When U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp arrived mid-way through the May 25, 2016, congressional briefing on the Science of Trauma, she delivered her remarks (starts at 27:48 through 41:45) with passion, humor, and most of all, a sense of urgency to the room full of Capitol Hill staff and a smattering of advocates. Her message was macro as well as micro—change national policy to incorporate what the science tells us about trauma, and see and respond to the needs of those you encounter in everyday...

A congressional briefing on the Science of Trauma, organized by U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA), will be held at 2:30 pm, Wednesday, May 25, 2016, in 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) is sponsoring the event. CTIPP is a new organization comprising individuals and groups from all sectors and walks of life working together to create a better future by promoting trauma-informed...

Antidepressants don’t work for everyone, and having a history of abuse during childhood may signal a low likelihood that the drugs will improve an adult’s symptoms of major depression, a recent study suggests. While there are few reliable predictors of which people will respond to specific antidepressants, lots of previous research links a history of trauma early in life with how well people tend to do on these drugs, researchers note in the journal Translational Psychiatry. "The presence of...

Appearing before the powerful Senate Finance Committee in Washington, DC, recently, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Health Share Oregon, devoted a significant portion of her testimony to the role of adversity and toxic stress during childhood on adult health, both physical and emotional. She explained how Health Share Oregon—that state’s largest Medicaid coordinated care organization—examined the people with the costliest health bills and found them to...

Rep. Joseph Kennedy III drew on the spirit of his grandfather Robert F. Kennedy this morning, casting juvenile justice as an urgent civil rights issue in a rousing and eloquent keynote address at the inaugural Probation System Reform Symposium . He applauded the 200-plus symposium attendees, many of them people who work with children in the system, for being on the front lines of this movement and putting reforms into place that de-emphasize punishment and throwing children deeper into the...

This was produced by KPJR Films, and edited by Jen Bradwell.

As Elizabeth Prewitt reported earlier , in December 12 U.S. Senators sent a letter to DHHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell asking that she direct the agencies in DHHS serving Native Americans to plan and implement a comprehensive integrated trauma-informed strategy. In February, Secretary Burwell responded positively to the Senators, informing them that she has directed the Administrator of the Administration on Native Americans (ANA) to take the lead in developing such a strategy and plan. She...

More than 240 counties across the country have signed on to the Stepping Up Initiative! Orange County (CA) officials will be traveling to Washington D.C. in April for a national summit focused on reducing the number of adults in jails with mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders, according to a county press release. A National Summit on Reducing the Prevalence of Individuals with Mental Illness in Jails will be held Sunday, April 17th, 2016 - Tuesday, April 19, 2016. The National...

Starting today, the U.S. Senate takes up the bipartisan Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA, S. 524) to address the national crisis of opioid drug addiction. The legislation—authored by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rob Portman (R-OH)—gives states tools to “prevent drug abuse, treat addiction, and reduce overdose deaths.” The prevention section of the bill calls for a “federal inter-agency task force to review, modify, and update best practices for pain management and...

In the Feb. 14 New York Times Sunday Review, op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, calls for a public health revolution focused on the roots of many pathologies caused by chemical toxins that Americans and others around the world are exposed to (the lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan being just one example). In addition to lead, he describes widespread poisoning by PCBs, flame retardants and pesticides as examples but also includes toxic stress among the toxins that impact children even...

Legislation to replace the 14 year-old No Child Left Behind law—The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama on Dec. 10—was widely praised by the administration, legislators of both parties in the House and Senate, and the organizations concerned about education policy from the NEA to the Education Trust. The consensus is that the bill is not perfect but provides a needed recalibration of federal authority over the states in education policy while protecting...

An impromptu gathering took place in Washington, DC on Dec. 14 to address the need for a national organization to advance a public policy agenda based on current knowledge about adversity and trauma, and to provide a platform for collective advocacy. Another goal of such an organization would be advancing a public health approach that integrates prevention and trauma-informed policies, programs, and practices. The individuals around the table included pioneers in the field of trauma with...