April 2019

Childhood trauma is a widespread issue. According to Child Trends, nearly half of children in the United States and in Pennsylvania have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE, which often leads to traumatic stress. Research is clear that traumatic stress in children can negatively impact cognitive, academic and behavioral outcomes. Yet schools are not equipped to address these problems. A recent ACLU report notes that 90 percent of U.S. public schools do not meet the...

Nearly one-third of Oklahoma children have had multiple adverse childhood experiences, an audience of advocates for children was told Thursday evening. The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, in conjunction with the Tulsa World and Tulsa Lawyers for Children, showcased the film “ Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope” on Thursday evening at the Circle Cinema. The film was a lead-in to the topic of adverse child experiences, also known as ACEs, and an hour-long...

ELONG ELONG, Australia — In a community of only about 100 people, Louise Hennessy says, neighbors need to look out for each other. Whenever someone goes quiet for too long, she picks up the phone to check that everything is all right. In recent months, more often than not, the answer has been no. “The stress of not knowing when it’s going to rain creates a lot of anxiety,” Hennessy said. More than two years of extreme drought has hit tiny Elong Elong — about 225 miles from Sydney — and other...

Book description: How do families grapple with disability, trauma, poverty, racism or opioid addiction? How well does America’s infrastructure of care meet their needs? Parents Under Pressure: Struggling to Raise Children in an Unequal America renders unforgettable portraits of six overburdened families. From fractured support systems to well-intentioned but underfunded agencies, the stories lay bare flawed social structures and expectations. Couched in a rich account of how American...

The 3rd Annual Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference will be held July 30-August 1 at Thomas Jefferson University.

Hi folks, April is, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, an annual observance in the United States dedicated to raising awareness and preventing child abuse. Here's a song I wrote reaching out to the victim/survivors of child abuse. There is hope & healing my friends . “If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM... would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.” Jon Briere Take care, Michael Skinner : "Brush Away Your Tears" - ...

With mental health beds in short supply, emergency rooms increasingly have become the care of first and last resort for people in the grips of a psychiatric episode. Now, hospitals around the country are opening emergency units that calmly cater to patients with mental health needs. For decades, hospitals have strained to accommodate patients in psychiatric crisis in emergency rooms. The horror stories of failure abound: Patients heavily sedated or shackled to gurneys for days while awaiting...

When you’re a people pleaser, setting boundaries can feel painful. We worry we’ll hurt someone’s feelings. We fear we’ll fracture the relationship. We think saying no is rude or cruel or not compassionate—and we see ourselves as the opposite of these things. And we simply don’t have much practice with setting boundaries. And so, it’s so much easier to simply not set them. It’s so much easier to stay quiet. But it’s certainly not healthier. Many view boundaries as walls. But, according to...

I t is unacceptable and a national disgrace that there have been at least 35 suicides of Indigenous people this year – in just 12 weeks – and three were children only 12 years old. The Kimberley region – where my mob are from – has the highest rate of suicide in the country. If the Kimberley was a country it would have the worst suicide rate in the world. A recent inquest investigated 13 deaths which occurred in the Kimberley region in less than four years, including five children aged...

Some states have made great strides in reforming their juvenile justice systems, moving away from incarceration to community-based alternatives. For more information on Community-Based Alternatives, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Community-Based Alternatives But how do states and local agencies fund the range of community services that many advocates believe are needed? In Fort Worth, Texas, a closed youth facility became a new source of funds, said Samantha Harvell, principal policy associate at...

The amendment is brief—a mere 52 words—and its core sentiment appears utterly innocuous: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." But the Equal Rights Amendment has been anything but anodyne since its original defeat in the late 1970s. Today's reignited movement has much in common with the earlier fight—including the vehement and powerful opposition of the religious right. Amid the Women's March and #MeToo...

Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Rockefeller Foundation may be axing its Resilient Cities program, started only in 2013. The program is designed to help cities address the effects of climate change including by establishing response systems that are well thought through even in the face of incidents which are virtually unprecedented. According to Bloomberg, the effort may be closed as soon as this summer. While the article sardonically bore the label “climate changed,” Bloomberg’s...