September 2016

Hello all! The Columbia River Gorge is hosting a Trauma & Resiliency Summit on October 20th & 21st, 2016 in The Dalles, OR. Registration is made free to attendees through MARC Grant funding. If you are in the area please join us! And please note that registration is only available prior to the event as we have a limited amount of space. Claire

"A new working paper released by the Upjohn Institute and Georgetown University’s Center for Research on Children in the United States suggests that the benefits of universal pre-K exceed the costs of administering such programs. This study, which I co-authored, examines the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) universal pre-K program in Oklahoma. We found that the benefits (specifically, increased earnings and reduced crime of TPS pre-K participants as adults) outweigh program costs by almost 2-to-1.

How implementing trauma Informed care is like building an IKEA shelf. I just moved across the country to the Philadelphia area to start working as an Americorp VISTA in Camden, New Jersey. I am working with the Healing 10 collaboration to bring a trauma informed paradigm to Camden, arguably one of the most traumatized cities in the US. At the moment, I am in the midst of both trying to understand my new job in trauma informed care and set up my apartment in a new city. Obviously, trips to...

From the viewpoint of anyone else on this planet, I had the world. I was a Villanova cheerleader, had a master’s degree, countless friends and family, vacation home on the Vineyard, Kappa Kappa Gamma… the list goes on. While it may seem to many people that the most difficult question I would face every day would be what I was going to wear, for me the real question was, How in the world am I going to get out of bed today and pretend to be happy? My mother is a nurse practitioner and my...

"Gemyra Wynn doesn't need to go into the details of her childhood in Camden. After sketching out how adverse childhood events can traumatize people and cause lifelong health consequences, the 17-year-old can just offer her ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) score — it's seven out of 10 — and leave it at that. The same goes for her fellow instructors, 16-year-old Aunyay Fussell and 15-year-old LeBaron Harvey. They each survived psychologically trying experiences. But these students are...

A3C strives to empower, engage and energize the community that shape and define hip-hop culture. The A3C Festival will continue to provide the best platform for artist discovery, while celebrating hip-hop’s trailblazers, influencers and milestones. In partnership with Atlanta’s Center for Civic Innovation, the committee is pleased to announce seven finalists for the second annual A3C Action initiative, where organizations across the country submit ideas that use art and music as a vehicle to...

Kerri McGinley, PhD a former teacher and principal with the SDP, thoughtfully responds to my letter to the editor regarding the end of kindergarten suspensions with her own letter (below). Dr. McGinley urges all to consider teacher stress too. Thank you Dr. McGinley for raising this important point, reminding us that addressing employee stress and secondary traumatic stress is an imperative if we are to develop the trauma informed education and other systems we strive for. Ease teachers'...

Omar Woodard is staring at his palms as he sits quietly in a café chair. He knows what he’s trying to say, but he seems tangled up on a thought. The stretch of silence is very much out of character for the amiable young nonprofit director from 20th and Cecil B. Moore. He’s a lingo-savvy conversationalist who, in just six months as executive director of GreenLight Fund Philadelphia , has learned how to talk shop with the best of Philly’s impact intelligentsia. These lulls are typically where...