020 The coronavirus entered Milwaukee from a white, affluent suburb. Then it took root in the city’s black community and erupted. As public health officials watched cases rise in March, too many in the community shrugged off warnings. Rumors and conspiracy theories proliferated on social media, pushing the bogus idea that black people are somehow immune to the disease . And much of the initial focus was on international travel, so...

By Ben McVane, The New York Times, April 5, 2020 “Do you think I’ll get through this?” The patient who asked me this was struggling to breathe, but still able to talk. I told him that most people his age did OK, while trying not to convey a false sense of security. He told me that another member of his family was sick with the coronavirus, and we spoke of his hometown in South America. The next day his condition had worsened, and our communication was limited to his writing on paper and...

By Diana Lambert, EdSource, April 3, 2020 With California schools remaining closed longer than initially anticipated in response to the coronavirus pandemic, most districts are planning to start more formal distance learning programs in April, after their spring break. In the meantime, teachers have had to be creative to keep students engaged and learning after campuses shut down in March. Teachers who are tech-savvy and are working at schools that have enough computers or tablets for all...