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This is Part Five of Stateline's 2018 Legislative Review. Austin recently took a new tack in the ongoing war between “sanctuary cities" and federal immigration authorities. Declaring itself a “freedom city,” the Texas capital instructed its police officers to arrest fewer people for minor crimes — to prevent their fingerprints from going to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and to inform people that they may refuse a request to present their immigration papers. Though novel,...

There are 18 wildfires now blazing across California, which means many of the state's residents are waking up to the smell of smoke and hazy skies. The Carr fire near Redding has scorched at least 145,015 acres and killed seven people, and three fires in Mendocino County are all less than an hour away from Santa Rosa — where some neighborhoods burned to the ground last year. Confronting constant reminders of what fire can do has become a terrifying reality for people who survived last year's...

After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida earlier this year, schools are at the epicenter of national debates on gun violence and mental health. How can teachers and administrators deal with troubled students? And how can they make schools safer for all? It’s not the first time that schools have been asked to address social problems that originate far outside their hallways. In a nation where more than 40 percent of kids are from low-income families, school teachers and...

“Just leave.” It’s the advice many domestic-violence victims hear most. But leaving—the meetings with lawyers, the court appearances, the apartment hunting, the counseling sessions, the all-consuming physical and emotional path to recovery—requires time and flexibility. Dawn Dalton, the policy director at the Washington, D.C., Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said scheduling demands are consistently the largest obstacle standing between the victim and a different life: “I hear, again and...

Listen in on iTunes, Blubrry, or directly from my website as Philip discusses his healing journey from childhood abuse to poetic triumph.

For more information, click here . Purpose Systems for Action (S4A) is a signature research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that builds a Culture of Health by rigorously testing new ways of connecting the nation’s fragmented medical, social, and public health systems. Studies conducted through the S4A program test innovative mechanisms for aligning the delivery and financing systems for medical, social, and public health services, with a focus on estimating their impact...

So, the start of the school year is not easy for many students, especially those who have experienced or are experiencing trauma and stress and abuse. And, for those who have experience Big T trauma (immigration issues; fires; floods), the beginning of the academic year may not be easy. I think we have, unfortunately, not recognized the many aspects that need to be considered on the first few days of school. Transitions are not easy and we tend to think that one day orientations, filling out...

When an email invitation came to attend a Nursing Activism Think Tank, I immediately agreed to go, even without knowing a single soul. The information grabbed me by the throat and the heart. The throat, because I have been working to use my voice in previously unknown spaces and my heart because I care about the safety of children. The event also tested my courage in many ways. My courage to sign up, show up and participate in ways that I would not have imagined. The Nursing Activism Think...

Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...

“Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected.” Rachel Naomi Remen on the healing power of service.

About halfway through the three-hour siege at Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake, the wounded gunman, Gene Atkins, looked at one of his hostages, MaryLinda Moss, and told her it was all over for him. “I just shot at a cop,” he said. Moss, a 55-year-old artist who exudes calm, feared a suicidal gunman could spark a bloodbath. Through a series of disastrous decisions by Atkins, dozens of strangers had ended up at the grocery store on a hot Saturday afternoon, drenched in fear and surrounded by SWAT...

" Kill the spider" describes what can happen when our client’s minds believe the lies perpetuated by a traumatic event. The result can be the stronghold of shame and require shame therapy . Cobwebs are the metaphor for the child’s trauma symptoms (i.e., depression, aggression, addiction, anger, self-harm) that medicate the stronghold of shame – the spider. Trauma therapists who attend my workshops tell me it is easy to overlook the spider. They recommend therapeutic interventions that help...