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An assembly hosted by faith group Justice Matters on Thursday brought up community issues such as mental health, affordable housing and school equity, and event organizers weren’t shy in voicing their disappointment that not all local leaders attended. The conclusion of the third annual Nehemiah Action Assembly likely sent cell phones of two local leaders — School Board President Marcel Harmon and Douglas County Commission Chair Mike Gaughan — buzzing with text messages after their numbers...

The Early Childhood Trauma Collaborative (ECTC) is a 5-year, $2 million grant awarded to CHDI in 2016 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to extend trauma-focused services to young children in Connecticut. The Early Childhood Trauma Collaborative will also be part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a federal network of 81 SAMHSA funded members and over a hundred affiliates working to raise the standard of care and improve access to...

Note: Belleruth Naparstek has been talking for over a decade about post-traumatic stress as a physiological issue requiring regulation. In fact, she has dropped the "D" off of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, using PTS instead, because she does not agree with many therapists who believe PTS is a permanent diagnosis. See the following quote from an article she wrote. She wrote that in 2011. Her focus has been on helping people find soothing, feel better and restore or discover well-being after...

I have written before about how I was a self-help book addict. I read every book I could find, re-reading several of them and even going as far as getting them on audiobook so I could re-listen to them hundreds of times. I did this because I absolutely believed in their base principles, and, frankly, I needed a constant reminder. I would listen — and would feel good for 10 to 30 minutes afterwards. But, then life would happen; I would forget everything I learned and I would be right back to...

Susan Jones, a member of Resilient Sacramento and Behavior Specialist at San Juan Unified School District, spent the day of the Becoming a Trauma Sensitive School conference, overjoyed. This conference has been Susan's long term goal with the district, and the day she planned for the convened administrators, teachers, and school staff members was an phenomenal success.

Muslim children are more likely to be bullied in school than children of other faiths. A new survey by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) reveals that 42 percent of Muslims with children in K–12 schools report bullying of their children because of their faith, compared with 23 percent of Jewish and 20 percent of Protestant parents. These results confirm recent findings by other research and advocacy groups showing that bullying of students of color is on the rise. After...

Full of historic suburban towns on Boston’s outskirts, Essex County, Massachusetts, does not look sick on paper . It is not plagued by obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. Folks get a fair amount of exercise. Most are insured. Judging by social factors that influence health, it should actually be in better-than-average shape: Nearly 38 percent of the population iscollege-educated. Only 11 percent live in poverty. Yet all is not well in Essex County . Drugs are claiming lives at a growing...

LaVonte Stewart was a Little League coach between jobs. Sister Tesa Fitzgerald was a nun with a long career in Catholic education. Chelina Odbert and her five friends were students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Tara Libert and Kelli Taylor were TV journalists. Kate Barnhart was running a shelter for LGBT youth. Each was doing something else when they felt a calling to start a civic organization that changed not only their lives, but also many others’. In the process, they...

Editors Note: In the first of two articles based on a new report by EdSource titled “Early Learning Time: Accessing Full Day Preschool and Kindergarten in California,” we examine the state’s progress in providing full-day preschool and the current financial disincentives to offering a full-day program built into the way California funds these programs. In part two, we will look at full-day kindergarten. Despite continuing efforts to expand learning time for young children, large numbers of...

Georgi, a Russian refugee who came to Sweden with his family when he was five years old, could talk at length about the virtues of the Volvo. His doctor described him as “the most ‘Swedeified’ in his family.” He was also one of the most popular boys in his class. For his thirteenth birthday, two friends listed some of the qualities that he evoked: energetic, fun, happy all the time, good human being, amazingly kind, awesome at soccer, sly. Georgi’s father, Soslan, had helped found a pacifist...

Young children are exposed to violence, abuse, and other forms of trauma and adversity at alarming rates. One national study found that 44% of all children aged 2-5 had experienced at least one potentially traumatic event. 1 In Connecticut, 49% of all child abuse and neglect victims are under age 6, slightly higher than the national rate. 2 It is estimated that more than 95,000 children under six in Connecticut have experienced trauma. Although Connecticut has made significant progress in...

Vonya Quarles grew up in South Los Angeles and describes herself as a third-generation convicted felon. But by the time she took the microphone at a Highland town hall meeting in January 2016, she was a lawyer and executive director of a Riverside County nonprofit that helps connect the homeless, formerly incarcerated and mentally ill to transitional housing. [For more of this story, written by Jazmine Ulloa, go to ...