August 2018

Abstract Enthusiasm for trauma-informed practice has increased dramatically. Organizational interventions that train staff about trauma-informed practice are frequently used to promote trauma-informed systems change, but evidence about these interventions’ effects has not been integrated. A systematic review was conducted of studies that evaluated the effects of organizational interventions that included a “trauma-informed” staff training component. A search was conducted in July 2017 and...

A few months after I began injecting testosterone, I discovered that one of the startling new privileges of my male body was that I could silence an entire room just by opening my mouth. Despite the fact that my voice pitched baritone low, when I spoke, people didn’t just listen, they leaned in. They perched their heads in their hands and tilted toward me for a better angle. It was as if whatever I said, however banal, was surely worth that strain of a neck, or the hurried quieting of all...

Sometimes a wave of climate grief breaks over me. It happens unexpectedly, perhaps during a book talk, or while on the phone with a congressional representative. In a millisecond, without warning, I’ll feel my throat clench, my eyes sting, and my stomach drop as though the Earth below me is falling away. During these moments, I feel with excruciating clarity everything that we’re losing—but also connection and love for those things. Usually I don’t mind the grief. It’s clarifying. It makes...

For the past 28 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has published a “ State of the Climate ” report, an exhaustive accounting of the planet’s vital signs and weather-related trends for every region worldwide. But this year’s installment of the 310-page report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society with contributions from 524 scientists in 65 countries, feels a little different, according...

When I was a high school junior in New Orleans taking AP American history, my teacher assigned us a paperback book. Slim in contrast to our hulking required textbook, it was a funny, compelling, even shocking read. Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, explained how history textbooks got the story of America wrong, usually by soft-pedaling, oversimplifying and burying the thorny drama and uncertainties of the past under a blanket of dull, voice-of-God narration. The book also taught a...

SuperKid Power is all about building better kids. Kids that are self aware and self regulated. Kids that have learned self respect and mutual respect for their classmates, their teachers and their parents and siblings.

The story of an eight-year-old girl named Anna has sparked a movement to end childhood trauma in New Mexico. Anna is a fictional character based on a real case within the Protective Services Division of the New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department and it's her story in the book, Anna, Age Eight, that is guiding urgent community work focused on ending ACEs, childhood trauma and maltreatment in New Mexico. A group of family-focused Dona Ana county agencies have initiated a...

Why do fictional television shows often do better than factual journalism at giving viewers a truer sense of the world in all its complexity? Here’s a big reason: TV script writers understand that viewers can deal with nuance and contradictions. Good TV, whether cable or broadcast, shows us fully rounded people grappling with challenges that viewers can identify with on some level, invented and over the top though they may be. They can be larger than life, like the mafia-don-in-therapy Tony...

New Medicaid rules in several states mean low-income people will have to work, or prove they're too unhealthy to work, to receive health coverage. Other states want permission to require the same, which could affect millions of Americans living in or near poverty. Before these requirements get into full gear, a team of University of Michigan researchers is offering specific recommendations to help states ensure that work requirements don't harm the health of people enrolled in Medicaid. The...

During a routine checkup at the pediatrician’s office, I got my first real look at how my 4-year-old daughter feels about the subject of siblings. A nurse asked my daughter if she had any brothers or sisters. “No,” she said, shaking her head, a look of slight revulsion and incredulity on her face, as if she didn’t understand why she was being asked. “Well, I do have Rufus and Tallulah,” she said, with a smile like a ray of sunshine. The nurse looked at me expectantly. “They’re our pit...

If you haven't seen the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? , I encourage you to see it as soon as possible. What makes Morgan Neville's biographical documentary so necessary, in fact, is that it shows Rogers was exactly what he appeared to be. Someone who devoted his life to taking seriously and responding to the emotions of children. In a word: to love. Read more from NPR here .

This excellent book is part story and part 20-step manual for creating trauma informed schools and classrooms. I have had the honor and challenge of raising a traumatized child. In addition, I have spent my career in education, as a special education teacher, principal of a public school, principal of an alternative placement school for children with behavioral challenges, and currently as a special education director, confronted with the challenges of educating children with trauma...