Allegations of sexual assault and harassment have dominated the news this week. This edition of The Moment offers resources that can guide you through tough but necessary classroom conversations about consent and responsibility. [For more on this collection of articles, go to https://www.tolerance.org/the-moment/september-26-2018-teaching-about-sexual-assault-and-consent ]
When Marquita, a Memphis mother of six, became homeless, her children began to struggle in school. “The kids were just out of control,” she said. “Their grades weren’t the same.” “What people don’t understand is what adults go through, kids go through it too,” she said. “I didn’t know kids get depressed until I went through this situation.” Marquita, who asked that her last name be withheld to discuss her living situation and her children’s mental health, said she became homeless because she...
They had to have heard me screaming even above the cacophony of 200 children playing. Distress makes a different sound. It is not possible to ignore cries for help. You notice and then choose how you will react. You look up. You look in the direction of the noise. You decide. There were dozens of witnesses to my molestation. They decided to look away.
In a webinar offered this morning by Elaine Miller Karas , executive director of the Trauma Resource Institute in Claremont, CA, leaders from several North Carolina ACEs Connection communities affected by flooding and other damage by Hurricane Florence learned more about trauma response and how to better help their communities find resilience. Karas, who was delivering her Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training at Duke University in Durham, NC, offered the free training and provided...
All politics aside, the testimony delivered by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is both triggering and hopeful. Triggering for obvious reasons. Hopeful because ACEs science was so clearly woven to the testimony. Dr. Ford brought the neurobiology of sexual assault into her description regarding how her brain and body responded to trauma. I find listening this testimony triggering, however, I am holding onto the silver-lining is that trauma science may be elevated to a national platform. As difficult...
Comedian turned advocate Darrell Hammond and filmmaker Michelle Esrick joined Congressional leaders for a discussion about trauma, healing, and prevention for the first forum hosted by the Congressional Trauma Informed Care Caucus (TICC).
ORLANDO, Florida — Desmond Meade doesn’t want to talk about Florida Governor Rick Scott. Nor does he want to talk about partisan politics or racial sentencing disparities. Most of all, he doesn’t want to talk about himself. That might seem odd for the head of a group devoted to restoring the franchise to 1.4 million Floridians with felony convictions, whose voting rights are automatically stripped under a Scott administration policy. But that’s the Florida Rights Restoration Commission’s...
Eight years after immigration officials detained Fabian Rebolledo in his Baldwin Park home and deported him to Tijuana, the U.S. Army veteran has returned home. Rebolledo crossed the border at San Ysidro on Wednesday morning, proudly wearing his Army uniform. It was the culmination of a years-long battle by the UC Irvine Immigrant Rights Clinic, which was able to reopen the case in December and regain his green-card status in August. “It took a few weeks to make preparations, but he was able...
The sun set over rolling plateaus of piñon-juniper forest as Louise Benally, a Diné elder from Black Mesa, Navajo Nation, guided over 100 Millennials in ceremony. As the participants took turns gifting cedar and water to the fire they encircled, Benally asked other elders to share wisdom. Daniel Tso from the Greater Chaco region announced, "We are uplifting our spirits so we can take on the challenges we face." This land acknowledgement opened the fourth annual Uplift Climate Conference ,...
The House voted overwhelmingly (361-61) to approve the FY (Fiscal Year) 2019 Labor/HHS/Education and Department of Defense Appropriations on September 26, following the Senate’s approval by a vote of 93-7 on September 18. By combining funding for often-controversial domestic programs with funding for defense, appropriators created a must-pass package and made a government shutdown less likely as the looming October 1 deadline approaches. President Trump said he will sign the bill. The...
Christine “Cissy” White is leading a movement to make sure that parents with high Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores have the resources and support they need to end the trend of generational trauma that so many have i nherited and unknowingly passed on to their children. The voice of the parent is first and foremost in Cissy’s plan of action. To reach this goal, Cissy had to first find her own voice, which she has done brilliantly through writing, speaking and leading workshops.
The Blind Willie Johnson blues song “Motherless Children” highlights the maternal bonds that we all know are critical to emotional and cognitive development. Authors of previous work looking at infant stress response have found that these bonds begin in utero and can be influenced by both maternal and paternal influences and across multiple generations. 1 The observations of Barker et al 2 on the Dutch famine birth cohort of World War II were perhaps the first published observations of this...
As a young man growing up in the Westmont neighborhood of South Los Angeles, violence once seemed like an inescapable way of life for Kevin “Twin” Orange. In high school, Orange lost his best friend to gang violence, he said. Later, he got caught up in gang activity himself, and narrowly survived a shooting in 2006. Three years later, his brother and a cousin were killed. “You became immune to homicides, shootings, acts of violence,” Orange said. “We thought that was normal. You’d walk down...
Last September, the Trump administration announced that it would rescind the protections granted by DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—an Obama-era program that shielded undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation. Though the action was quickly challenged by several federal lawsuits, there has been no clear resolution, leaving more than 700,000 DACA recipients and their families in limbo. While several judges blocked the Trump administration’s move...
This report reminds policymakers and child advocates of the barriers that young families face. It examines national and state-level trends — highlighting areas of opportunity and concern — and then shares potential solutions that can help these families thrive. To download the report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, go to https://www.aecf.org/resources/opening-doors-for-young-parents/ .