May 2020

I was so proud to be a part of the New York Trauma-Informed Coalition’s virtual rally on April 30th, in honor of ACEs Awareness and National Trauma-Survivors Day. In an effort to cultivate networking amid a common goal and having just attended an impressive virtual rally for HALTsolitary, Teena Brooks guided our coalition to organize this successful event in only a little more than two weeks! Throughout six Zoom brainstorming meetings, we designed an invitation: ,formulated a list of desired...

By Daniel Jonce Evans, TIME, May 20, 2020 After finding a parking space I stopped and shifted my minivan into park. I sat still for a moment, a moment that allowed me to take a breath in relative silence. Silence, sitting in that driver’s seat, had a particular sound. It encroached after relays clicked and vent fans stopped. The engine crackled while cooling. Still hanging from the ignition, keys on the ring touched once or twice, singing their acknowledgement that their cohort completed the...

By Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, May 20, 2020 Bolinas, California, is not a place one finds oneself by accident, in part because it is a place that must be found. Out on the edge of the North Bay of San Francisco, off a main highway, it can be approached only by narrow roads that have the form of waves: byways through the eucalyptus, snaking drives along the dry cliffs of the coast. Not far beyond the blackened trace of last fall’s fires, a hairpin turn leads to a swerving road down a thick...

By David Willis, MD and Robert Sege | Kay Johnson, 5/21/20, cssp.org The following excerpt was written for the positiveexperience.org blog . Today, the HOPE team leader, Dr. Robert Sege, joined with HOPE National Advisory Board member David Willis and HOPE consultant Kay Johnson to call for a change in mindset for child-serving professionals and organizations. The collaborative post begins with the following excerpt: The three of us have been talking together for years – and have come to...

New federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes critical funding for advancing trauma-informed care services in tribal communities. The devastating impact of historical, intergenerational and current traumas experienced by tribal communities has long overwhelmed chronically underfunded health care, education, mental health, social service and legal systems in Indian Country. The current impact and anticipated aftermath of the coronavirus...

Hi Folks, The May edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php or PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2020-05-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_May_2020.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us, Thanks! Michael . “ Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” - Helen Keller The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2020 – please...

Click here to view a recording of the webinar rom the NJ Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics held this week, Connecting with Families During Quarantine: Virtual Support and Telehealth. Feel free to reach out to ahovde@njaap.org with any questions at all. Stay safe and healthy! Aldina

If you’re feeling like the people YOU like, don’t like YOU -- and you don’t know why -- the first thing you want to look at is whether you are people-pleasing. People-pleasing is the act of changing yourself to make people like you -- trying to match their interests and values, flattering them, and hiding how you really think and feel in hopes that they’ll let you in, and keep you in their lives. People-pleasing is really common for people who were abused and neglected in childhood. It’s...

By Ed Young, The Atlantic, May 20, 2020 T here was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. finally crested and began descending sharply, never happened. Instead, America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau , with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths. The graphs were more mesa than Matterhorn—flat-topped, not sharp-peaked. Only this month has the slope started gently heading downward. This...

By Suzanne Kane, PsychCentral, May 14, 2020 Loneliness is never easy to endure, yet during times of mandatory social isolation and distancing, such as millions of Americans are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be particularly damaging. Among its many effects, loneliness can exacerbate and bring upon a host of mental and physical conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness May Increase Inflammation A study by researchers at the University of Surrey and Brunel University...

By Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, May 18, 2020 Before the Civil War, Southern slaveholders used to claim that their labor system was more humane than “wage slavery” in the factories of the industrializing North. They didn’t win that argument, but the idea took root that the South, during and after slavery, did not have a true capitalist economy. In 1930, twelve Southern writers (all white men) published a collection of essays, titled “I’ll Take My Stand,” that opened with a declaration...

By Richard Webster and Jonathan Bullington, Center for Health Journalism, May 19, 2020 Karen Evans stood before several dozen social workers in a United Way conference room on a recent Monday. She was slightly agitated as she prepared to show them “The Children of Central City,” a documentary on how trauma impacts the long-term health, life trajectories and well-being of children growing up in one of New Orleans’ roughest neighborhoods. Upon its release 18 months earlier, the film had...