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As I read through all of the blogs on this site, I have struggled with trying to figure out what I could possibly contribute to the discussion. When stories discuss the work of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and studies by the NIH, I have been finding it hard to feel like anything I could say might matter, and yet I have been drawn to trying to ad to the conversation. I am not a neuro-biologist, nor do I have extensive experience working with traumatized youth or adults. I am the Program Assessment...

What is considered to be the most unaddressed public health crisis in the nation today was discovered about 30 years ago in San Diego. Dr. Vincent Felitti was running an obesity clinic in the city. He realized many of his patients gained weight abruptly at points throughout their childhood, instead of gaining a little weight at a time. In speaking with his patients about their past, he realized over half of them experienced traumatic events as a child. In fact, 55 percent of his patients had...

This election has been a wake up call: sadly it has woken up and given permission for more overt and public forms of harassment modeled and condoned by president-elect Trump. In the three days since the results were announced, I have read news stories about a student handing deportation orders to students of ‘various ethnicities’ at his school, a teacher telling a student Trump should deport their parents , a non-Muslim student writing a note to a Muslim teacher telling her to go hang...

Kansas City’s Resilient KC initiative, a partnership of Healthy KC and Trauma Matters KC, supports the emerging “upstreamist” movement in health care. The concept is to address health problems before they emerge as individual or community-centered health issues. Resilient KC targets community-based trauma. Long-term and often invisible damage can be caused by childhood abuse and neglect, a troubled home or toxic stress. These factors can influence an individual’s physical and behavioral...

Sonoma County Department of Health Services is starting an adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resiliency fellowship that will train 25 community members as educators. Officials said the fellowship is unique to Sonoma County and is being launched at a time when community members and service providers are increasingly seeking out information about how to prevent and heal from adverse childhood experiences. Recent research on ACEs confirms that adversity during early childhood development...

Imagine a group of aliens from Mars has descended to Earth. They are peaceful, non-threatening, very smart, and have come to help us. They hear we want to improve our system of education and tell us they have exactly the answer. They had the same problem over on Mars, they explain, and they solved it with math. We decide to hear what they have to say. After all, there have been decades of concern over test scores, and especially over the achievement gap, which is the difference between test...

“The rent is too damn high” is more than a political slogan. It reflects the harsh reality of increasingly unaffordable housing in America today. Ever since the economic crisis of 2008, American has been in the midst of a “ great housing reset” —a shift from home-ownership to renting. But it’s not just that home-ownership that’s become increasingly unaffordable. Renting has too. Between 2001 and 2014, the number of renters who spend more than half of their income on rent grew by more than 50...

Preventing and treating adverse childhood experiences and providing peer support for people experiencing mental illness or substance abuse received major investments in the latest round of Community Health Endowment (CHE) grants. The CHE board of trustees approved grants totaling $652,456 for one year and $1,142,347 over three years. The new grants will: • Support and expand the Healthy Families America program, which provides home visitation and other services for parents of children under...

Much of our nation has been rocked recently in the wake of the election. There are intense emotions being felt throughout our community and our nation on both sides of the political aisle. We are at a pivotal stage in an event that affects every corner of our community. We are at a pivotal stage in intentionally deciding how we react to this event. Of all the luxuries we have in the United States, we do not have the luxury of alienating any one group of people; regardless of race, ethnicity,...

Nicole Opper's latest film, Visitor's Day, set in Puebla, Mexico, demonstrates how healing can happen when caring adults hold an intentional space of love and community for boys who have suffered from abuse and neglect.

This pdf explores barriers to accessing substance use disorder and mental health treatment services in rural communities and the benefits of telehealth for these communities. Assists practitioners with implementing telehealth technologies as a means to increase access to services. [Get the pdf at ...

The election of the highest number of women into the U.S. Senate is a harbinger of change to come in public policy affecting all of us. They will govern alongside one of the largest numbers of women elected to public office, and they will work with an increasing number of female top military leaders in our armed forces. And with this growing influence of women, we have an opportunity to make significant progress in addressing the mental health problems of our female veterans. This Veterans...