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The Center for Youth Wellness and ACEs Connection are hosting the third biennial ACEs Conference Oct. 15-17, 2018, at the Hyatt Embarcadero in San Francisco, CA. The first day is devoted to a pediatric symposium. The main conference will take place Oct. 16-17. Our theme, “Action to Access”, will draw a line from the call to action established by previous conferences to the problem of access — how different individuals and communities are able to obtain and use the information, resources, and...

So many readers have written to me sharing their worries -- and their success stories -- around raising happy, healthy children despite having their own PTSD from childhood. The fear that we'll hurt the kids can hold us back from setting limits, yet losing control of kids' behavior can escalate discipline into a recipe for nervous system dysregulation and emotional overwhelm. In this video I talk about my worst parenting mistake, and how I.... ( Read More and watch the video at the Crappy...

Despite the landmark ACEs study in 1998, ACEs screening is uncommon in medical clinics - barriers include lack of time, ACEs resources, confidence in addressing sensitive topics, etc. Flanagan et al. developed a training program for clinicians that addressed the barriers, added resilience measures, and included clinic-specific adjustments. The study found that conversations on ACEs and resilience improved women’s trust in and relationship with their clinicians. After the training, clinicians...

LOS ANGELES — The temporary transformation of Fickett Street in Boyle Heights began with yellow shades resembling huge kites suspended over the sun-scorched asphalt. Soon, a thoroughfare known for its speeding vehicles and gang activity became something else entirely — a “play street” in which women gathered for Lotería, or Mexican bingo, and kids fashioned seesaws out of giant snap-together plastic shapes in colors inspired by local Mexican-American murals. There are roughly 7,500 miles of...

Under a sign that read “FUTURE CITY,” three mayors pondered whether titan tech companies such as Amazon could be models of equity and prosperity in cities. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf brought up a concept called “tech-quity,” which she explained meant that companies should be expected to conduct themselves in ways that contribute to local diversity and inclusion goals. The forum was part of a conference Pittsburgh hosted last week on prioritizing “people, planet, place, and performance,” or...

ALBUQUERQUE — Santiago Turrieta and Joee Ruiz were lounging in bed in a sleepy haze one morning after shooting their morning dose of heroin when Joee said, “Oh, baby. My water just broke.” They had grown up just a few blocks from one another in Barelas, one of Albuquerque’s oldest and most historic barrios, a collection of old adobe houses on the edge of downtown. But they didn’t get together until a year after Santiago got out of prison in 2013. He was an armed robber who had done 18 years...

Editorial in the New Mexico Politics. Dr. George Davis, former director of the New Mexico Juvenile Justice System and CYFD talks about how children end up in the criminal system. "Within the first five years of life, the trajectory is set for the most important skills a person will ever possess — such fundamental traits as the capacity for attachment and empathy, the ability to self-regulate and to be calmed, and the tendency to seek primary reward from contact with other humans rather than...

GET the @ ResilNation Policy & Advocacy Guide at go.gwu.edu/bcrpolicyguide . JOIN our policy webinar on May 23rd 1pm Eastern. REGISTER at go.gwu.edu/bcrpolicywebin ar. ADVOCATE for Resilient Communities for a # ResilientNation !

I recently watched, in a single sitting, the entire first season of “Girls Incarcerated: Young and Locked Up,” which premièred on Netflix, last month. It follows, in eight episodes, about fifteen inmates, referred to as “students,” at Madison Juvenile Correctional Facility, in Madison, Indiana, along with the teachers, correctional officers, and counsellors whose job it is to supervise and surveil the girls. The series largely forgoes the macabre violence that one finds on MSNBC’s...

On a spring day in 2014, Latisha Lacey, a single mother, moved into a freshly rehabbed two-bedroom home on Chicago’s West Side. It was affordable at $850 a month, so as time passed she tried to ignore the drug dealers in the alley, the landlords’ advances, and the prostitutes he invited into the basement. But her active boys disturbed his trysts, she said, and her continued rejection angered him. One day, without explanation, he refused her rent check. A week before Christmas 2015, he...

The fire that destroyed her dad’s third-floor apartment is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to 8-year-old Dakota Johnson. It was five-thirty in the morning. Someone on the first floor of the building had fallen asleep smoking. Dakota and her dad, Kenneth Johnson, woke up to the sound of the fire alarm. First it seemed like it might be just a small blaze, but when Johnson opened the door to the apartment, smoke and soot rushed in. Dakota was too scared to crawl out into the hallway, so...

My cursor is hovering over the “unfriend” button, but I haven’t clicked it. Today, my relationship-severing finger is poised to get rid of Matt. Matt is a friend with whom I spent a lot of time about six years ago. We were close in rehab, but I haven’t seen him since. I entered Greenbriar treatment center in Washington, Pennsylvania, just a few days after he’d arrived, and he showed me the ropes. For the next few weeks, we were virtually inseparable. Rehab can be a frightening place when you...