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After Donald Trump’s presidential victory, many left-leaning politicians and commentators started considering what sort of message would help them regain political power. Given the clear racial subtext to the 2016 campaign—Trump stereotyped Mexican immigrants and Muslim families , and Hillary Clinton spoke openly about systemic racism—and who ultimately won, some concluded that Democrats should stop using so-called “identity politics” to try to win elections. The argument went that this...

It began with a shocking text message that left the staff at DoSomething.org deeply shaken. The non-profit organization was originally created to promote youth volunteer and social action opportunities. It uses texting—the primary way in which teens communicate —to send thousands of daily messages alerting members to clothing drives, health fairs, park clean-ups, and more. Responses have been common. In addition to the usual sign-up requests, texters have also sought advice on how to handle...

Bryan Clement, Dovetail Learning, gave a compelling presentation to the ACEs Connection community coalition in Sonoma County, CA, in late January. He began with a video showing how kids are putting social and emotional skills into action in their school settings (English and Spanish versions embedded below): TOOLBOX clearly offers great tools for strengthening relationships between folks of all ages. It also provides the language and framework creating a strong relationship-based foundation...

The Center for Health Care Strategies put together this PDF. It's attached so that you can download and post. Thanks, Leslie Lieberman, for the link!

The Connecticut Women's Consortium and the Connecticut Dept. of Mental Health and Addiction Services posted the 2017 winter edition of Trauma Matters. Articles include: The Bond that Harms: The Impact of Trauma Bonding on Human Trafficking Victims Trauma in Women Experiencing Homelessness Ask the Experts: A Conversation with Sebern Fisher ART: An Emerging Evidence-Based Therapy for Treatment of PTSD and Related Comorbidities It's attached here for download.

WEBINAR: Using a Mindfulness-based Social Emotional Learning Program with K-2 Students, Teachers, and Parents in Chicago Public Schools Tuesday, February 28 1:30pm-2:30pm The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative is pleased to present this exciting webinar illustrating ways to build resiliency within the educational system. Dr. Amanda Moreno and Erikson Institute doctoral student Kandace Thomas will present features of the Calm Classroom K-2 project, a large randomized controlled trial of...

This story occurred in the early part of the AIDS epidemic. In 1991, I was part of a coalition working to develop local home care options for AIDS patients. This was before the first AIDS treatment drugs became available, so the prognosis for someone with AIDS was not good. They got sick. If they recovered, they were likely to get sick again soon. Back then, HIV disease was still an unfamiliar and frightening illness, even for medical personnel. The general public was concerned about...

Wendy Ellis wanted to know what made some children thrive and others suffer, even when both had been exposed to the same cascade of adversities. She yearned to unlock that mystery on the population level. It was the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study Ellis stumbled upon while board president of Childhaven, a childhood trauma treatment program in Seattle, that began to shape her inquiry. “The science gave me a vocabulary, a way to understand certain things I had seen in childhood. I...

As recognition of the widespread impact of trauma increases, the desire to provide trauma-informed care is at the forefront of a movement to build resilience and prevent and mitigate the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Given the growing momentum for change and the need to bolster awareness of promising practices in trauma-informed care, the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative researched over 300 programs to develop this Environmental Scan Report. The goal of the Scan was to...

From California Newsreel : Dear Friends and Colleagues, Will you take The Raising of America User Survey? We want to hear from those who have used The Raising of America to broaden the conversation around early childhood! With thousands of events and screenings across the nation, it is time to evaluate how the series is being used -- what's working, what isn't -- and the impact it is having. The survey is 35 questions, will take about 20 minutes to complete, and is anonymous. Please take the...

The Sesame Workshop hopes the friendly faces of Sesame Street characters will help refugee children navigate the complex social and emotional effects of trauma and displacement. The organization is teaming with the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian organization, to "deliver transformative early learning and social-emotional support to millions of refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria," it said in a news release Thursday: "Of the 65 million displaced people...

Do you have a history of trauma (i.e., abuse, neglect, psychological or emotional chaos growing up, etc)? Trauma can include a host of experiences, too many to name here. But trauma is a powerful consequence of emotional and psychological chaos. What I mean by this is that despite whatever the traumatic situation entailed, the result is often chaos in the mind and emotions of the person who experienced the traumatic event. In fact, our perceptions of the event itself could lead to symptoms...