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“Smart, Safe, and Fair: Strategies to Prevent Youth Violence, Heal Victims of Crimes, and Reduce Racial Inequality,” published through a collaboration between the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) addresses how to help youth involved in violent crime — both offenders and victims. Confinement of youth convicted of crimes has decreased; however, violent crime convictions have not. The report shows that confinement of youth is more expensive and...

Advocates often urge the dismantling of the school-to-prison pipeline. But for many of our youth, prisons are already their schools. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education first demonstrated that “separate but equal” is an unacceptable doctrine within our school system. Yet the doctrine of separate and unequal continues today through the placement of a disproportionate number of minority students and students with disabilities in youth detention facilities, where they receive educational...

Mindfulness is a powerful painkiller that can dramatically enhance the quality of life in chronic pain sufferers, suggests new research. The findings add weight to previous studies which discovered that mindfulness can reduce pain severity by around 50 percent. This new meta-analysis, published in the peer-reviewed journal Evidence-Based Mental Health , analyzed the evidence from 21 previous studies involving 2,000 chronic pain sufferers. It was designed to assess whether mindfulness was as...

Exactly six years ago this week, I wrote a post, “ The Neurobiology of Grace Under Pressure, ” which offered some practical advice on different ways to increase parasympathetic activation within the autonomic nervous system (which counterbalances fight-or-flight responses) by engaging the vagus nerve . One section of that 2013 post recommended practicing Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) . Typically, during LKM you systematically direct warm-hearted thoughts of love and kindness to four...

Mindfulness meditation has long been touted as a way to reduce stress and pain. More recently, it also has gained traction as a tool to improve our relationships, helping us to be more kind and less biased and angry when we regularly practice it. Yet when we talk about mindful meditation, often we are thinking about a combination of practices that have been taught together for millennia. These might include breath awareness—focusing on your breath and letting thoughts and feelings pass by...

@Christine Cissy White asked me to share more about the Bridging to Resilience Conference. I am blown away by the depth of expertise presenting with us this year! There is no other conference like this. We will have at-promise students and parents sharing with us as well as community organizations that are hungry to partner with schools for solutions! We are so much stronger when everyone’s at the table! Conference highlights: Opening Remarks and kickoff by ACEs Connection Founder,...

Vincent Felitti is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Diego, and the founder of the Department of Preventive Medicine for Kaiser Permanente, where he served as the chief of preventive medicine for 26 years, during which time his department provided comprehensive medical evaluations to 1.1 million individuals, becoming the largest single-site medical evaluation facility in the western world. In today’s episode we discuss the history and origins of the Adverse...

“Run,” he would shout. On two legs, I couldn’t match the speed of a terrified calf or steer, but I was plenty fast, especially in a sprint, so I’d launch myself across the gravel in front of our trailer while my father stood about ten yards behind me twirling his rope.

With the opening of the 57th Legislature, the Potts Family Foundation has been busy rebuilding its Early Childhood Legislative Caucus with returning and new members alike. Membership comes from both sides of the aisle and both chambers of the Legislature. The caucus is made up of members who have committed to working through the state budget and policy to improve the lives of Oklahoma’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens and their families. In 2016, the foundation announced the OK25by25...

Pepper spray is excruciatingly painful, according to firsthand reports by many former L.A. County juvenile hall and probation camp inmates, and inflicts its torture on contact with the skin and especially the eyes, nose and mouth. As used by the staff, it causes a burning pain that continues as its victims are detained, away from the working sinks and showers that are needed to “decontaminate,” or wash the chemicals off. And the pain returns at night, the youths say, as chemicals absorbed by...

WILMINGTON, Del . – Governor John Carney on Tuesday announced two new initiatives from the Family Services Cabinet Council to implement Executive Order 24 , which launched efforts to make Delaware a trauma-informed state. The Family Services Cabinet Council – a cabinet-level group reestablished by Governor Carney in February 2017 to coordinate public and private services for Delaware families – will promote Trauma Awareness Month throughout Delaware during May 2019 and launch the...

This Oregon School Boards Association article details testimony from two trauma informed schools pilot projects in Oregon. Here is the article .