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Marcela Villa isn’t a big name in health care — but she played a crucial role in the lives of thousands of Medicaid patients in California. Her official title: denial nurse. Each week, dozens of requests for treatment landed on her desk after preliminary rejections. Her job, with the assistance of a part-time medical director, was to conclusively determine whether the care — from doctor visits to cancer treatment — should be covered under the nation’s health insurance program for low-income...

Locked behind their green classroom door, MaKenzie Woody and 25 other first-graders huddled in the darkness. She sat on the vinyl tile floor against a far wall, beneath a taped-up list of phrases the kids were encouraged to say to each other: “I like you,” “You’re a rainbow,” “Are you ok?” In that moment, though, the 6-year-old didn’t say anything at all, because she believed that a man with a gun was stalking the hallways of her school in the nation’s capital, and MaKenzie feared what he...

People across the world may face a variety of challenges, but innovators, activists, and organizations worked together in 2018 to find impressive solutions. In no particular order, here are 14 innovations that made the world a more inclusive, safe, and all-around better place this year. To learn about other ingenious innovations, check out this list from 2017. [For more on this story by Mashable Team, go to https://mashable.com/article/social-good-innovations-2018/#0SBmsikslOqj ]

New research discovers a person’s physical health, including heart disease, high blood pressure, back pain and arthritis, may be influenced by anxiety and depression on a level equal to the long-established risk factors of smoking or obesity. The incidence of cancer , however, was not found to be associated with mental health risk factors. The findings by University of California San Francisco researchers suggest the increased importance of assessing anxiety and depression during annual...

Of the 239 posts, 5 have been the favorites: the most-read, most-shared articles. They are each summarized below. Then, below that, I’ve listed my 5 personal favorites. I chose those 5 because I wrote them specially from my heart. From Jonice Webb, Ph.D FULL ARTICLE

No, we don’t need the president nor congress. We do need the following people in your county to stop business as usual and focus on preventing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). City mayors City counselors County commissioners School board members These local elected leaders—many of them your neighbors and colleagues—have the capacity to collectively understand the emotional and financial costs of ACEs and trauma. We can’t have family-friendly cities and counties while we live in an...

If direct questions around trauma are asked too early, it can scare your clients away or paralyze them with anxiety. To prevent this common problem, the Family Systems Trauma Model (FST) uses a “stress chart." Instead of traditional questions, such as “What is the problem?,” the “stress chart” disrupts this pattern by asking everyone to assess their home stress life.

Sneak Preview for ITRC ACEs Connection Members! Next Tuesday, Jan. 8, the ITRC will release a major report Preparing People on the West Coast for Climate Change. The media release about the report is below (and attached). It includes a link to the webpage for the report, where people can download the full report, and find a link to the webpage with examples of resilience programs across the west coast. You can connect with the ITRC CA and PNW Facebook page:...

I had two moments when I first transitioned onto a healing path that stand out as life-altering. My therapist at the time had mentioned to me, "Just notice" during one of our sessions, in the midst of a pretty intense flashback when panic attack symptoms were overwhelming me. Allowing myself the opportunity to just notice those sensations without judgment created an incredible shift in their power over me.

How do you get people to support public policies that help children thrive? Do you emphasize the possible health consequences of child abuse, or do you emphasize the financial consequences for society as a whole? If you focus on consequences, does this messaging have the unintended consequence of creating prejudices towards vulnerable children and their families? When it comes to informing and persuading, how we deliver a message matters as much as the message itself. With a $500,000 grant...

I had the chance to attend a training for law enforcement and others, described below, in Yarmouth, MA, a few weeks ago. The presentation, "Trauma Informed Response Training for Law Enforcement & Multi Disciplinary Team Members," was given by retired detective Justin Boardman . Boardman was joined in the morning by the chief domestic violence prosecutor of the Cape & Islands, Michael Patterson. Here is a news story excerpt about the training from the Cape Cod newsletter (yes, the...

Funding will go toward training staff, parents, others in early childhood settings (LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) --- The Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education (DCCECE) has been awarded a $3.5 million grant from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children & Families that will be used to train staff, parents, and others working with children from birth to 5 years old who have experienced trauma. “Young children in...