Blog

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Marvel has finally picked up on the rumblings-turned-shouts-in-the-streets for better representation in their tentpole movies, and releases Black Panther this weekend. I saw it. And fellow white people… you gotta see it too. Us, especially. I’m addressing my fellow pasty brethren because already, some of us are shaming our damn ancestors (or, let’s be honest, making them proud) by posting racist, and eye-rollingly easy to debunk, crap on Twitter about...

For many educators, this is a time of confusion and frustration as we watch continued attacks on federal funding for education — including after-school programming. We watched with concern earlier this year as the Trump Administration shortsightedly sought to eliminate funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program for fiscal year 2018. This essential program funds after-school and summer programs for almost two million youth across the country, especially those from...

Exercise may help the brain to build durable memories, through good times and bad. Stress and adversity weaken the brain’s ability to learn and retain information, earlier research has found. But according to a remarkable new neurological study in mice, regular exercise can counteract those effects by bolstering communication between brain cells. Memory has long been considered a biological enigma, a medley of mental ephemera that has some basis in material existence. Memories are coded into...

Our Trauma-Informed journey began with the Henrico Department of Social Services (DSS) in the fall of 2012 when we approached their leadership with a proposal to partner with the Greater Richmond Trauma-Informed Community Network (TICN) to create a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System. We began by developing a TIMELINE of activities (please note we set out to complete things in one year - little did we realize at the time that the process is always ongoing!). The first step on the timeline...

In early February, the National Foster Care Youth and Alumni Policy Council hosted a webinar on its most recent policy focus on preventing unnecessary removal of children from their families. Three former foster youth – Dani Townsend, David Hall and Nico’Lee Biddle – presented the group’s findings from their survey on the subject and recommendations that will be shared with federal stakeholders. Hall shared a few highlights from the survey, which included responses from 200 current and...

The Trump administration wants to allow insurance companies to offer more policies that have limited health benefits and that can reject customers if they have pre-existing medical conditions. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says the plans , which don't meet the legal requirements for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, will allow consumers who can't afford insurance now to find cheaper plans. "It's one step in the direction of providing Americans with health...

Facing persecution in Myanmar, some Rohingya people have left for the United States, where many are finding new homes—and new challenges—in the Midwest. The Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago's North Side is home to about 400 Rohingya families , one of the largest concentrations in the country. Ninety miles north in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there are about 5,000 Burmese refugees, including about 600 Rohingya families (the others are Karen and Chin). Burmese people make up Wisconsin's largest...

After last week’s mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida – there are renewed calls for tighter gun controls and a closer look at mental health care. In Orange County, doctors and educators are leading a push to make schools ‘trauma informed’. Dr. Lisa Spector is chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Nemours and sits on the Orange County Health department’s Trauma Informed committee. Dr. Spector joins us to explain what it means to be trauma informed, and how the...

Please find excerpts from a piece published in Issue 24 of the Berkeley Media Studies Group about where and how ACEs are covered in the news. It was published a few months ago but I missed it and am thankful it was shared with me last week. and Click here to read full-length version and for a downloadable pdf.

Adults, pull up a chair. It's time for us to talk. February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness month. In cases reviewed by the Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Review Project , nearly fifty percent of domestic violence homicide victims began their relationships with their perpetrators between the ages of 13-24. Adults, we need to take intimate and dating relationships between young people seriously. As defined by Loveisrespect.org , teen dating violence is "a pattern of behaviors one person...

Kimberlee Coronado ______________________________________ Kimberlee Coronado recalls listening to a presentation of statewide data on children, poverty and trauma, and feeling acutely aware of the survey’s missing piece. It was a meeting on trauma-informed care; around the table were social service providers and representatives of local and county agencies. Coronado felt her anger rising. “I said, ‘What’s not even on your radar are kids with disabilities; you’re missing a whole category of...

When I moved to Durham, North Carolina, in the mid-1980s, the county had two separate school systems. At its center, like a bulls-eye, was the city system, which was overwhelmingly African American and had the state's highest dropout rate and some of its lowest test scores. Its undersized tax base, including a hollowed-out downtown, made it hard to raise enough revenue to close the gap. Encircling it was the county system, which was whiter and more suburban, and it included Research Triangle...