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By Jeremy Loudenback, Photo: Khari and Kayla Love, The Imprint, November 15, 2021 A coalition of Los Angeles County racial justice advocates, lawyers for parents in the child welfare system, reproductive rights groups and community-based organizations is calling on elected officials to implement wide-ranging reforms to the local foster care system. The demands presented Monday to the county Board of Supervisors draw on national advocacy efforts. They include a moratorium on removing children...

By Raymond Tran, Art by Angela Liang, November 14, 2021 Intergenerational trauma , which can also be referred to as trans- or multigenerational trauma, is defined as “trauma that gets passed down from those who directly experience an incident to subsequent generations.” Intergenerational trauma may begin with a traumatic event affecting an individual or traumatic events affecting larger groups of people, from families to racial groups. Left alone, this cycle of trauma continues. In order to...

By Donna M. Owens, Essence, November 2, 2021 Countless Southern Black women have helped build America and lead, working to uplift in civil rights, politics, education, social justice and other arenas. Now some Southern Black women leaders are using philanthropy as part of the fight for transformational change to benefit the South and the nation, overall. The Women’s Foundation of the South is one of the newcomers. The nonprofit based in New Orleans, envisions a flourishing South where women...

Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D. Psychology Today blog post, November 16, 2021 Strong, distressing emotions are disturbing enough. They also trigger and maintain the dysregulated stress that causes so much suffering in adults affected by ACEs. Regulating intense unpleasant emotions is the second step to healing.

First published in the Jamaica Observer Sharon Leach: What is the age range of children you’re targeting to read Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows and do you think this age group can be receptive to these themes? Juleus Ghunta: There are many themes in the book that literate children (5 years and up) will be able to understand on their own: the importance of strong human connections, the power of one's imagination, the value of reading. But as I wrote in the ‘Letter to Grown-ups’ at the front of...

If the words "beloved community", "fierceness", "truth" and "compassion" resonate in your heart, but you’re daunted by conversations about racism, please read on! My very dear colleague and collaborator, Roxy Manning, is working on Antiracist Conversations - the book so many people have asked her to write. And it’s powerful. Yesterday, we kicked off our campaign to secure at least 1000 pre-orders of Roxy Manning's courageous first book, Antiracist Conversations , so we can get this timely...

Lynnette Grey Bull (l) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Lynnette Grey Bull is founder and director of Not Our Native Daughters , a nonprofit created to educate and raise awareness of the missing, exploited, and murdered Indigenous women and children in the more than 300 tribes across the U.S. Grey Bull was raised in Pasadena, CA, where her parents, who met in college, had settled after leaving Billings, Montana. “I had great memories there,” she recalls. Her mother is Northern...

L-R Dr. Mary Cwik, Dr. Tami DeCoteau, Dan Press, Dr. Zach Kaminsky, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Prewitt In 1964, Dan Press was in his first year of law school and was not liking it; he wanted a way out. He applied for a volunteer spot with AmeriCorps VISTA, the domestic version of the Peace Corps, and was intrigued by a position on an Indian reservation. Dan Press “I knew nothing about Indians, but it sounded like a good opportunity,” says Press, who was raised in Flushing, in the Queens...

As 2021 comes to a close, we want to take a few moments to reflect on this busy and fruitful year as we ask you to remember PACEs Connection in your year-end giving. Despite this physically and emotionally challenging time, we have so very much for which to be grateful, and we would love to share our gratitude list with you. When we practice gratitude, we’re actually practicing a very PACEs-Connection thing to do: helping our brains. Brain imaging studies, says Dr. Daniel Amen, show that “...

By Elizabeth Estrada, Photo: Ryan Collerd/WHYY, October 15, 2021 Iresha Picot is many things: A licensed behavioral therapist. An organizer. A writer. A Black woman originally from Virginia. But in Philadelphia, where she’s lived the last decade and a half, she’s known best for being an Instagram inspiration. “On social media I call myself, Iresha da hood therapist, and I talk a lot about mental health and my own mental health and wellness,” Picot said as she sat in her West Philadelphia...

By Associated Press, WUSA9, November 14, 2021 A chance encounter between a big, friendly dog and a mentally withdrawn teen who had been sexually assaulted was the light bulb moment for Powhatan County Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Cerullo, who discovered canines can have a discernible calming effect on traumatized victims of crime. In November 2020, Cerullo brought his new dog Olive — a then 12-month-old, 100-pound Bullmastiff — into the office to meet his co-workers. By coincidence, a...

By Livia Gershon, Photo: Anne-Marie Kellen/Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian Magazine, November 15, 2021 The Metropolitan Museum of Art ’s period rooms typically invite visitors to step into a recreation of a very specific time and place: a bedroom in an ancient Roman villa north of Pompeii, for example, or a grand salon in 18th-century Paris. Either removed from historic estates and rebuilt at the Manhattan museum or designed by curators to showcase artifacts in authentic settings,...