Blog

Brené Brown explains how to overcome our sense of disconnection and find our common humanity. Collective assembly has long been a part of the human experience. . . . Collective assembly is more than just people coming together to distract themselves from life by watching a game, concert, or play—instead it is an opportunity to feel connected to something bigger than oneself; it is an opportunity to feel joy, social connection, meaning, and peace. The foundation of courage is...

I had a close call on the second night of the ayahuasca ceremony. I saw my teenage self melting into particles and eventually disappearing altogether. I pulled off my sleep mask and saw the people around me shape-shifting into shadows. I thought I was dying, or perhaps losing my grip on reality. Suddenly, Kat, my guide, appeared and began singing to me. I couldn’t make out the words, but the cadence was soothing. After a minute or two, the dread washed away and I settled back into a peaceful...

Global organizations are more sophisticated than ever in working together to address complex problems. Why are so many funders still using the outdated “capacity building” model? Capacity-building was born from a good intention: to develop and strengthen the ability of organizations and communities to do or expand their work. Funders invested in, for example, the transfer of technical assistance to groups perceived to be lacking expertise or capacity in a given area. Ultimately, the aim was...

On his way back to his housing unit one day, my FirstWatch teammate Eric “Maserati E” told me he was pulled over and searched for a random pat-down. A Correctional Officer (C.O.) told Eric to put his hands on the wall as the officer took items from Eric’s pockets. The other officers stood close by and watched. Once the random stop and frisk was over, the C.O. handed back the few items Eric had in his pockets (identification card, pens, guitar pick, and a couple of FirstWatch and Re:store...

PBS will be airing a documentary series on ACE's. If you do not have this station at home, each episode is available to watch online after it has aired (https://www.tpt.org/whole-people/). The Documentary Series Whole People airs Sunday nights on TPT MN at 7 p.m. (CST) beginning January 13 running through February 10, 2019. The documentary series is the result of a three-year partnership between CentraCare and TPT MN. Watch the Documentaries Episode #1 (January 13th) Episode #2 (January...

Merriam-Webster defines an elegy as " a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead." As a college-educated, middle-class white woman I had no idea what that word meant, I had to look it up. I thought it was interesting that the author, J.D. Vance, chose to use a word most hillbillies would have no understanding of as part of his title. But maybe this book isn't intended for a hillbilly, but for those of us that are not and do not understand the first thing...

Adapted from Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and The Courage to Stand Alone: by Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW. Today, our culture is in crisis. Many people have retreated to their ideological bunkers to hate from afar, dehumanizing others rather than risk having real, meaningful conversations across their differences. How will we find our way back to each other? It’s not by staying in our factions and echo chambers, pressured to conform to whatever viewpoints and ways of...

A long-term study of 1,420 people finds that childhood trauma is more commonplace than is often assumed, and that its effects upon the transition to adulthood and adult functioning are not only confined to post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression but are more broadly based. These conclusions were reported November 9, 2018 by a team led by 2009 BBRF Young Investigator William E. Copeland, Ph.D. , of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families at the University of Vermont. He and...

Dr. @Gabor Maté, a well-known addiction specialist and author, spent 12 years working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a neighborhood with a large concentration of hardcore drug users. The agency where he worked operates residential hotels for people with addictions, a detox center and a pioneering injection facility , where drug users are permitted to shoot up and can get clean needles, medical care and counseling. Born to a Jewish family in Budapest at the time of the...

Loitering. Trespassing. Petty theft. Commit one of these low-level crimes, and you might be charged with a misdemeanor. A minor offense. Alexandra Natapoff , professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, says about 13 million misdemeanor cases are filed every year in the United States. That’s compared with just 3 or 4 million felony cases. [For more on this story by The Takeaway, go to...

With unemployment rates at record lows and the federal budget deficit up 17 percent year-over-year, the Trump administration will turn back to a familiar target in Republican cost-cutting maneuvers: entitlement programs . In the final days of 2018, the Department of Agriculture announced that it would take steps to institute a series of rule changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—still known colloquially as food stamps—designed to "restore the [nutrition assistance] system...

The partial U.S. government shutdown is now in its third week, due largely to President Trump’s insistence that Congress give him more than $5 billion for a border wall he says will keep criminals from entering the country through Mexico. Meanwhile, the federal employees tasked with keeping the nation safe from people convicted of crimes—prison guards—are laboring without pay. Because the federal Bureau of Prisons is operating without funding, it has furloughed up to half of its...