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Beyond Consequences is excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference has been extended. If you have a great story to share about your experience in working with students who’ve had adverse childhood experiences, we would love to hear from you! Here are some examples of sessions that fit in at our nationally recognized conference: Administrative/School-Wide Track • Mindfulness Instead of Suspension • Special Education Law & Advocacy •...

Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to trauma-informed care, empathy and responsiveness to patients and care team members are among the core tenets of effective strategies. In downtown Philadelphia, patients at 11th Street Family Health Services are using creative arts therapies to process past experiences. At the Women’s HIV Program in San Francisco , all staff undergo training to spot signs of stress in patients, create a clinical environment that feels welcoming and safe, and...

By Tracie Dahl, LCPC, Middle School Therapist with Intermountain School-based Services (Helena, MT) 13 Reasons Why is about to drop its second season in just a matter of days. Since Season 2 is no longer adapting Jay Asher's 2007 YA novel and telling a completely new story, as service providers who work with young adults, we would like to know what we can expect from the upcoming string of episodes. We were more reactive than proactive when Season 1 came out and it’s easier to be more...

The City of Cleveland’s program will be the nation’s first system of trauma-informed recreation centers! View the Presentation Below: PRESENTATION

By: Idea Stream Cleveland City Council approved Mayor Frank Jackson’s plan to train recreation center staff to recognize trauma in young people. Council on Monday night unanimously passed a $1 million, one-year contract with FrontLine Service, a mental healthcare nonprofit. FrontLine will train rec center employees on how trauma affects child development. The plan also includes hiring social workers to connect children and their families with services. Rosemary Creeden, the associate...

(Cissy's note: I asked/begged Melanie Synder to share this post with the wider ACEs Community as it had only been shared on the newly formed Lancaster County, PA ACEs & Resilience Connection Community . Often, those involved in ACEs initiatives are flat out and hard-pressed to find any time to share blog posts or photos. When possible, please do. Posts need not be long, in-depth, or capture all the work the community has done or is in the middle of.... Share a snippet, a celebration, a...

The United States devotes a lot more of its economic resources to health care than any other nation, and yet its health care outcomes aren’t better for it. That hasn’t always been the case. America was in the realm of other countries in per-capita health spending through about 1980. Then it diverged. It’s the same story with health spending as a fraction of gross domestic product. Likewise, life expectancy. In 1980, the U.S. was right in the middle of the pack of peer nations in life...

Women who become pregnant face an unexpected danger in the U.S.: maternal mortality. Complications from pregnancy, labor and childbirth result in the death of an estimated 700 to 900 women each year — a rate higher than any other developed Western nation. An investigation by NPR and ProPublica found that “while maternal mortality is significantly more common among African-Americans, low-income women and in rural areas, pregnancy and childbirth complications kill women of every race and...

Omar Williams is an actor — a deadly one, he jokes. Having spent 21 years in prison for kidnapping and attempted murder, the Fishkill Correctional Facility inmate says he’s been acting his whole life to get what he wants. “I know exactly how to play you,” he tells me from one of the counseling offices at the prison, which is located about 60 miles north of New York City. “I could tell you anything to bullshit you, to rob you, to kill you. I’ve been acting my whole life.” Minutes later,...

The two 9th-grade girls heard the laughing the minute they walked into their third-period class that December morning at Oakland’s Fremont High School. And they knew why: a video of one of the girls being slapped by a classmate had gone viral among students on social media. It was one of those moments that could have gone bad in a hurry — like so many others had at Fremont High, a school that had more suspensions last year than any other in the Oakland Unified School District. Both girls...

Aging Baby Boomers have taken a variety of approaches to keep their cognitive abilities sharp, from meditation to specially designed games to (my personal favorite) eating chocolate . But new research finds one factor that influences the rate at which our brains age is largely outside our control: our socioeconomic status. "We provide evidence that there exists a powerful relationship between an individual's present environment and their brain," a research team led by Micaela Chan and Gagan...

Aside from the students, there isn't much to suggest that this might be a classroom. It certainly doesn't look like one. Instead of in rows of desks, students sit at tables, on couches, or along padded benches that look like they came straight out of a restaurant. There are treadmills in a corner. It's quiet reading time, and a girl with crayon-colored hair pulls out a large blue book with Alcoholics Anonymous written in gold on the spine. This is Independence Academy in Brockton,...