January 2017

Dear Doctor: A Letter from a Survivor of Sexual Trauma to all Medical Professionals Dear Doctor, As a medical professional you have taken an oath to do no harm, but there are ways in which you can hurt your patients without even recognizing you are doing so. What seems to you as a simple exam may cause injury to those who have been victimized by someone's touch. This is a subject that we, survivors of sexual violence, have been meaning to discuss with you for some time now, but your...

2017 is here, and it’s the season when most of us consider New Year’s resolutions and even the most cynical among us dares to think that with a little will power we might do any number of things: lose weight, eat healthier, watch less TV, get that promotion, or repair damaged relationships. This year, I’d ask you to consider a resolution that will make the world a better place and will give you a sense of purpose in 2017: be an advocate. An advocate is someone who speaks on behalf of someone...

A small group of children with what researchers call “poor brain health” ended up accounting for a huge portion of social costs as adults, according to a new study from New Zealand. The idea of whether the events of childhood can predict or explain future events has gained traction in recent years thanks to the popularization of the Adverse Childhood Experiences study and other work that links lifelong health outcomes to experiences early in life. But researchers at Duke University and the...

Tacarra Morgan, 6, was sitting on her family’s Englewood porch when the shots were fired. It was a warm July day and Tacarra was outside as her grandfather repaired her bike. She and her cousins liked to play on the sidewalk, her grandpa, Arther Morris, would say later , but for the moment his “little sweet pea” was sitting with her grandparents and mom. Morris ducked inside the home. Moments later, there was gunfire on the streets. The family ran inside and went into the basement. There,...

Editor's note: Safer Tomorrows is a collaboration of 40 agencies in Grand Forks County to address children's exposure to all forms of violence. Starting in 2011, the effort was awarded more than $3 million in grants, the bulk of that from a competitive U.S. Department of Justice grant program. The program's four lead partners—Grand Forks, the Grand Forks School District, Lutheran Social Services and the Community Violence Intervention Center—used the money to support extensive bullying and...

Georgia has a crisis on its hands. It’s the slow-growing kind: one where kids grow up with family and neighborhood violence, drop out of school and struggle as adults to support themselves and their own family. And while far too many policymakers neglect the issues that impact kids and families, organizations like CHRIS 180 are working to shift the trajectories of families dealing with the trauma of violence and poverty. Kathy Colbenson, President and CEO of CHRIS 180, recently spoke with us...

With gilt chandeliers 50 feet overhead and long strips of fabric draped over the windows, the theater looked like something out of a Stanley Kubrick film. The makeshift curtains ballooned in thermal updrafts above the radiators, creating rippling pockets of shadow around the edges of the room. On stage a band was tearing through a Cheap Trick tune, but the drummer hadn’t learned his part yet and the guitarist stopped strumming to stomp out the rhythm, his boots echoing in the cavernous,...

President-elect Donald Trump ran his campaign on bashing undocumented immigrants and threatening cities that protect their rights . Since the election, these cities and many others have spoken up —vowing to stand behind their immigrant residents, at the risk of millions in federal funding. One of these cities is Los Angeles, where one in ten residents is undocumented. In sheer numbers, Los Angeles County has more people without papers than any other in the country . The city’s mayor, Eric...

The school-to-prison pipeline refers to a system in which school-discipline practices—from suspensions to corporal punishment to disturbing-school laws —push children out of education and into the criminal-justice system. It’s a pipeline with which disadvantaged kids and families of color are particularly familiar. Black children, for example, comprised just 16 percent of the country’s student population in the 2011-12 school year yet roughly a third of those suspended at least once or...

Important Free Resource for You! On our Partner for Healing Blog we are featuring a series of training exercises designed for new employees. We have been hearing from our community that agencies are having to hire inexperienced staff, and need help in getting those staff ready to deliver quality trauma-informed care. So, we have designed a ten-module training series for new staff. This training series is designed to augment the basic agency training (such as Risking Connection) and prepare...

[Editor's note: Cissy White, who's the community editor for the Parenting with ACEs group, wrote this for that group. I thought that those of you who aren't a member of Parenting with ACEs might want to read it, too.] I was leaving the house on the way to do something brand new and scary a few weeks ago. My two close friends, Heidi and Kathy, both sent me a text. One has an ACE score of 10. One has a below 4 score. The text from Kathy reminded me that I am loved and safe. She sent me a...

What ACEs do you have? There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. (There are many others...see below.) Five are personal — physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who's an alcoholic, a mother who's a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and experiencing divorce...