April 2022

It’s hard to believe it has almost been a year since Number Story launched. What a year it’s been! Thanks to your contribution, our partners, and our team, we’ve been able to raise awareness of Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs), how common they are, and their potential effects. And our work is just beginning. As we move into what promises to be an exciting year, I want to share highlights from 2021 and give you a peek at what's ahead. We listened, learned, and spread the word. Number Story...

Trauma-Responsive and Resilience Building Practices for Early Childhood Educators (ECE), Leaders, Organizations, and Systems: A Three-Part Program Our region is excited to partner with the Center for Optimal Brain Integration (COBI) to provide a three-part virtual training series (an opening institute, a six-part community of practice, and a closing institute) for early childhood educators, organizations and system leaders. Join us as we deepen our advocacy for and increase trauma-informed...

Are you ready to transform your school to become a trauma-informed and healing-centered environment? Join us for the PACEsConnection virtual Trauma-Informed School Leadership Institute. This institute is specifically tailored 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 as well as other national experts supporting schools through this transformation process.

By Brian Rinker, Photo: Freida Frisaro/AP, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, April 13, 2022 Even as drug use has declined among teenagers during the pandemic, overdose deaths increased, likely due to the highly potent opioid fentanyl, according to a new study . Overdose deaths among teenagers 14-18 held steady for years before doubling in 2020 as the pandemic set in, and they continued to climb last year. A total of 1,146 adolescents in this age group died in 2021 — 20% over 954 deaths...

By Madison Hunt, Illustration: Christine Ongjoco/The Imprint, The Imprint, April 13, 2022 I n a series of social media posts launched today, women cradle their pregnant bellies. They kiss their newborns and lovingly nurse their tiny infants. “Black mamas deserve quality healthcare and unconditional support,” the messages spread by a campaign of New York advocates for low-income parents and families state. “We must make healthcare safe for birthing people at all times.” The coalition behind...

By Moya Sarner, Photo: David Levene/The Guardian, The Guardian, April 12, 2022 P ete Knapp, 36, who lives in London, has visited North Korea, travelled overland from Kenya to Cape Town, motorcycled through Japan and Cambodia and trekked by horse through China. Until a few years ago, “I felt invincible,” he says. He had never experienced anxiety, or worried about the climate crisis. Then, in 2019, he went to Borneo. “I remember flying in one of those small planes over a part of Borneo that...

By Hang Do Thi Duc, Christy Harmon, Melonyce McAfee, and Jaspal Riyait, The New Work Times, April 12, 2022 This is not what Ida Adams thought life would be like at 62. She had planned to continue working as a housekeeper at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore until she turned 65. After retiring, she and her husband, Andre, also 62, thought they might travel a little — “get up and go whenever we felt like it.” She didn’t expect to be hustling a seventh-grader off to school each weekday. But...

The accelerating global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity emergency will increasingly disrupt every aspect of society. It is a "wicked" problem, meaning it results from numerous factors that interact in new and surprising ways to defy standard solutions. The pervasive distresses and traumas it generates are also "wicked" problems: they result from multiple forces that often interact non-linearly and will, over time, impact everyone and every community on earth. No single profession,...

TRIGGER ALERT - CONTENT REFERENCING SEXUAL ASSAULT, CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING, PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I don’t think it matters which month it is—when you feel called to share a portion of your story the calendar is irrelevant. In my case, the calendar serendipitously lined up with a surgery that occurred the same month. I had a full hysterectomy because of a large fibroid tumor in the wall of my uterus and multiple tumors in and on my ovaries. The...

Remembering past trauma begins the “re-membering” process of taking our fragmented pieces and putting them back together. This applies to individuals with trauma, as well as the collective traumas we experience in societies and our world. Remembering trauma is a growth process because the memories open the door to putting all the pieces together which leads to our healing. We know that our physiological reactions to trauma are held in our bodies and DNA. As individuals, before we can begin...

By Joseph Stiglitz, Photo: Unsplash, Roosevelt Institute, April 7, 2022 Like previous disruptions to the global economy, Russia’s war in Ukraine has highlighted the fallacy of relying on markets alone to mitigate risks and strengthen countries’ resilience. Neoliberalism has failed yet another test and must finally be replaced by a new economic vision based on new values. The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded us of the unforeseeable disruptions constantly confronting the...

By Michael Warren, Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP Photo, Associated Press, April 12, 2022 The National Urban League released its annual report on the State of Black America on Tuesday, and its findings are grim. This year’s Equality Index shows Black people still get only 73.9% of the American pie white people enjoy. While Black people have made economic and health gains, they’ve slipped further behind white people in education, social justice and civic engagement since this index was launched in...