Blog

As we celebrate July 4 th , Independence Day, a day typically filled with cookouts, fireworks, parades, and honor of past sacrifices made, my thoughts are drawn to the 1,000’s of classrooms filled with students seeking their own personal independence. Unfortunately, due to the interruption of trauma in childhood, they have become dependent on the maladaptive responses they have acquired in order to mitigate, compensate, cope and survive the impact of the adversity dealt them. Dysregulated...

If you grew up in a family with a chemically dependent, mentally ill, or abusive parent, you know how hard it is — and you know that everyone in the family is affected. Over time, the family begins to revolve around maintaining the status quo – the dysfunction. Rigid family rules and roles develop in dysfunctional families that help maintain the dysfunctional family system and allow the addict to keep using or the abuser to keep abusing. Understanding some of the family rules that dominate...

Improving the well-being of children and families is a priority for Dr. Rosalind Picard, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies “affective computing,” which uses sense technology to increase individuals’ well-being using new ways to understand and respond to emotion. Dr. Picard has developed wearable sensors that reveal an individual’s level of cognitive, emotional, or physical stress loads. To read the rest of this blog by Mona Delahooke, Ph. D. , please click...

Within the last few weeks, I have heard of two more young people dying from heroin overdoses. Tragedies like this are becoming ever more common. Right now, in my opinion, there is a heroin/opiate epidemic going on. It’s spanning all ages, all races, all genders, and all socioeconomic statuses! It doesn’t matter if your town has a Starbucks or a beautiful, organic farmers market. It’s happening. It’s serious. And it’s starting young. What’s worse? Opiates are deadlier faster than many other...

The idea of adding an adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) screening tool to your practice’s workflow can be daunting – which tool, will you have time, does it add enough value? The Child Health and Development Interactive System (CHADIS) is helping to address this challenge by partnering with the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) to add an ACEs questionnaire into its system. Join this webinar to learn more about how this collaboration can help support your efforts to...

(Cissy's note: I've known this professor, Alissa Ackerman, for a few years and she's stretched my thinking on restorative justice, sex offender research, and policy and survivor-led advocacy. It's nice to see her work covered more often and more widely). The following is an excerpt published on the California State University, Fullerton website today.

Resilient Communities are Healthy Communities…what’s good for health is good for climate!” Authored by: Judy Robinson and Sara Jensen Carr, Design 4 Active Sacramento Climate change directly threatens the health and well-being of California’s nearly 40 million people. Without intervention at the local, regional, and state scales, these dangers will only become more pronounced in coming years. The Safeguarding California Plan devotes an entire public health chapter to these risks, stating:...

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A new report looks at the state of humanitarian aid. The world was generous, says the Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2018 . A record amount of funds went to crises that range from the ongoing Syrian civil war to the drought in the Horn of Africa . Do you know how much the world spent on emergency relief? Which countries gave the most money? And which countries received the most? Take this quiz to test your knowledge. [For more on this story by MALAKA GHARIB, go to...

We’re busy people. Our to do list-wake, prep, eat, email, travel, meetings, calls and deadlines. Then there’s our kids-wake, feed, transport, talk, feed, homework, mini-crisis, hug. Then there’s screen time with CNN, NY Times, The Guardian, LinkedIn, FB and Twitter. Honestly, there’s just not another free minute in the day, right? In an odd way, being so overextended brings you some satisfaction. You did design your lifestyle, right? I get it. When it comes to supporting a progressive cause,...

Interview with Ms. Melanie Blow of Stop Abuse Campaign, Rochester, N.Y. A woman's body was found last winter in an area of our city known for drug use, prostitution and crime. This time it is personal. This woman and her brother used to play with my own child. I'm not just heartbroken that my nephew, and now my niece, have both died in this opiate crisis that is so severe it has actually lowered America's life expectancy. I want to help. Two years ago I was introduced to Ms. Melanie Blow of...

Up to 30 percent of teenage girls in some parts of the United States say they have intentionally injured themselves without aiming to commit suicide, researchers have found. About one in four adolescent girls deliberately harmed herself in the previous year, often by cutting or burning, compared to about one in 10 boys. The overall prevalence of self-harm was almost 18 percent. [For more on this story by Emily Baumgaertner, go to...