August 2017

Michael Phelps locked himself in his bedroom for four days three years ago. He’d been arrested a second time for DUI. He was despondent and adrift. He thought about suicide. “I didn’t want to be alive,” he tells USA TODAY Sports. “I didn’t want to see anyone else. I didn’t want to see another day.” Family and friends — “a life-saving support group,” Phelps calls them — urged him to seek professional help. He got it. And now he wants others who are suffering from mental health issues to find...

Like the storm itself, the impact of Hurricane Harvey on Houstonians' mental health promises to linger. Although specific estimates vary widely, the results of numerous research studies suggest residents who suffered a profound personal loss due to the storm are at significantly elevated risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. "A large body of research conducted after disasters in the past decades suggests that the burden of PTSD among persons who were exposed to disasters is significant," a...

“The songs the Lakota women sang to the mice rang through the forest,” an elder told Linda Black Elk, ethnobotanist and science education instructor at Sitting Bull College on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. (An ethnobotanist studies how people of a region or culture use plants native to their homeland.) The elder almost cried as she recalled walking with her mother in the now gone cottonwood forests to gather mouse beans from the rodent’s caches, according to Black Elk.

A gunman at a baseball field. A car in Charlottesville. A surge in death threats against D.C. lawmakers. New alt-right rallies planned. More violence expected. The President's tweets and speeches stir the pot, and across the country, contempt, disgust, and anger burn with righteous fervor. Writer Leon Wieseltier got double his wish. In the aftermath of the election, he wanted half of America to “ stay angry .” He claimed this was the only way to uphold principles in Trump ’s America.

“... And I hope that we will not have to bury one more innocent child – the future of our communities and the future of our nation.” Sheila North Wilson, grand chief and representative of more than 75,000 indigenous people living across northern Canada , was in Ottawa last February to discuss the many issues plaguing First Nations communities. The memory of the conference speech she made there is now etched on her mind. “Throughout the speech, my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing,” she recalls. “I...

The latest update of state legislation considered by state legislatures in 2017 reveals the growing interest by state policymakers across the country in addressing trauma across sectors. The attached “At-A-Glance” table shows 46 bills in twenty states reference Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or trauma-informed policy and practice. Take a look at the attached “At-A-Glance” table and leave a comment if your state considered ACEs/trauma legislation that is not included here. A handful of...

What would a trauma-informed policy on staff absenteeism look like? How about a trauma-informed procedure for clocking in and clocking out? Would that be different for a hospital than, say, for a public school? Questions like those—how trauma-informed theory translates to on-the-ground practice—were on the table during a recent learning collaborative session in Kansas City.

The 6th Annual Making a Difference Conference for SESPs, Foster/Adoptive and Kinship Caregivers and their Professional Partners will be held in Marlborough, MA on November 14, 2017. The theme is A Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity. There will be at least two talks will be about ACEs! Speakers/Topics: Keynote: Managing the Hearts and Souls of Many, Dana Royster-Buefort, M.Ed., C.A.G.S. Workshops Tackling ACEs by Building Resilient Communities , Renee D Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD . Note:...

Join Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) for a series of free, short (45-minute) webinars with national leaders who will share some of their expertise and engage in dialogue with you on key strategies for creating just, healthy and resilient communities. Seats are limited, but recordings will be available after each session. Register at MARC.HealthFederation.org/BrownBag for the following sessions: Thursday, September 7 @ 1pm ET Melissa Merrick, PhD —Preventing Child Abuse and...

ACE-Informed Workflows: Gundersen Health System — Denyse Olson-Dorff , PsyD and Afton Koball , PhD, ABPP As the landscape of healthcare changes, healthcare systems must respond with new approaches to improve the health of communities. Identifying and responding to social conditions that affect health have been suggested as important next steps in healthcare. Now 20 years old, the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) (Felitti, et. al, 1998) was among the first to show...

Advocates claim that raising the minimum wage would lift many families out of poverty and reduce income equality, but a new study contends that a rise in wages would also reduce child maltreatment. According to a study from Indiana University and University of Connecticut researchers released in the January issue of Children and Youth Services Review, neglect reports involving young children declined by 10.8 percent in response to a $1 increase in the minimum wage. According to University of...

When natural disasters strike, disabled people are among the most vulnerable. Disability acts as a multiplier, intensifying risk from both natural and human forces. Among other concerns , disabled people often cannot evacuate on their own, or they struggle to carry their medical equipment with them (which can be necessary for preserving life). Emergency services may ignore the needs of a disabled person—sometimes, according to experts in inclusive disaster relief, even blaming disabled...