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The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated social and economic stressors can undermine children’s development and well-being . Not only must they cope with major changes to everyday life, such as physical distancing and home confinement, but their families may struggle to meet their basic physical and emotional needs . Rates of poverty , unemployment , parental mental health problems and substance abuse , child abuse and neglect , and intimate partner violence tend to rise during disasters .

Yesterday [4/2/20], Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, leading trauma expert and author of the #1 New York Times bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score, presented a FREE live streaming webcast discussing how we can nurture our mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, so many clinicians signed up that we maxed out the space in our virtual classroom. If you missed this – we’re sorry! And if you couldn’t join us – don’t worry! We’re making his free streaming webcast available to you...

By Heidi de Marco, California Healthline, April 1, 2020 WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Pauline Lawrence is 63, an age that puts her at increased risk if she contracts COVID-19. Yet, three days a week, she spends 16 hours with someone at even greater risk: a 97-year-old man who depends on her and two other home health aides to survive. “Somebody has to take care of him,” said Lawrence, an immigrant from Jamaica who lives with her 30-year-old son in a South Los Angeles apartment. “I will stand up to...

By Rebecca Ullrich, CLASP, March 23, 2020 Practically overnight, the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically altered the daily lives of our nation’s children and families. While everyone—regardless of race, age, gender, or socioeconomic status—is experiencing the pandemic’s effects, the long-term fallout won’t affect all of us equally. Families with low incomes, communities of color, immigrant families, women, the elderly, and people with disabilities who have long been economically...

Although Covid-19 is on the top of everyone’s list for attention, the posting earlier this week of a link to Dr. Robert Anda, et al.’s paper, Inside the Adverse Childhood Experience Score: Strengths, Limitations, and Misapplications [ajpmonline.org] should also be front and center because it raises profound questions for everyone involved in the ACEs movement. On the surface, the article is a pointed critique of ACEs screening. But it is much more than that. It raises fundamental questions...

More young people in the South seem to be dying from COVID-19. Why? By Vann R. Newkirk II The Atlantic, April 2, 2020 In a matter of weeks, the coronavirus has gone from a novel, distant threat to an enemy besieging cities and towns across the world. The burden of COVID-19 and the economic upheaval wrought by the measures to contain it feel epochal. Humanity now has a common foe, and we will grow increasingly familiar with its face. Yet plenty of this virus’s aspects remain unknown. The...

Due to high demand, we've added a 4th FREE Online ARTIC webinar, Thursday, April 16, 3-4 pm EST. Register today at this link . The Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) is hosting a FREE webinar for leaders in health, trauma, and trauma-informed care (TIC) to preview the new Online ARTIC, a cutting-edge online tool for measuring TIC. The Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale is one of the only validated measures of TIC. It measures professional and para-professional attitudes...

I read this article recently and would love to hear if others know more about these efforts, or efforts in other states or countries. h ttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/new-mexico-foster-care-lawsuit.html?searchResultPosition=1

It’s a time of great dread. Americans are hunkered down in their homes, growing increasingly bored, restless, and uncertain about the future while we seek distraction in Joe Exotic and attempting homemade sourdough cultures. COVID-19, caused by a virus with unprecedented deadliness and voracious contagion, has brought the world to a standstill. As we struggle to process the pandemic’s rising death toll and reel from its economic impact, we can’t move or gather together freely. Normalcy’s...

Anyone who has ever had a flashback or a dissociative episode knows what triggers are and how they can affect lives. This article will examine triggers in-depth to help you understand their definition, what causes them, and how to overcome them. What are Triggers? Triggers are a normal part of being human, but not all triggers are created equal. In fact, without triggers humans might have problems remembering events because they would become inaccessible to us. This is because triggers are...

By John Cassidy, The New Yorker, April 2, 2020 The announcements from Macy’s and Gap on Monday that they are furloughing the majority of their more than two hundred and fifty thousand employees didn’t come as a surprise. With large swaths of the U.S. economy effectively shut down, businesses large and small are slashing payroll and other costs to try and ride out the public-health crisis. Faced with online competition, bricks-and-mortar retailers like Macy’s and Gap were struggling even...

By Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, April 2, 2020 At a time when so many folks are in so many kinds of need, volunteers are stepping up around the world to give—to donate their time, skills, materials, and much more. To meet shortages, people are making masks and other personal protective equipment at home. To feed those in need, people are working at food banks and charities. People are shopping for and making deliveries to the more vulnerable, and producing and distributing sanitizers to prevent...