August 2016

It's increasingly clear that bad experiences during childhood are associated with long-lasting health effects, including higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and depression. And childhood abuse in particular has been associated with psychiatric problems and chronic diseases years down the line. But whether that translates to a higher risk of early death for abuse survivors isn't well studied. According to research published Wednesday, there is an association between reports of childhood...

The saying goes that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. For some people, this is nothing more than an aphorism, but for millions of children who receive free or reduced-priced lunches at school, during the summer it’s a harsh reality. Nearly 21.5 million kids in the U.S. are eligible for free or reduced-priced meals, yet according to a 2016 report from the Food Research Action Center, only 1 in 6 of them receives that benefit over summer break. “The summer is a really tough time for...

This post originally appeared at TomDispatch . Once upon a time, I was a journalist covering war in Indochina, Central America and the Middle East. I made it my job to write about the victims of war, the “civilian casualties.” To me, they were hardly “collateral damage,” that bloodless term the military persuaded journalists to adopt. To me, they were the center of war . Now, I work at home and I’m a private eye — or PI to you. I work mostly on homicide cases for defense lawyers on the mean...

Healing. Rest. Self-care. Restorative justice. Restorative yoga. Trauma-informed dynamic mindfulness. Compassion. Love. Community healing. When I get desperate, which is pretty often, I ask myself how to not be overwhelmed by despair or cynicism. For my own sake, for my family, and for my sangha, I need to vow to not burn out. And I ask others to vow similarly so they’ll be around when I need them for support. In fact, I’ve formulated a “Great Vow for Mindful Activists”: Aware of suffering...

A three-step contemplation to give yourself the compassion you need (and deserve). Put both hands on your heart, pause, and feel their warmth. You can also put your hand anyplace on your body that feels soothing and comforting, like your belly or face. Breathe deeply in and out. Speak these words to yourself, out loud or silently, in a warm and caring tone: This is a moment of suffering . Suffering is a part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I...

Dr. Tami DeCoteau, holds the sign-up sheet for a North Dakota trauma initiative, flanked by Dr. Zach Kaminsky, (left), Dr. Mary Cwik, (right) of the Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins University, and Megan DesCamps, health policy advisor for U.S. Senator Heitkamp ________________________ There is often a distinct event that leaders in the trauma movement mention when asked about how it all got started in their community. Many times it is when one of the authors of the ACE...

Mindfulness has an extraordinary capacity to build a strong body, mind and spirit in ourselves as adults, as well as in our children. Science has told us that it can help to protect against stress, anxiety, depression, illness and pain, ease the symptoms of autism and ADHD, improve academic performance and social relationships, as well as expand the capacity to experience positive emotions. Children are wonderfully present in what they do, but as life picks up speed, the capacity to...

I don’t typically post twice in one day, but this blog “Open Letter” on Huffington Post caught my eye and I thought it should be shared. The focus is on education, and there are a number of themes we can see in the letter. First, the author, Diane Ravitch, has an academic background and insight, but states that she has abandoned the reform efforts of the day because the favored reforms among politicians are “useless and counterproductive….” What she seems to be staying is that the story she...

Society absorbs a lot of costs that are associated with childhood inflicted trauma (ACEs). Yet we fund programs regularly, and don’t really require solid data on results. That just seems to be a byproduct of people managing programs. We commit to results, secure funding based on that commitment, then do everything we can to prove that we have results. We secure data that suggests progress, and hide any data that then problem might be getting worse (at least in my experience). Fortunately, we...

There was a time when police officers who experienced a traumatic event — a hostage situation, a fatal accident, an ugly mob scene — might be told to “tough it up, this is the job.” Officers on the North Shore are going in a different direction with the Law Enforcement Critical Incident Stress Management Team. Volunteer officers from 10 local departments were trained recently to help their peers through stressful incidents. There are plenty of such incidents. Just recently, a Salem police...

The teacher asked her fourth-graders to sit in a circle and rate their feelings from one to 10. Christopher Bland clenched his fists. He ripped a piece of paper to shreds. As his classmates spoke, he rocked back and forth. Tonia Rowe-Russell made a mental note: Keep an eye on this one, usually so smiley, eager to please. He stopped writing during writing time. She asked what was on his mind. His baby sister died that summer, he told her. She hadn’t known. Her mom had passed away, she said.

In November 2015, a video of a young girl in South Carolina’s Spring Valley High School classroom being “thrown to the ground” by Richland County Sheriff Deputy Ben Fields swept the nation. In March, another video surfaced of a Baltimore school officer kicking a high school student. In May, an autistic 10-year old girl was dragged and handcuffed by police in Louisiana. This comes on top of scientific data declaring that children as young as preschool age receive excessive punishments in...