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Becky Haas presenting SAMHSA’s Trauma Informed Approach: Key Principles-A New Understanding of Trauma to 151 attendees at Bridgewater Place in Knoxville . The ETCCY East TN ACEs Knowledge Mobilization Team conducted an educational event and hosted an ACEs “Train the Trainer” on “Building Strong Brains” on October 2, 2018 in Knoxville at Bridgewater Place. The guest speaker for the educational event was Becky Haas, Community Crime Prevention Programs Director for the Johnson City Police...

Building healthy families is key to reducing ACEs. A friend of mine recently referred her grandchild and his pregnant wife to a Bringing Baby Home class, because she noticed that the wife had a background of abuse and at times had difficulty functioning. What the grandmother noticed with this couple was a change in the family dynamics following taking a Bringing Baby Home class. The couple learned how to get along, the father is more engaged in parenting, and the baby thriving. This is...

Transforming our habits is a powerful tool we can utilize as we continue along our healing journey.

Indigenous Peoples Day—still observed as Columbus Day in most states—is today. Use it as an opportunity to set the record straight about Native history and the experiences of Native people today. This edition of The Moment features resources to help you do it. [For more on this story go to https://www.tolerance.org/the-moment/october-5-2018-indigenous-peoples-day-2018 ]

Two influential figures in the fight against sexual violence as a weapon of war were chosen as 2018’s recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Dr. Denis Mukwege was recognized for treating victims of rape, while Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who has spoken out about being held as a sex slave by ISIS, was awarded the prize for her work as a human rights campaigner following her experience. “Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war...

If only an anonymous member of President Trump ’s team would publish an op-ed explaining how cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as proposed in the House-passed Farm Bill of June 2018 , and intensifying work requirements for public benefits, as championed by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, would hurt millions of Americans. Then our country’s most economically unprotected classes finally might become a policy priority in Washington. These cuts would dim...

Valentina* drove two hours up the California coast to the flat farming town of Santa Maria and stopped outside a white motor home. “Silvia,” she sang, tilting her head out the car window on a recent afternoon. With broad shoulders and dyed-blond hair framing her soft face, Valentina is striking even without her signature crystal-encrusted shoes. Silvia looked up from the cactus she was planting and walked to the car. She dangled her crimson fingernails for Valentina to admire. Valentina, who...

In the UK, an average of nine babies a day are stillborn. BBC journalist Fiona Crack became pregnant with a longed-for baby girl last year, but her waters broke early and her daughter died. This is her story of a year of grief and healing and of five extraordinary women who shared her experience. [For more on this story by Fiona Crack, go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Mother_without_a_baby ]

You may have been hearing the phrase “trauma-informed care” a lot more recently and there are good reasons for that. As the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study from 1997 receives more and more attention, Oklahomans, from all walks of life and professions, are better understanding the social, emotional and cognitive damage already wrought on so many of our children. That damage, as the study reveals, manifests itself in challenging behavioral patterns in our children and poor...

The 10-year-old girl suffered from persistent asthma, but the cause was unclear. Tests ruled out everything from pet hair to cockroaches. Then the girl's mother thought of a possible trigger. “Her asthma does seem to get worse whenever her dad punches a hole in the wall," she told Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. "Do you think that could be related?” Harris, a San Francisco pediatrician, includes the example in her new book, "The Deepest Well," to show the connection between what's known as "toxic...

“The most American thing about America is American Indians.” — Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche) The first documented observance of Columbus Day in the United States took place in New York City in 1792, on the 300th anniversary of Columbus’s landfall in the Western Hemisphere. The holiday originated as an annual celebration of Italian–American heritage in San Francisco in 1869. In 1934, at the request of the Knights of Columbus and New York City’s Italian community, President Franklin Delano...

Interactional trauma takes place when there is constant bickering, yelling, and conflict between parent and child over many months or years. In this toxic environment, an unhealed traumatic event cannot heal. A good analogy is a wound’s inability to heal when it is constantly being reopened. Within this context, the trauma therapist must possess the skills to stabilize the interactional trauma or parent-child conflict before moving into direct trauma. Or use what we term a hybrid approach to...