May 2017

A recent edition of the Vital Village Community Engagement Network e-newsletter featured a video of a father/daughter beat-boxing duo; the energetic pair mesmerized a TedYouth audience while reminiscing about “when you used to beat-box me to sleep.” In addition to the video from its monthly “Praising Parents” section, the newsletter also held details of upcoming network meetings, a training opportunity with the Social Justice Mediation Institute , events hosted by network partners and “The...

By Netflix’s metric of success, 13 Reasons Why is a huge hit. The 13-episode drama, structured around the narrative of a girl explaining posthumously why she killed herself, is the most tweeted-about show of 2017. It’s also been enormously popular among teen viewers, whom Netflix is eager to hook . Given that the streaming service’s business model values perceived popularity over actual popularity , the record levels of engagement with 13 Reasons Why make it such a surefire winner that the...

When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, NAACP president Cornell Williams Brooks, and actor Danny Glover joined thousands of Mississippians in marching for labor rights two months ago, economic and social justice activist Chokwe Antar Lumumba was in the thick of it. “I stand for workers’ rights,” Lumumba said, as the marchers converged on a Nissan plant where workers have been organizing for union protections. “[The] struggle does not cease and so we’re constantly in the battle of how we create...

Most teachers will tell you that disciplining students is one of the toughest parts of their job. In fact, 53% of teachers are stressed because of students’ behaviour . So what happens when teachers have tried everything and nothing seems to work? New research shows that teachers shouldn’t be left to manage discipline by themselves. It is more effective if staff are supported by the school and teachers work together to resolve student behaviour issues. [For more of this story, written by...

Sometimes, even professionally compassionate people get tired. Kristin Laurel, a flight nurse from Waconia, Minn., has worked in trauma units for over two decades. The daily exposure to distressing situations can sometimes result in compassion fatigue. "Some calls get to you, no matter who you are," she says. That burnout is what Laurel says she was trying to understand when she wrote her semi-autobiographical poem, Afflicted. The poem delves into the night shift of an emergency room nurse...

When a man was found dead from an apparent drug overdose in a San Francisco Public Library bathroom in February, staff members asked for training in administering the lifesaving overdose medication Narcan. From drug abuse to mental health, some libraries are now taking on a bigger role when it comes to dealing with society’s toughest issues. We’ll talk about the pioneering efforts of California libraries in addressing community needs, and how libraries have evolved to become much more than a...

When you experience sadness, anxiety, or depression , it is helpful to reach out to other people for help. Being around others helps reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression. But why does this work? One possibility is that talking to other people about your problems helps you to externalize those problems and that makes you feel better. Another possibility is that there is something in the interactions that changes the way you think about problems you face. [For more of this story,...

Adapted from Born Anxious: The Lifelong Impact of Early Life Adversity—and How to Break the Cycle, by Daniel P. Keating. Published by St. Martin’s Press. Copyright © 2017 Daniel P. Keating. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, St. Martin’s Press. All rights reserved. By the late 1990s, our group at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research had identified robust connections between early adversity and lifelong anxiety and stress, leading to problems in social relationships and...

I want to be really clear here. Grit, resiliency training and mindsets have value. They help children and adults with high ACEs. Make no mistake about it, some help is vastly better than none. This is true even if we cannot prove it except by anecdotal and qualitative data at this point. Here is the point I am trying to make -- and this is where the new word "lasticity" comes in (developed and explained and examined in Breakaway Learners). Some of the concerns expressed here may have less to...

My name is Rebekah Couch and I am a former teen mother of five children, the youngest child being my only clean & sober pregnancy allowed to remain in my care. I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and was afflicted with untreated mental health issues as an adolescent. My destructive journey began with self-medicating and illegal activities in Jr. High and a daily cocaine addiction by the age of fifteen that eventually advanced to methamphetamine abuse. My addiction and criminal...

We can talk about grit, resilience and mindsets all we want. These approaches, while useful in a limited way, operate off a deficit model. There is something wrong in individuals that needs to be fixed -- repaired. And, there is a built in assumption that those who have high ACEs can return to the status quo ante -- they can bounce back. But, these are flawed arguments and here's why. Those with high ACEs are forever changed; they cannot bounce back. (There are neurological reasons among...

Like the thousands of miles of mountain roads I've driven on this 3-week trip to visit trauma-informed communities in the Pacific Northwest and Canada (I drove a total of 3,011 miles, to be exact!), the road to develop a trauma-informed community has loops, twists and turns. And as with any journey, there are bound to be wrong turns, dead ends, roadblocks, detours, and days when you just plain get lost. Thankfully, there are increasing numbers of tour guides and roadmaps to help...