July 2022

Pre-COVID, I was invited to speak at a conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. During lunch the organizers brought dancers from the Apache tribe to perform. What we witnessed was so powerful and moving, that it prompted me to inquire about the spiritual significance of the songs and dance. They explained to me that after going to war, the warriors returned to their land and were gathered together to perform that particular dance and song. As a tribal African woman, it all made perfect sense. As...

Kofi Bullock, a husband, father and certified male doula hosts "How Doulas Can Include Dads". This engaging online event will not only give doulas new language to communicate with expecting dads, but also provide tangible father centered resources. Bringing an in-depth perspective of how to include dads, you’ll leave the training with tips and tools to add to your intellectual “doula bag”. Click Here for more details

By Tara Bahrampour, Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post, The Washington Post, July 28, 2022 John Eliff wasn’t sure about painting a horse. Eliff, 91, stood beside Stetson, an 11-year-old palomino. He picked up a foam paintbrush, dipped it into a cup of purple paint and gingerly laid it on the horse’s pale-gold flank. With his son, Jack Eliff, standing protectively behind him, the elder Eliff started to paint. “Look at the color of this,” he said. Two vertical strokes and one...

By Christina Saint Louis, Illustration: Lydia Zuraw/KHN, Kaiser Health News, July 28, 2022 The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s 988 phone number, which launched July 16, was designed as a universal mental health support tool for callers at any time anywhere. But the U.S. is a patchwork of resources for crisis assistance, so what comes next isn’t universal. The level of support that 988 callers receive depends on their ZIP code. In particular, rural Americans, who die by suicide at a...

By California Supportive Schools, July 2022 School districts that implement whole-community supports incorporate the needs of families and caregivers in their approach to student well-being. In this audiocast, you’ll hear about how Pajaro Valley Unified School District prioritizes community voice to provide responsive supports that promote multi-generational wellness through their Family Engagement and Wellness Center. [ Please click here to listen to the audiocast .] [ Please click here to...

By Jeremy Loudenback, Photo: Kitchens for Good, The Imprint, July 27, 2022 Still reeling from the pandemic’s blow to jobs and the economy, the state of California is set to spend heavily on training young people who tend to have the most fragile links to the workforce: youth who’ve grown up homeless, in foster care or on probation. In the state budget deal approved late last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and lawmakers committed $65 million to expand apprenticeship opportunities in a range of...

Safe & Sound’s Center for Youth Wellness (CYW) and the New Jersey Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics (NJAAP), have extended the deadline to submit an RFP response for participation in its Trauma-Informed ACEs Screening & Intervention Evaluation Project ECHO (TASIE Project). More information can be found here: www.njaap.org/tasie, including a pre-recorded informational webinar. Safe & Sound was awarded a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and...

By Eleni Schirmer, Photo: Jovelle Tamayo/The New Yorker, The New Yorker, July 27, 2022 On a warm October evening, in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood in a baseball field in Pittsburgh, delivering an impassioned speech about passion’s improbable subject: the federal budget. “Sometime, somewhere in this campaign, I have got to talk dollars and cents, and it’s a terrible thing to ask you people to listen for forty-five minutes to the story of the federal budget, but I am going to ask you...

By Asher Lehrer-Small, The 74, July 27, 2022 Students who miss at least 10% of school days are more likely to face reading difficulties by third grade, less likely to earn a high school diploma and are at higher risk of juvenile delinquency . There’s a word to describe when students surpass this troubling threshold: chronic absenteeism. It makes intuitive sense. Students who spend less time in the classroom have a harder time keeping up with their peers and may face difficulties developing...

By Noah Weiland, Photo: Sophie Park/The New York Times, The New York Times, July 26 2022 During a recent interview here, Dr. Rahul Gupta, President Biden’s drug czar, appeared to be on the verge of supporting a radical shift in U.S. drug control policy. Asked for his views on supervised consumption sites , where users bring their own drugs to take under the supervision of trained workers in case they overdose — a concept accepted in Canada and Europe but still technically illegal in the...

By Emily Cataneo, Photo: Jessie Wardarski/AP, The Guardian, July 26, 2022 R obin Blakeman, an eighth-generation West Virginian, has been a practicing minister since 2004. This May, the city where she lives flooded for the second time in nine months. Several inches of rain left roads in disarray, with cars washed out and first responders rushing to evacuate families. The rising flood also damaged one of the city’s churches. Before that point, local congregations in Huntington, West Virginia,...

Standing on top of Ogun Mountain, in the Sacred City of 41 Mountains, West Africa, I knew my life would forever change. The women from the royal house danced for me. The men drummed me into a trance. They called me by my African name as they welcomed me home. On the soil of my ancestors, the healing began. I am a black woman born in the 1970’s. Nine generations ago, my ancestors were on the continent of Africa inhabiting the Kingdom of Dahomey. We were thriving. Unbeknownst to most, we were...