August 2022

Our work is just beginning. We don't want to stop now.

Please join us for our series Education Upended—Talking Out of Turn. This series features a conversation facilitated by Lara Kain, PACEsConnection education consultant, with special guests on education, related current events and hot topics. We will use a trauma-informed and PACEs-science lens to examine what's going on K-12 education, what needs changing, and strategies being used in the field to disrupt harmful policies and make positive changes in the system. August Session, Tuesday...

Note: While this is about my recent experience as a patient in a clinical trial for advanced ovarian cancer, I share it here because it's written from a survivor perspective. It's relevant for anyone who cares about trauma-informed policy and practice, in medical settings and beyond. There is a difference between researching, diagnosing and treating a condition, any condition, whether PTSD, or cancer, and living with that diagnosis and treatment. Too often (and not just in medical settings),...

“Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are a powerful movement, and collectively we are making a difference,” says Lara Kain, PACEs Connection education consultant. She joins this week’s History. Culture. Trauma. podcast with fellow educators and hosts, PACEs Connection CEO Ingrid Cockhren, and director of communities, Mathew Portell. Cockhren and Portell are focused on the start of the 2022-2023 school year, and welcome colleague Kain o n Thursday, August 25 at 1 p.m. PT, 4 p.m. ET, when...

[ Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site — abuseresearch.info — that focuses on the effects of abuse, and includes research articles on PACEs. Every month, she posts the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs, PCEs and PACEs. Thank you, Harise!! — Jane Stevens] Child Abuse Theodorou CM, Brown EG, Jackson JE, Beres AL. Child Abuse and the COVID-19 Pandemic. J Surg Res. 2022 Aug;276:18-23. PMID: 35325681 Of children 5...

For the past three years, Karen Bacigalupo, as assistant principal at Fall-Hamilton Elementary, part of the Metro Nashville Public Schools, worked with former principal Mathew Portell to integrate PACEs into their school. Bacigalupo took over as principal last March when Portell joined PACEs Connection as director of communities. Although she had heard about the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences through social media and in her research over the past six years, it was only...

The third annual Racial Truth & Reconciliation Week begins today! The mission of RTRW is to empower the voices and experiences of marginalized communities in acknowledgement of truth to promote healing, reconciliation, and justice. This year, we celebrate good troublemaking and young changemakers. Head to the Voices website to register for workshops, view the full schedule of events, presentation descriptions, presenter bios, and more! Even if you can't make a workshop, registration will...

By Joy Borkholder, Illustration: Kelly Flynn/Crosscut, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, August 22, 2022 Sitting in her sunny studio apartment in Spokane’s South Hill neighborhood, surrounded by homes she describes as “out of a Pixar movie,” Williams, a 20-year-old junior college student, reflected on her accomplishments and challenges. She’d spent several of her middle school years in foster homes, as her mom struggled with addiction and mental health, sometimes locking herself inside...

By Marsh Mercer, Photo: Paul Hennessey/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/The Associated Press, PEW, August 22, 2022 More than 150 years after it was officially outlawed in the United States, slavery will be on the ballot in five states in November, as a new abolitionist movement seeks to reshape prison labor. Voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide on state constitutional amendments prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, in some cases except for work by...

By Amy Yee, Andre Tartar, and Marie Patino, Photo: Bryan Tarnowski/Bloomberg, Bloomberg CityLab, August 22, 2022 To see the difference between year one and year two of the US Paycheck Protection Program, just look to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2020, when the US announced emergency loans to help small businesses struggling under Covid-19 shutdowns, funding went disproportionately to the higher-income zip codes of Louisiana’s capital. Better-resourced firms such as medical and legal offices...

By Jodi Hausen, Photo: Jodi Hausen, The Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 2022 T o say Caroline Croft Estay is as bright and sparkly as the hot pink glitter polish she wears on her fingernails would be, at the very least, apt. The co-founder of Vertical Harvest in Jackson, Wyoming, sits in the break room of the greenhouse, where employees come and go, many stopping by to say hi, to give her updates, or simply to smother her in hugs. “She’s just an inspiration,” says employee Destiny...

By Hannah Seo, Illustration: María Medem, The New York Times, August 19, 2022 Tens of millions of people across the United States have been enduring heat wave after heat wave this summer, in what feels like an unrelenting succession of humid days and scorching temperatures. While there’s no denying that extreme heat and humidity can be physically uncomfortable, research suggests that such conditions can be trying on your psychological well-being, too. “We see across the whole spectrum of...