July 2016

In 1871, while performing an autopsy on a notorious bank robber, the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso saw something unusual. It was a small hollow at the base of the skull, under which lay an enlarged section of the spinal cord. The feature was rare in Europeans, but he had seen it in lower apes and certain ‘inferior races’ of South America. Eureka. ‘At the sight of that skull,’ he later wrote, he understood the biological nature of the criminal – ‘an atavistic being who reproduces in...

Legislators July 6 passed the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646) by an overwhelming 422-2. The bill - originally introduced three years ago by Reps. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) in the aftermath of the 2012 Newtown tragedy reflected the frustration of many who know we can and should do better when it comes to people with serious mental illnesses. Families left without support to care for loved ones, law enforcement officers who too often are...

At the Golden Globe Awards, in January, Ennio Morricone won Best Original Score for his contribution to “The Hateful Eight,” the Quentin Tarantino Western. Accepting the award on Morricone’s behalf was Tarantino himself, who brandished the trophy in a gesture of vindication, suggesting that Morricone, despite all the honors he has received, is nevertheless underrated. Tarantino proclaimed Morricone his favorite composer. “And when I say favorite composer,” he added, “I don’t mean movie...

On the first day of kindergarten every year, public school teachers and administrators stand at their school portals with arms opened wide to embrace every child. Teachers comfort every student readying their cerebral blank slate to be filled with the three R’s — reading, writing and arithmetic. There is only one problem. Kids don’t come to kindergarten with a tabula rasa mind, a blank slate of perceptions, ideas, thoughts and emotions. This may be true for the three R’s, but the experiences...

Photo by Chris Campbell ___________________________________________________________________ To continue our build-out of the ACEs Connection Resources Center, this week we're focusing on resilience surveys. Resilience surveys and scales measure different aspects of our ability to adapt or deal with life events. Many focus on five characteristics of resilience -- purpose, perseverance, self reliance, equanimity, and authenticity. Some look at the resilience factors we had as children, others...

Cappy's Boxing Gym, Seattle WA, is a community hub devoted to health through boxing, self awareness and expression. Not only do people come to this gym for stress release, to get in shape and learn how to box, but also to learn more about how the punch path heals past trauma. Simplistically, if you deliver a punch at a target, you will punch according to who shows up to throw it. A bully throws a different punch than does the bullied or the bystander, who throws nothing. It takes three to...

When I was a boy, my mother would give me and two of my sisters a quarter to go to the movies at the Northern Lights Theater in Cordova, AK. We were a divorced family at the time and I had a stepdad in the home. I was unaware of the trauma we had gone through, alcoholism and domestic violence, that led to my dad’s absence. The trauma was building up in the three of us, and Saturday movies were a treat we could look forward to. A quarter bought us admission, popcorn and a soda. For a couple...

Sacramento Mayor-elect Darrell Steinberg watched last week from the back of the state Senate floor as his former colleagues passed his $2 billion plan for homeless housing, potentially providing him with the issue and money to extend his influence beyond the city. Steinberg said he hopes to see “tens of millions” of funding locally in the next few years for permanent homes through the legislation, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed last week. Some of that money could arrive early next year,...

Sonoma West Medical Center has been awarded a $3,750,000 federal grant for developing partnerships to keep people healthy after they’ve left the Sebastopol hospital. The funds, to be used over a five-year period, will be used to create processes and services that essentially track and support patient care, beginning with the emergency room or inpatient setting and continuing all the way to the home. The hospital’s potential partners include West County Community Health Centers, home health...

Many American Christians still grieve something Martin Luther King Jr. articulated more than 50 years ago: Churches are among the most segregated spaces in America . King imagined a universal, all-inclusive sisterhood and brotherhood with an equitable distribution of resources—a “Beloved Community” where there is peace because there is justice. Plenty of religious people have felt a duty to help bring this dream to life, yet most have failed to racially integrate their own congregations.

June 2016. ATN’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools (TSS) Initiative hosted our first Professional Development Training June 27 & 28 in Somerville, NJ. The Superintendent of Somerville Schools, Dr. Tim Purnell was the keynote and spoke on the importance of viewing things through a different lens. Then ATN’s TSS trainers Melissa Sadin and Jen Alexander provided a full day of training to enable educators to realize the impact of early childhood trauma; recognize traumatized children in their...

Graphic artist Anne Nelson created this visual roadmap during the partner showcase, capturing the "heart of the matter" for each community member Teri Barila, co-founder and CEO of the Children’s Resilience Initiative and the igniting force that brought change to a quiet corner of southeast Washington, kicked off last month’s Beyond Paper Tigers Conference by sharing one of her “aha” moments. In 2007, she attended a conference in Winthrop, WA, where Dr. Robert Anda spoke about the CDC-Kaiser...