Blog

Another synagogue shooting. Another day of shock. Another lonely fanatic. Another cascade of insecurity and fear. I wonder if we’ve fully grasped how fear pervades our society and sets the emotional tone for our politics.

I'll be presenting a Keynote and workshop breakout at this incredible Children's Summit in Wyoming on June 12th and 13th! The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study research is perhaps the most important research ever. I am so honored to be among an amazing group of speakers. If every school, police department, social services org, judges, -- truthfully, EVERYONE would get trained in this research and become ACE-aware; Trauma-Informed; and Resilience-Driven, our world would be more...

States have long been laboratories for innovations that influence the health and well-being of their residents. This role has only expanded with the greater flexibility being given to the states, especially as gridlock in Washington, D.C. inspires more local action. The bevvy of new governors and state legislators who took office early this year also widens the door to creativity. Medicaid is perhaps the most familiar example of state leadership on health. With costs and decisions shared by...

In a new set of guidelines, the World Health Organization said that infants under 1 year old should not be exposed to electronic screens and that children between the ages of 2 and 4 should not have more than one hour of “sedentary screen time” each day. Limiting, and in some cases eliminating, screen time for children under the age of 5 will result in healthier adults, the organization, a United Nations health agency, announced on Wednesday . But taking away iPads and other electronic...

Last month, the nonprofit Solutions Journalism Network published a list of local newsrooms and other media outlets that have integrated the practice of solutions-oriented reporting into their coverage. The post was a turning point of sorts; when SJN was founded in 2013, the term “solutions journalism” wasn’t exactly common parlance, says co-founder and CEO David Bornstein. In Bornstein’s view, it’s not enough to simply lay out the facts of a problem: Society will only move forward if we’re...

Stop for just a moment and reflect upon your desires. If there were no hurdles to overcome (such as financial restraints, fears, health concerns, spiritual uncertainties, etc.), what would your “perfect life” look like? Where would you live? Who would be in your close circle? Would you be working? If so, doing what? What would you do for fun? What goals would you be achieving?

“A new public service announcement released by March For Our Lives, the organization formed in the days following the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. , imagines exactly that. In the two-minute spot, titled “Generation Lockdown,” a young girl leads an active shooter training session for a group of employees at an office in Southern California.” (YahooNews, 2019). I highly recommend visiting the link below and watching the video. It reveals an...

Trauma-informed care is the new gold standard. For the last several years, Echo has been providing professional development in trauma-informed care but we’re beginning to notice a worrying aspect of the new push to train staff and transform systems. Some human service professionals are seeing ‘trauma-informed care’ as another skill to add to their resume or a box to check off on a grant proposal. But if the information stays with the professionals and is not used to empower survivors, then...

By A. Hosack, & K. Hecht, P. Berman Claire was falling fast, she could feel the crash coming. The ground was getting closer. She would hit the tree tops, and these would kill her. Would th at be for the best - finally , relief from her pain ? Yet, Davy needed her- she couldn’t die, she had to hold on. She looked up at Dr. Berman who was just sitting there quietly, watching her. Was this therapy? Was this supposed to help her? Why did she feel like she wasn’t falling any more when she saw...

There’s an anecdote that Ruth Wilson Gilmore likes to share about being at an environmental-justice conference in Fresno in 2003. People from all over California’s Central Valley had gathered to talk about the serious environmental hazards their communities faced, mostly as a result of decades of industrial farming, conditions that still have not changed. (The air quality in the Central Valley is the worst in the nation, and one million of its residents drink tap water more poisoned than the...

On a late February afternoon, Angela Crawford, an English teacher, stood in front of about three dozen Philadelphia educators—mostly young, black women—as they all swapped stories of small victories and challenges in their classrooms. Dressed in a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt and slim black slacks, Crawford, at one point, reflected on what has helped her remain resilient while working in some of the nation’s least resourced and most segregated classrooms for 23 years. “Black women are...

I'm standing deep in snow on a moonlit night on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea, watching the people of this community, nearly all of them Siberian Yup'ik, await the arrival of walrus hunters who are bringing in one of the principal sources of food for the village. For the past few weeks, I've been a guest art teacher at the high school here, learning about the community's triumphs and struggles, so I'm feeling invested in the outcome of the hunt. A student I'll call Molly walks up...