September 2016

In June 2010, Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, gave a TEDx talk in Houston on “the power of vulnerability,” condensing six years of research on shame resilience into a spare 20 minutes. Disarmingly hesitant at first, she didn’t so much address the audience as she seemed to confide in it, telling two interwoven stories: one about her academic research into shame and vulnerability, the other about the spiritual and psychological...

The Aspen Institute announced Tuesday it has launched a commission to accelerate the transfer of research about social and emotional skill-building — which includes developing the interpersonal skills that organizers say contribute to success in school, college and work — into teaching practices across the nation. Seven Californians are members of the National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development. Linda Darling-Hammond , president of the Learning Policy Institute, is one...

All learning should be personal – we are teaching individual students, after all – but when advocates talk about “personalized learning” they are often describing programs and teaching methods that look unlike the typical school. They envision school as a place where students have more control over their own studies; where they are not constrained by age or grade level; where children can move through subjects as fast or slowly as they need. Educators, researchers and advocates still quibble...

Jack’s Story: Jack is a 45-year-old architect, recently married for the first time. He came to therapy to deal with long-standing feelings of depression . His wife, ten years younger than Jack, wanted to start a family. Jack had spent years keeping a cool and cordial distance from his critical father. Now, as his wife pressed him to become a father himself, he felt flooded by sadness and insecurity. Could he be a good father? What if he messed it up? Having done much reading, Jack came into...

Law enforcement officers were regularly stationed in 10 percent of schools in 1997. By 2014, school resource officers were stationed in about one-third of schools. Now, two decades since the number of school-based police officers started to explode, a coalition of over 100 education and social justice organizations are calling for a course correction. The Dignity in Schools Campaign ― a coalition of organizations, parents and students from 27 states ― wants heavily policed campuses to be a...

A man was attempting to murder a toddler in San Diego, and Norm Stamper shot and killed him. The year was 1972 and Stamper, a police lieutenant in San Diego at the time, recalls that his heart pounded, his breath quickened and his vision narrowed into a tunnel. “I couldn’t have told you what was going on four-feet away, to the left or to the right,” he says. He pulled the trigger, the man fell and an official inquiry found that Stamper’s actions were justified. Stamper went on to become...

Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin, a program of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and Winnebago County Department of Human Services invites you to a free screening and guided discussion of "Paper Tigers". A documentary that follows a year in the life of the Lincoln High Alternative School, "Paper Tigers" explores the impact of adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress on struggling teens. The school is a testament to what the latest childhood adversity research is proving: one caring adult...

Abuse of powerful prescription painkillers called opioids costs the U.S. economy $78.5 billion a year, according to a new government study. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed the financial toll of opioid abuse, including direct health care costs, lost productivity and costs to the criminal justice system. "More than 40 Americans die each day from overdoses involving prescription opioids. Families and communities continue to be devastated by the...

Got something judgmental to say about mental illness? Michelle Obama is here to set you straight. The first lady slammed the stereotypes around mental health conditions in Prevention’s October issue, telling the magazine that she doesn’t understand why there’s still shame surrounding such a common health problem. “The stigma around talking about mental health and getting help for it just doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “This is an issue that affects us all.” Obama is absolutely right:...

In Raul Hernandez’ Discovery Lab classroom in Yakima, his fifth-grade students are in a flurry working on lines for a poem. Then they hear the melodic “zwoop” of a harmonica, and all noise and movement stop in an instant. Hands go up in a two-fingered peace sign. All eyes are on the teacher. This is PAX, and it’s out to change the world. The PAX Good Behavior Game is an evidence-based program to help teachers and students build a safe, teamlike classroom environment, where the focus is on...

How implementing trauma Informed care is like building an IKEA shelf. I just moved across the country to the Philadelphia area to start working as an Americorp VISTA in Camden, New Jersey. I am working with the Healing 10 collaboration to bring a trauma informed paradigm to Camden, arguably one of the most traumatized cities in the US. At the moment, I am in the midst of both trying to understand my new job in trauma informed care and set up my apartment in a new city. Obviously, trips to...

Making do with what you’ve got There are a lot of stories about refugees in the news. Some years ago, I helped resettle refugees from the Vietnam War. Trauma and resilience define what it means to be a refugee. All of them had lived through years of warfare. They had seen friends and family members killed. They had to flee the familiar towns and villages they had lived in all their lives. They arrived in a new country with hardly any resources, in a land where nobody spoke their language or...