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Many American Christians still grieve something Martin Luther King Jr. articulated more than 50 years ago: Churches are among the most segregated spaces in America . King imagined a universal, all-inclusive sisterhood and brotherhood with an equitable distribution of resources—a “Beloved Community” where there is peace because there is justice. Plenty of religious people have felt a duty to help bring this dream to life, yet most have failed to racially integrate their own congregations.

June 2016. ATN’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools (TSS) Initiative hosted our first Professional Development Training June 27 & 28 in Somerville, NJ. The Superintendent of Somerville Schools, Dr. Tim Purnell was the keynote and spoke on the importance of viewing things through a different lens. Then ATN’s TSS trainers Melissa Sadin and Jen Alexander provided a full day of training to enable educators to realize the impact of early childhood trauma; recognize traumatized children in their...

Graphic artist Anne Nelson created this visual roadmap during the partner showcase, capturing the "heart of the matter" for each community member Teri Barila, co-founder and CEO of the Children’s Resilience Initiative and the igniting force that brought change to a quiet corner of southeast Washington, kicked off last month’s Beyond Paper Tigers Conference by sharing one of her “aha” moments. In 2007, she attended a conference in Winthrop, WA, where Dr. Robert Anda spoke about the CDC-Kaiser...

It's a rough world out there right now. But artist Andrea Pippins has a solution. An adult coloring book! But this isn't just any coloring book. Instead, it's art that allows people to, as Pippins says, " see the beauty and light in themselves." Pippins created the Freedom coloring-book page to take therapeutic coloring to a new level. The page is made to help us deal with tragedies, process our emotions, and think about how to move forward. "I strongly believe that when we allow ourselves...

In the fall of 1979, Yalda Modabber had just moved from Iran back to her birthplace in Boston. Her timing was bad: Just weeks later later, a group of armed Iranians took more than 60 U.S. citizens hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. As a result, her fellow students bullied her ruthlessly. Golestan Education's Yalda Modabber “It was nonstop for two years,” says Modabber, who has dark curly black hair and a warm smile. “That period in my life was so hard that I blocked it out. I don’t even...

Shut off inbox notifications.” “Only check email once in the morning and once in the afternoon — no more, no less.” “Set an ‘out of office’ response to let people know you’re focusing on work and not checking email.” Email management advice like this is commonly espoused by work and career experts who warn that the inbox is the ultimate productivity-killer . And it’s true: One of modern business’s most ubiquitous tools has become one of its greatest drawbacks. To focus, we need to limit our...

After being pulled over for a busted taillight on July 6, Philando Castile informed a Minnesota police officer at his window that he owned a gun and had a license to carry it. As he reached for his license and registration, his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter then watched as the police officer fired four shots into Castile’s body. He died in the driver’s seat. Castile was one of 137 Black people in the United States killed by a police officer this year. Another Black man, Alton...

Tough love, interventions and 12-step programs are some of the most common methods of treating drug addiction, but journalist Maia Szalavitz says they're often counterproductive. "We have this idea that if we are just cruel enough and mean enough and tough enough to people with addiction, that they will suddenly wake up and stop, and that is not the case," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. Szalavitz is the author of Unbroken Brain, a book that challenges traditional notions of addiction and...

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) today announces a new initiative in the wake of the recent killings of two black men in St. Paul, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., and of five police officers in Dallas. The AAP will convene a group of pediatrician experts to identify new approaches to protect children, adolescents and young adults from the epidemic of violence occurring in their everyday lives. The initiative's members, agenda and goals will be shared in the coming days, and will address...

From the tiny town of Kenyon, Minnesota, Police Chief Lee Sjolander has a message for the 12,000 other police districts across the country. Writing from his department’s Facebook page this morning, he advocates a humble role of public servitude that is antithetical to the toxic masculinity with which some police departments have been infected. “If I were your chief,” he writes, “and we worked for the same agency, serving the same great community, I would attend roll call, and here is what I...

Dallas Police Chief, David O. Brown, once said that “trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.” Since taking the reins of the police force in 2010, Brown has taken that principle to heart, transforming Dallas into a national symbol of community policing even as the department grapples with the tragic killing of five of its officers earlier this week. “All I know is that this must stop—this divisiveness between our police and our citizens,” Brown said at a mournful press conference on Friday.

Today I want to share with you 7 Triggers for childhood toxic stress... At the core of every human there is a soul and spirit that knows only love and compassion for the whole of who they are. Through life experience from the day of birth, we begin to be seen through well meaning family and friends from a lens of “their hopes and dreams” for us. Mothers, fathers, friends and even educators, from their own agenda. The desire being to fulfill their vision as a great teacher making a difference...