August 2020

By Lenny Mendonca, California Health Care Foundation, July 8, 2020 On Friday, April 10, at 5 PM, Californians learned I had resigned as Chief Economic and Business Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom and chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. The press release stated I was leaving “to focus on family and personal business.” In corporate speak, this usually means someone got fired. I was not fired, and I approved this press release, even though I hate 5 PM Friday press releases. I am...

Everywhere we look we see stressed-out families. If only you could show a family how stressed they are and what was causing the stress. When family members literally “see” what causes stress, they can begin taking steps to decrease stressors and move towards healing. The FST Stress Chart serves as a pattern interrupt to disrupt the overwhelm parents, teens, couples and families feel when they come through our doors ready to blame and finger point. Webinar: Neutralize Family Anxiety DATE:...

By Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, July 21, 2020 Teachers across the country are preparing for a school year brimming with unprecedented challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. A likely byproduct? Teachers’ stress levels could soar, making an already-tough job tougher. By now, it’s a truism that teaching is stressful. Researchers have increasingly documented that stress, in surveys and in the trails of burned-out teachers leaving the profession. In the last decade, many...

By Katie Brackenridge, EdSource, August 2, 2020 In a recent principal training session, a participant raised his hand and asked: “How can I afford to invest in social-emotional learning when my students have fallen so far behind?” The real question is whether we can afford not to invest in practices that support students’ social, emotional AND cognitive development right now. If we really care about student success, then we need to honor the biology of our brains — our interconnected centers...

By Christopher Spencer Greeley, JAMA Pediatrics, August 3, 2020 The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed the frailty of the just-in-time medical system currently in place in the United States. Large gaps in access to care, unequal distribution of testing, and disparities in mortality rates in many ways reflect the greater inequalities that many communities and families were confronting daily before COVID-19. These inequities now may mean life or death. COVID-19 is not the...

By Ed Yong, The Atlantic, September 2020 H ow did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom. In the first half of 2020, SARS‑CoV‑2—the new...

Voices for Virginia’s Children and the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Virginia has officially launched the Commonwealth's first-ever Racial Truth & Reconciliation Week. Over 50+ community leaders and organizations, public officials, advocates, artists, and more have joined forces.The event consists of 30 virtual programs that includes art showcases, yoga restoration activities, children’s book reading, and faith-based healing. This mission of the week is to promote healing, reconciliation,...

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER The foundation of cultural competence relies on a clinician’s awareness about themselves and the client as “cultural beings”, engaging in a therapeutic alliance from their lived experiences within intersecting social systems. The participant will learn how to broach discussions and exploration of culture with clients to develop a multicultural case conceptualization beyond the perceived “cultural differences”. The learner will learn how to practice in a culturally...

We all face challenges. Some of us are thrust into a public health crisis. For others, they’re born into a world of adversity, trauma and chaos. 100% Community is about how we can finally create systems of health and safety that serve everyone, everywhere. 100% Community is the strategy that finally ensures trauma-free and thriving childhoods. For all children. With the 100% Community initiative, we provide you and your community with the insights to ensure that ten vital services are...

By Elizabeth Hlavinka, MedPage Today, July 27, 2002 As COVID-19 infections ravaged the country from March to June, parent and child well-being felt the ripple effects, according to a national survey. Among 1,011 parents who responded to the survey, 26.9% said their mental health had worsened, 14.3% said their children's behavioral health had declined, and 9.6% said both their mental health and their children's behavioral health had slumped, reported Stephen W. Patrick, MD, MPH, of the...

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, with all it's physical, mental, emotional, and financial implications, and social and political unrest across the US continues, people are really struggling. It can be hard to feel safe right now. In light of our current circumstances, Lumos Transforms continue to offer FREE Anchoring Resilience for Turbulent Times webinars. If you haven't already availed yourself of this resource, please consider signing up for an upcoming session. Lumos Transforms would...

Stacy Brookman is a Resilience and Life Storytelling Expert. She produces the Real Life Resilience podcast and the Emotional Abuse Recovery and Resilience Summit. She helps smart, outwardly confident women who secretly have low self-esteem issues due to an emotionally abusive partner take back control and begin to develop the resilience they need to be themselves again.