I suffered constant physical and mental abuse and a child and witnessed my brother being abused (often the abuse occurred with us both at the same time). It got to the point of having enough around the age of thirteen. I rebelled in a constant state of rage, venturing into alcohol and drugs, crime, violence. At the age of seventeen I was arrested and sentenced to serve the rest of my life in prison. Resilience: Early in my prison term I had a spiritual awakening. Turned my life around.

KQED is the National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How has it impacted your connection to others and how you build relationships? If you're a parent, how does it influence how you parent? We’re...

Greetings...Wanted to say, hi and thank you for all of your ongoing group. I am an attorney with Disability Rights CA and am working to help transition those with developmental disabilities out of Porterville and back out into the community. I am also a former SF Public Defender who worked with many in the IST process. Please drop me a line if you would like to chat/have coffee, etc. Thanks....Stephen Zollman

Hi everyone, I am in the process of synthesizing resources and best practices for trauma-informed services for formerly incarcerated populations.  I am specifically interested in community-based mental health and substance abuse treatment services, housing related assistance, job-training assistance, and case management and civil legal services.  Do any of you have good examples or models of trauma-informed care for these types of services, specifically for formerly...

Hi Stephanie - in Lancaster County, PA, we have been working over the past several years to "build the foundation for a trauma-informed criminal justice system". We started by providing the following trainings for criminal justice professionals, using nationally developed curricula: 1) trained entire staff of our county prison and entire staff of our county adult probation & parole department using SAMHSA's "How Being Trauma-Informed Improves Criminal Justice System Responses" (400 CO's...

I'm also interested in the topic and look forward to replies. Extending this inquiry a bit, I am also interested as to whether effective treatment approaches have been developed using a wellness model for incarcerated clients and released clients. I run a domestic violence offender's program - the standard 26-week Duluth (Power and Control) model. I've complemented the model with a wellness curriculum teaching subjects such as mindfulness practice, neuroplasticity and processing (talking in...

Doug - I like your extension of the inquiry. We have conducted two projects in our county jail to improve health, wellness, and self-care management. Our first project focused on improving health literacy and the second on health insurance literacy. Both have been published in Corrections Today as follows: Young, D. & C. Weinert. 2013. Improving Health Literacy with Inmates . Corrections Today , 75(5):70-74. Alexandria, Virginia: American Correctional Association. Young, D. &...

Hello Community, Seeking potential ACES/trauma in criminal justice SME to speak at an annual OC collaborative court training. Dec 3rd in Irvine area, audience of Judges, Pub Def, DA's, clinicians, court administrators, etc of 50-75 people. Collaborative court clients are adults with specialty courts serving issues of mental health, substance abuse, Veterans, homelessness, etc. Confirmation on honorarium pending. Please contact me with any referrals, suggestions or questions. Thank you