Blog

By Laura Gallant, 5/25/23, https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ Positive childhood experiences (PCEs) should be available and accessible to all children. The health and well-being of children and youth who are transgender (trans) or nonbinary has been a topic of much political debate over the past year, as some states are making gender-affirming healthcare illegal, and school boards are banning books with LGBTQ+ content. These actions build barriers to PCEs for trans and non-binary...

My gun violence prevention advocacy journey has taken me into spaces that I am not sure I could have ever imagined. The most recent is a collaboration with Mary Beth Miotto, MD, MPH, a pediatrician, and friend who graciously agreed to co-author a perspective piece with me for the New England Journal of Medicine. Our topic considers the question; Have we applied the rigor of evidence-informed decision-making to these armed-assailant preparedness drills that have profoundly changed the school...

Is your organization or one of your partners submitting an application for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funding opportunity , “Essentials for Childhood (EfC): Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action," (due June 12 th !), or do you have a current EfC grant, or are you implementing EfC in your work? One of the key strategies promoted by the CDC for reducing ACEs and increasing Positive Childhood Experiences is “Promoting Social Norms that Protect Against...

The stress of experiencing high levels of community violence harms entire families. ( skynesher/E+ via Getty Images) By Loren Henderson and Ruby Mendenhall, The Conversation, May 3, 2023 Black mothers are the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to the mental and physical harms of stress from living with gun violence in America. In the U.S., Black people are likelier than white people to reside in impoverished, racially segregated communities with high levels of gun violence. Research has...

By Sally Wadyka, Illustration: Jess Ebsworth, The New York Times, May 18, 2023 Roughly 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from highly processed foods. We’ve known for decades that eating such packaged products — like some breakfast cereals, snack bars, frozen meals and virtually all packaged sweets, among many other things — is linked to unwelcome health outcomes, like an increased risk of diabetes , obesity and even cancer . But more recent studies point to another...

Christian Thurillat, 70, in his Paris apartment while Europe experiences a heat wave in June 2022. Thurillat says he could not sleep at night in part because of the heat. (Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images) By Kasha Patel, The Washington Post, May 21, 2023 Nick Obradovich couldn’t fall asleep, again. And now he was getting grumpy. It was October 2015, and San Diego was experiencing historically warm fall temperatures in the mid-70s. The normally cool and dry city logged its three...

By Agatha Agbanobi and T. Viva Asmelash, Photo Illustration: HBR Staff/Westend61/Getty Images, Harvard Business Review, May 22, 2023 Minda Harts felt unseen. Her manager had informed her that her white male colleague had been reporting false information about her work. She sat in shock and disbelief as her manager made excuses for him, because he was going through a rough time in his personal life. Minda had believed that she and her colleague had a good working relationship and mutual...

By Luqman Abdullah, The Philadelphia Citizen, May 22, 2023 Wherever you get your news , you probably see some of the same headlines: Our gun violence prevention programs are failing to meet their goals! People are up in arms over a proposed new Sixers arena! The new mayor should do this or that! We love our sports teams (when we’re not busy loving to hate them)! With all of these ideas swirling in my head, we came up with an idea: What if we Philadelphians approached our gun violence crisis...

Deb McNelis, M.Ed, is an international speaker and author of materials supporting healthy infant and child brain development and the parent-child bond. She leads "The First Sixty Days" movement. Twitter first made Deb McNelis aware of PACEs Connection. When she saw it pop up on her LinkedIn feed, she followed the links and was thrilled to find a community of “almost” like-minded people. “We absolutely share the passion for preventing and healing childhood trauma; for building community,”...

Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with mental health struggles. The collective trauma of COVID-19 has exasperated our country’s mental health crisis. In honor of May's designation as Mental Health Awareness Month, co-hosts of the History. Culture. Trauma. podcasts Ingrid Cockhren, CEO of PACEs Connection, and Mathew Portell, director of communities, speak with guests about our country's science, support, education, advocacy, and policies focused on mental health.

The Hearst Foundations announced it would award $300,000 to PACEs Connection as a part of the philanthropic organization's effort to support nonprofits working across a range of disciplines. The award reflects the philanthropic interests of William Randolph Hearst and the Foundations’ goal of providing opportunities to people of all backgrounds. “We are thrilled to receive this generous support,” said Ingrid Cockhren, CEO of PACEs Connection (PACEs stands for positive and adverse childhood...

The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2023 - Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health Hi folks, May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the Surgeon General's Report on Loneliness is quite timely: Loneliness poses risks as deadly as smoking: surgeon general by Amanda Seitz @ AP News The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors [NASMHP] is presenting these three Town Halls that tie in with the Surgeon General's Report: Cultivating a Culture of...