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[Photo by Paul David ] Q: Ive heard of children in schools learning yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Does this help even the kids who have experienced the most challenging situations in life? A: Close to a year ago, I listened to Dr. Camara Jones describe her Cliff Analogy at a conference. In her description, the health care system is portrayed as a cliff, where different types of interventions are in place to prevent people from falling, or being too badly injured by a fall, from the top.

[Photo by Daniel Parks ] Amber Hensley rushed from Thurston High Schools cafeteria to meet her mom in the parking lot. Shed forgotten her orchestra uniform and needed it for a concert that day May 21, 1998. As she walked through a breezeway between buildings, the high school junior brushed by her classmate, Kip Kinkel. He was headed into the school. Their eyes met. Hensley smiled. He stared blankly. I was like, OK, she said. Something seemed off. A few seconds later, Kinkel pulled a gun from...

In a city that often struggles with its public perception, less visible battles appear to plague Falls' youth. Data collected by a 2015 behavior survey was presentated to the Board of Education at a meeting last month. Falls teenagers proved safer than state averages in elective health behaviors, choices like smoking or handling weapons, Psychologist Michael Lewis, a grant coordinator in the district, told the Board of Education in January. In "social-emotional needs, psychological issues,...

More than 200 educators, advocates and community members participated in a four-hour session Feb. 9 to learn what role trauma plays in the lives of Monroe County school students and how they can help students succeed. Data and analysis from the most recent Monroe County Youth Risk Behavior Survey helped set the stage for the mornings discussion. The local survey, completed 11 times since 1992 by students ages 13 and older, has typically measured youth risk behavior, which includes drug use,...

Since 1984, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health-care experts, has regularly issued recommendations for doctors and patients about the best strategies for preventive care, including screenings, counseling services, and medications that help ward off disease. These recommendations dont take cost-effectiveness into account, instead focusing entirely on maximum benefit for the patient. And a few weeks ago, the USPSTF took a dramatic step in the realm of...

The tech company Slack recently made headlines when its CEO sent four African American women to accept an award on his behalf . This was a radical move in the tech sector, which is as a whole decidedly male. While other industries lack of gender diversity may be less glaring, its an issue economy-wide . Diversity has become such a ubiquitous concern in hiring that the writer Anna Holmes wondered whether the term has lost its meaning . New research shows that theres one reason why companies...

Success in life depends on a lot of things: talent and practice, for sure, and perhaps something called grit, a combination of perseverance and consistent interests over long periods of time. Grit, in fact, has gotten a lot more attention than the other two lately. But a new study suggests the role of grit, in academic achievement at least, might be overstated. In fairness to Angela Duckworth , the University of Pennsylvania psychologist behind the grit concept, she and her colleagues never...

If you've seen the documentary Paper Tigers , you may remember the stress target -- or color wheel -- in Lincoln High School Principal Jim Sporleder's office. Now you can have one, too! The steering group members of the Yolo Resilience Network in Yolo County, CA, (you can find them on the Yolo County ACEs Connection group) realized the needed to have some tools that they could give to local educators for whom they did presentations about ACEs and trauma-informed practices. "We'd see people...

An article in the Huffington Post carried the title listed above. I read a lot of advice from the advice gurus. To them, it seems so simple. Your mind can will itself to accomplish what you need to accomplish by employing platitudes like "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". "Overcome your fear of failure and fear of what others think." "Be resilient." "Get out there and do it." News flash. It was not that easy for me, and the data suggests its not that easy for others.

The Sealaska Heritage Institute, sponsor for Dr. Vincent Felitti's visit to Juneau, Alaska from February 8 -10, 2016, has posted his lecture. The Lifelong Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences from Sealaska Heritage Institute on Vimeo .

I recently signed up for GovLoop's newsletters and have really appreciated their range of topics and writings. Below is a segment from a human resources article called " TIPS FOR HANDLING DIFFICULT PEOPLE: PART 1 ", which touches on how to be trauma-informed in the workplace without using the methodology or terminology usually seen in the field. Interesting stuff! Tip #2: Dont Give Negative Feedback According to Eddy, the cycle of high conflict thinking maintains and escalates with three...

In 2001, when Dr. Alison Stuebe was pregnant with her first child, breast-feeding was a personal challenge that soon morphed into a professional research interest. Her son Noah was 3 months old when she began her residency in maternal-fetal medicine at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. Determined to nurse him for a year, she arrived at the hospital carrying a breast pump and, through sheer determination, more than met her goal. Noah was 2 before he was weaned. In the years since, with...