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Philadelphia University’s Community and Trauma Counseling program offers a 4-course certificate for master’s-level professionals. The Certificate of Advanced Studies in Trauma Counseling provides an advanced understanding of trauma theory, principles, tools and strategies that support trauma-informed practice with adults and children. A new cohort will begin Late August with enrollment in the first course in the program: Foundations of Trauma Counseling. Please find a complete list of...

National private foundations that focus on poverty have, for years, brought a pretty consistent set of protocols to their community-based work. First, program officers and consulting experts identify root causes and look for possible interventions, focusing on places with a concentration of poor people. Then, program planners study a number of possible approaches in these “places,” based on consultation with these experts and followed by the development of position papers. In the course of...

O nce upon a time, the future of mental health treatment was drugs. The advent of Prozac and whole class of similar medication in the 1990s gave doctors an easy option and big pharma easy money. But 20 years on, the problems have not gone away. In fact, mental illness is much more pervasive, with depression now the world’s second biggest cause of disability. Moreover, a dramatic reduction in drug research and development suggests pills will not be the only – or even the primary – answer to...

John Deasy, the controversial former superintendent who led the Los Angeles Unified School District for three-and-a-half turbulent years, is embarking on a new venture that could prove just as challenging: keeping juvenile offenders from returning to jail. Deasy wants to do that by opening alternative juvenile prisons in Los Angeles and Alameda counties that could include activities such as yoga, meditation, art, counseling, athletics and education. His goal is to reduce recidivism by 50%.

The computer Shyama Rose got for her 14th birthday was a boxy Macintosh Quadra 650. The year was 1994. People didn’t email; there was no Facebook; the founders of Google hadn’t even met. And news of the emerging World Wide Web hadn’t yet made its way inside the gates of Barsana Dham, the religious compound in Austin, Texas, where she lived. The compound sat on a spectacular stretch of lush property and featured a castle-like temple adorned with gold-leaf-covered pillars, marble floors,...

When I was twelve, I was coming home from swimming at my neighbor’s dock when I saw an ambulance’s flashing lights in our driveway. I still remember the asphalt burning my feet as I stood, paralyzed, and watched the paramedics take away my father. It was as if I knew those flashing lights were a harbinger that my childhood was over. At the hospital, a surgeon performed “minor” elective bowel surgery on my young dad. The surgeon made an error, and instead of my father coming home to the...

Children growing up during the Great Recession are believed to have faced a statistically significant uptick in their odds of developing mental or emotional health difficulties, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that indicates kids are hardly immune to economic downturns. Researchers found that children's mental health status "declines as economic conditions deteriorate, and this result is pervasive across nearly every subgroup we examine, including...

After being discharged from detox, Rory Gallegos had nowhere to go. So he made the street his home. A year later, he thought he had found a home when the Hillview Mental Health Center in Pacoima offered him an apartment with onsite mental health services. But to qualify for a voucher to pay for the room, Gallegos first had to prove that he was chronically homeless. He couldn’t produce the necessary documents. For another year, he languished in a bureaucratic holding pattern, living in a...

Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope — the second documentary about ACEs science by director/producer James Redford and producer Karen Pritzker — is now available to order for single-screening rentals through TUGG.com. Screenings can be scheduled on or after August 22, 2016. The cost is $175 for K-12 schools and public libraries, and $225 for universities, nonprofits and government organizations. You can order online here: http://licenses.tugg.com/products/resilience A...

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) (above) delivered a strong and passionate call to address childhood adversity to reap a “huge payback” in combating addiction, family violence, and poor education -- the “challenges that confront American families.” [For a video of the briefing, click here . It begins at 17:13 minutes with the first presentation by Andrea Blanch. The sound improves at 23:11 minutes when Sen. Heitkamp's remarks begin.] The July 14th event was the second of three...

Native women in the U.S. are killed by police at a very high rate, at least according to this story [ LINK HERE ]. A young, petite Native woman is killed by a police officer for suspected shoplifting. The alleged weapon she is said to be carrying is a pair of medical scissors. I can't see them in the photo. There are two cops present, and as you can see, the one in the picture is big guy. The story references a story about another Native woman victim [ LINK HERE ]. A young pregnant tribal...

The Bitterroot Cares for Kids Network is presenting “ACES in the Bitterroot,’’ a day-long conference on identifying, preventing and alleviating the consequences of childhood abuse and neglect. Todd Garrison, director of the ChildWise Institute, will be the guest speaker at the Aug. 17 event, which also will feature the film “Paper Tiger.’’ The focus will be on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which has identified childhood trauma as a major public health issue. According to the...