April 2021

It takes a village to raise a child (an old African proverb). This means that a child needs both the immediate and extended family to overcome adverse traumatic experiences to heal long term. Unfortunately, traditional trauma treatment often only includes the individual child. And if you do mobilize, the extended family, you are often unsure what their role is or how to actively incorporate them into trauma treatment. Webinar: How to Engage the Extended Family in Trauma Treatment DATE: May...

Chloe Yang, positiveexperience.org/blog, 4/28/21 Interested in learning about family experiences during Covid-19? The HOPE National Resource Center will be presenting project findings tomorrow, April 29, 2021 from 1:00 – 2:30 PM PT / 4:00 – 5:30 PM ET. See below for a description of the webinar, and click here to register! “The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse...

Teri Wellbrock, host and producer of The Healing Place Podcast, is thrilled to share this information: * Top 100 in the United States in Mental Health at #94

As someone who focuses on trauma-informed leadership and self-care as well as trauma-informed care, I've been working hard to get the idea of a Recovery Plan out there into the world. I wanted to share a training description with the PACEs community, not as an advertisement but what I think people need to be focusing on in this crucial time. I have just finished my first series with the United Way here in Denver and it went great and was well received by leaders. Few periods in recent...

I was thinking today that I might make t-shirts and coffee mugs that say, “professional joy stalker.” It would come with a list of blissful things to remind myself and others to appreciate. As my friend Lynn says,” What if joy is stalking us?” and all we need to do is be still long enough to notice and marinate in multiple daily pleasures. I love that idea but it didn't come naturally to me. What came naturally was fear. I was always on the search for danger, betrayal, and disappointment. I...

Achievement and success can mask underlying pain in such a way that it festers and continues to hold power over us.

National DEC Awareness Day April 28th April 28 th is National Drug Endangered Children Awareness Day. In partnership with the United Way of Greater Plymouth County’s Family Center, the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office has a federal grant from the Office for Victims of Crime to provide support to children impacted by substance use in their home and to train first responders and schools in trauma-informed practices. The Plymouth County Drug Endangered Children’s Initiative is a...

By Amy Joyce, Ellen McCarthy, and Washington Post Staff, The Washington Post, April 27, 2021 Nothing about the past year has been easy for parents. They’ve lost loved ones, lost jobs. They’ve been cut off from their children’s grandparents, cut off from child care, cut off from friends and support systems. They’ve missed out on graduations and bar mitzvahs, proms and vacations. They’ve juggled remote school and remote jobs, or been forced to put themselves and their families at risk by...

By Anne Stuhldreher, Cal Matters, April 27, 2021 Growing up, Blossom Sergejev was lucky if she talked to her mother once a week. Usually it was once a month. Even then their conversations ended almost as soon as they started. She and her brother and sister had a timer to make sure all three got their fair share of their mother’s time – five minutes each. “There was no small talk on those calls, and it wasn’t at all light-hearted,” Sergejev says. “We got down to the grit of what was going...

By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, April 26, 2021 The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a new effort Monday to feed millions of children this summer, when free school meals traditionally reach just a small minority of the kids who rely on them the rest of the year. The move expands what's known as the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, or P-EBT, program into the summer months, and USDA estimates it will reach more than 30 million children. "If children and children's learning...

By Kara Grant, MedPage Today, April 26, 2021 In the wake of Derek Chauvin's conviction for the murder of George Floyd, clinicians and mental health professionals are calling for the recognition of ethno-racial trauma (ERT) and the implementation of cultural humility into all clinical practices to improve care for Black patients. ERT has been defined by researchers as "individual and/or collective psychological distress and fear of danger that results from experiencing or witnessing...

By Emilia Mense Caby, SheKnows, April 26, 2021 In the immediate aftermath of the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin , I reeled at the news of another death from another police shooting, this time a child. As more information came out about Ma’Khia Bryant , my heart continued to crack open. As a former foster care case manager and violence prevention specialist in schools, I knew many girls like Ma’Khia: Girls whose young lives were shaped by trauma and who were not given the resources or...