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In April, Sonoma County PACES Connection partnered with 25 organizations to "Celebrate Parents as Heroes". Inspired by National Parent Leadership Month and April's Child Abuse Prevention Month, 150 parents were nominated and celebrated. This video was made to highlight the event. Enjoy!

Although war, violence, and displacement have occurred as long as humans have engaged in conflict to solve their issues, it was the war in Ukraine that prompted us to create a resource guide for children and families displaced by war and violence. Estimates announced in May 2022 put the number of forcibly displaced people at 100 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) . “The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide rose to 90 million by the end of...

Dear PACEs Community, Sharing out my new policy brief about the developmental consequences of food insecurity among children with disabilities: Household Food Insecurity Associated with Decline in Attentional Focus of Young Children with Disabilities A downloadable PDF version is attached. Please feel to forward to your networks who might find this relevant to their work. And, of course, please reach out if you have any questions or comments. Thank you! --Kevin Kevin A. Gee, Ed.D. Associate...

By Nina Lakhani, Photo: Bea Oyster/The Guardian, The Guardian, June 17, 2022 Rain clouds cover the peaks of the west Maui mountains, one of the wettest places on the planet, which for centuries sustained biodiverse forests providing abundant food and medicines for Hawaiians who took only what they needed. Those days of abundance and food sovereignty are long gone. Rows of limp lemon trees struggle in windswept sandy slopes depleted by decades of sugarcane cultivation. Agricultural runoff...

By Carolyn Jones, Photo: Screenshot from article, EdSource, June 16, 2022 Five years ago, Fremont High in East Oakland had some of the highest discipline rates and lowest attendance in the city. Fights and conflicts were common occurrences. Only 1 in 4 graduates were qualified to attend public college in California. One in 3 dropped out entirely. But Fremont High is – literally – a different place now. With a newly rebuilt campus and an intensive focus on improving campus climate, Fremont...

By Hannah Natanson and Moriah Balingit, Photo: Cedar Attanasio/AP, The Washington Post, June 16, 2022 A Florida teacher lost her job for hanging a Black Lives Matter flag over her classroom door and rewarding student activism. A Massachusetts teacher was fired for posting a video denouncing critical race theory. A teacher in Missouri got the ax for assigning a worksheet about privilege — and still another, in California, was fired for criticizing mask mandates on her Facebook page. They were...

By Aditya Chakrabortty, Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian, The Guardian, June 17, 2022 ome days it seems the entire country has slipped back half a century, to the 1970s. Abba are once again playing arenas, the Sex Pistols are gobbing all over our screens, and every chunk of masonry tumbling off Parliament gifts the headline writers another crack at their favourite decade. Government in chaos? It’s the 70s all over again! Record inflation ? Seventies, obvs. And the strikes breaking out...

Under the direction of the Associate Director of TSI, these two full-time positions entail providing virtual and in-person training, consultation, and coaching related to trauma-informed care (TIC). The largest portion of responsibilities involves managing a portfolio of client agencies in a variety of sectors implementing TSI’s Whole-System Change Model to Trauma-Informed Care, which includes Risking Connection training. One position will be cross-sector and one will have primary...

Photo - Jae C. Hong/Associated Press By Charles M. Blow The New York Times, June 19, 2022 Juneteenth has been a part of my family tradition for as long as anyone can remember. It marks the day in 1865 — June 19 — when some of the last enslaved people in the United States, in Texas, learned that they had been freed, roughly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. My mother recalls going to large Juneteenth celebrations as a child in the 1950s, where some men would...

Everywhere I turn, I am impacted by the efforts to curb childhood obesity. Having been a former "fat kid" myself, I see where the deficits are in curbing this epidemic.

What is it about trauma that can have such a seductive pull? Can our bodies actually become addicted to trauma and its effect on us?

“ Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch.” - Debasish Mridha The Impact of Trauma Upon Our Lives - Healing Childhood Trauma in Adulthood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx1k_oEZ4oc&t=15s 1] How Artists Can Turn Childhood Pain into Creativity - https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_artists_can_turn_childhood_pain_into_creativity Some performers are able to transform childhood trauma into intense creativity, suggests a new study. Whether their success was in...