Blog

I wrote about my personal experience at the Partnering for Excellence conference earlier this month. Here, I write as an activist observing attempts at system change utilizing ACEs science and trauma-informed approaches. Please share your ideas, brainstorms and observations about what you see happening (or not happening) in organizations or agencies you rely on, work at or run. I’ll admit, as an activist, I’m often in fight the system mode. I approach even do-gooders with defensiveness. Why?

Could this be serious? You might not need psychotropic drugs to heal your brain? Who would propose such an idea? And why would any sane person accept this idea? OK. I am not being serious. I just blogged about whether we can trust our own brain, and the answer is frequently we cannot. Our mind plays tricks on us because of its low computing power in the prefrontal cortex. That lack of computing power is dealt with by the brain in some increasingly predictable ways, like resistance to change.

As the CEO for two organizations, one problem we encounter are the “resisters.” Change comes very hard to some people. In my experience, a hard core resister will go to extraordinary measures to stop change. I let one one of my top line executives go after showing extraordinary insubordination. As I filled the leadership void for a while, I was using his executive computer and discovered searches for dirt on me, including a search for lawsuits, bar association discipline and other attempts...

Trish Buchanan's husband, Paul Buchanan, was a decorated East Hartford police officer who took his life in March 2013 after months of struggling with depression. He had feared the repercussions that seeking help for mental illness might have on his career, Trish Buchanan said. When they finally called some mental health professionals, they were asked whether Paul was at immediate risk, otherwise the soonest he would be able to see someone would be six weeks later. When they did find someone...

I was 16 when I had my first full panic attack. I sat clutching my French horn (yes, I played the French horn), waiting for a solo in a school band performance, and found I couldn't catch my breath. My stomach and chest felt impossibly tight. This wasn't an average case of nerves: my entire body responded to the fear of playing music publicly with what I now understand to be chronic anxiety. I felt I might die. I managed that day to slow my breathing just enough so I could finish my solo...

Imagine you're working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do? Traditionally, the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension. But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn't really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.

Prevent Child Abuse America partnered with KPJR Productions, producers of the ACE themed films Paper Tigers and Resilience to host a Congressional Briefing on September 21. Read more about the standing-room-only event here: http://preventchildabuse.org/latest-activity/resilience-congressional-briefing/

I’ve always been intrigued by the different choices people make, while working to restore good boundaries in their life after an experience of abuse. Whether it’s re-establishing the broken boundary with the abusive person, or finding a safe way to relate to others, the memory of betrayed trust can complicate decisions about how to maintain safety. When I think about my own relationship to personal boundaries, I’m often reminded of the iconic phrase, “good fences make good neighbors.” I...

The number of children in the world today that have suffered a traumatic incident is on the rise. People do not realize how close these issues truly are to the communities across America. It is for this reason that the Crawford and Erie County Human Services along with Edinboro University and Peace4Crawford began working together to educate members of the community. Monday, Sept. 26, will mark the Third Annual Trauma Informed & Resilient Communities Conference. This year’s conference...

Standing at the end of Checkout No. 4, Jesse Bent made quick work of the groceries coming his way. He stood the Stouffer’s lasagna in a plastic bag. He gently laid loaves of Rotella’s bread. He double- wrapped the meat. “Didya have a good weekend?” Jesse bantered easily with a customer in a red Nebraska ballcap. The man did, naturally. The Huskers had won. Husker Hat and Jesse shared a chuckle about that, and in a minute, Husker Hat was out the door with a cart, and Jesse got to clock out.

I f your doctor diagnoses you with chronic fatigue syndrome , you’ll probably get two pieces of advice: Go to a psychotherapist and get some exercise. Your doctor might tell you that either of those treatments will give you a 60 percent chance of getting better and a 20 percent chance of recovering outright. After all, that’s what researchers concluded in a 2011 study published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet, along with later analyses. Problem is, the study was bad science.

This is the executive summary for a longer report, which gives an estimate of the number of immigrant and refugee children who will enter the United States in 2016, where they come from, and the traumas they face. It includes recommendations for policy and practice. [Read it here http://www.childtrends.org/?publications=moving-beyond-trauma-child-migrants-and-refugees-in-the-united-states-executive-summary]