More foster and relative homes are needed across the country. One barrier is child care access. A new bill seeks to solve this problem by providing a child care bridge program with a trauma informed training component. http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article147546504.html
A lot of factors have contributed to American inequality: slavery, economic policy, technological change, the power of lobbying, globalization, and so on. In their wake, what’s left? That’s the question at the heart of a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, an economist from MIT. Temin argues that, following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system: One small, predominantly white...
Who wouldn’t love a stress proof brain? The title of this book, The Stress-Proof Brain, is enough to intrigue anyone going through a stressful time. Melanie Greenberg provides background on how our brains respond to stress and how that response is what determines how we feel. Depending on the situation, our amygdala releases hormones and neurotransmitters that prepare people to either fight or flee. In the short-term, this can be a good thing; it can energize people and help overcome...
Raheem had been arrested for stealing lice shampoo from a pharmacy and then getting into a scuffle with the security guard who caught him. As we talked, he fidgeted and scratched at his body while explaining that a lice plague was ravaging the world and only he knew the secret cure. He added that he actually had enough money to buy the shampoo, but couldn’t let the store employees know about his plan, so he had tried to sneak out without paying. [For more of this story, written by Kristen...
This post originally appeared at Equal Voice News , a publication of Marguerite Casey Foundation. You’re not a single mother. You have a spouse or a partner. You don’t have kids, or if you do, you’re raising them in a two-parent, two-income household. I’m happy for you — and a little envious. I don’t have that life. I have a 5-year-old I’m raising alone in Appalachia. The proposed tax plan announced by Donald Trump punishes people like me: single parents living with their children on low- to...
What does it look like when systems work better together? At Arizona State University, a research team is exploring this very question. By integrating data sources from Arizona’s medical, mental health, and criminal justice systems, they’re looking for ways to effectively coordinate health and support services for those confronting mental health or substance abuse challenges. The study uses systems modeling and network analysis methods to see how individuals and dollars move between and...
After losing a close family member to suicide, Sam Pressler turned to sketch comedy as a means to cope, and later, to grow from the trauma and its consequences. While in college several years later, he learned that the suicide rate among veterans at the time was 22 deaths per day. “My mind immediately jumped to standup comedy as a solution,” he says, softly chuckling as if to acknowledge his slightly unconventional way of thinking. Pressler created the first comedy class for veterans while...
The affordable housing crisis has spared no county—rural or urban. From small towns like Traverse City, Michigan, to big expensive cities like San Francisco, a cheap and decent place to live is hard to come by. And it would be even harder without government support, according to a new report by the Urban Institute. Nationwide, only 21 units are available per 100 extremely low-income renter households (those earning below 30 percent of the area median income) without government assistance.
Another stop on my 3-week fellowship trip, visiting trauma-informed communities in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, was in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Here's a summary of some of the work they're doing to implement trauma-informed care in their agencies that serve children, youth and families: Coeur d'Alene's journey to implement trauma-informed practices in their schools and youth-serving agencies got kicked off in a big way with a keynote presentation in October, 2014 to the Idaho School...
Note: A friend sent this article to my boyfriend about that "ACE stuff" this weekend. I sense tipping point. Every time I read an article like this, it sobers me. The fact always sober me. But I also feel hope because there's so much to learn as parents and as a community about how healthful it is to be without all this toxic stress. That's that part, that as a parent, is so motivating. As parents and people in direct contact with kids, we have a lot of power to use for good and to make...
It's timely that I post this now, given the recent news release supposedly saying that some people may have a genetic vulnerability to suffering from PTSD. Whoever posted this made no mention before posting of the steps necessary to be taken before accepting the post at face value -- That'll be the focus of a further blog post I'll be submitting in a couple of days. Today, I just wish to post some more news, about a LACK of a once proposed genetic vulnerability (as reflected in a single...
Here's another post from my 3-week fellowship trip, visiting trauma-informed communities in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. This one is about the Calgary Urban Project Society, or CUPS, and how they're leveraging brain science and collaboration to end cycles of poverty and trauma: The Calgary Urban Project Society, or CUPS, was founded in 1989 with a vision to help people overcome the challenges of poverty and attain brighter futures. Over the past couple of years, with their involvement...
Joann Stephens will never forget the meeting at which a man pounded the table. Stephens, who has a high school education, a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and children with mental health issues, became an accidental advocate. “The systems were not working for my kid, so [I thought], What do we do to fix it?” But at meetings with policy-makers and professionals, Stephens often felt discounted. “One time, a man pounded his fist on the table and said, ‘I can’t stand it when...
Districts and schools all over the country are working hard to make social-emotional learning ( SEL ) a part of the “DNA” of the educational process, meaning they’re going beyond just the adoption of an SEL curricula and are incorporating SEL into school climate, discipline policies, teacher professional development, and the like. But for educational leaders who are new to SEL or who are trying to figure out where to start, this process can seem overwhelming. [For more of this story, written...
Every week in Des Moines, Iowa, the employees of a small nonprofit collect bins of unexpired prescription drugs tossed out by nursing homes after residents died, moved out or no longer needed them. The drugs are given to patients who couldn’t otherwise afford them. But travel 1,000 miles east to Long Island, New York, and you’ll find nursing homes flushing similar leftover drugs down the toilet, alarming state environmental regulators worried they’ll further contaminate the water supply. In...