Every young person deserves to be safe from suicide, and the Kansas Partners in Empowering Youth for Suicide Prevention believes that the best way to reach every youth in Kansas is to provide opportunities for youth to talk to other youth. This is your opportunity to help state agencies shape suicide prevention messages that will go out to youth across the state! The goal is to raise awareness of the possibility of hope and healing while working to provide enough support to Kansas youth so...

Regulate. Relate. Reason. These “3 Rs” (developed by Dr. Bruce Perry) are an easy way to remind adults of how the brain is structured and develops and how communication is impacted when we are under significant stress. But how do you explain this in a way that kids can understand? Enter Nathan from Walnut Creek Elementary School in Austin, Texas. Walnut Creek has been working to implement the Neurosequential Model in Education as part of a pilot project in the Austin Independent School...

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on a number of mental health and wellness issues across the globe and left many struggling to effectively cope, including an increasing number right here in Kansas. Kansas: Stronger Together is a crisis counseling program developed to provide mental health and wellness support to all Kansans during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is funded by Federal disaster relief dollars that are administered by the Kansas Division of Emergency Management and the Kansas...

The pandemic has had a lasting effect on youth mental health. Moved by a desire to reduce youth’s toxic stress and increase their resilience, The Dibble Institute, in partnership with a team of students and alumni from ArtCenter College of Design and author Carolyn Curtis, PhD, is releasing Me & My Emotions —a new, free adaptation of our beloved Mind Matters Curriculum. The mobile-friendly Me & My Emotions website features engaging graphics and bite-sized lessons teens can access and...

Has the pandemic stressed you out? Want to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series, Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental well-being. (CEUs are...

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” – Mahatma Gandhi Becoming more trauma-informed and resilience-oriented in our...

Today, the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has issued an 81-page advisory on the epidemic of loneliness and isolation. In the report, Dr. Murthy outlines the public health concerns related to loneliness and isolation and how supporting social connection can reduce the risk of premature mortality, predict better physical and mental health outcomes and ease stress. In response, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office has issued a new website announcing a National Strategy for addressing the...

Positive experiences can ease toxic stress and help children and youth grow into more resilient, healthy adults. Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) identifies ways that our communities and systems of care can better ensure that all children have more positive experiences and that all families have support to nurture and celebrate their strengths. The HOPE National Resource Center utilizes a national network of facilitators to collaborate with local partners to create a...

2023 has been a year full of wonderful opportunities to share the HOPE framework with partners from across the state and 2024 promises to be even better. I'd like to take a moment to share with you a 2022 blog post from the HOPE National Resource Center that is a great example of opportunities to infuse Positive Childhood Experiences into our everyday lives. Here's wishing you a safe and restful holiday season! Originally posted by Tufts HOPE on 12/08/22: School is out for the holidays, and...