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By Ben Brazil, Photo: Don Leach/Times Community News, Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2021 A few years ago, Adelia Sandoval sat at the foot of an old oak tree and pondered the resilience of her people, the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians. The spiritual leader and her tribe, considered to be the original people of Orange County, had been fighting for years to preserve a small portion of the land surrounding the old oak. The Mother Tree, as she called it, was rooted on the grounds of one of...

By Maddie Bender, Photo: Alex Hogan/STAT, STAT, December 13, 2021 During the time that a song whose title is the number of a national suicide prevention helpline topped charts, calls to the helpline increased and suicides decreased, a new study shows. The song, “1-800-273-8255,” depicts a fictitious exchange between someone expressing suicidal thinking and an operator of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline who counsels a person and ultimately changes that person’s mind. Leaders of the...

By Michaelle Bond, Photo: Jose F. Moreno, The Inquirer, December 13, 2021 Black Philadelphians will need both short-term support and long-term solutions to help them become homeowners in the aftermath of the pandemic and as racial homeownership gaps persist, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Because of entrenched inequities in employment and income, owning a home is relatively more expensive for Black homeowners than for white homeowners, according to an October report...

By Sara Tiano, Illustration: Christine Ongjoco, The Imprint, December 7, 2021 A s more than 1,000 young adults in Los Angeles are set to age out of foster care on New Year’s Eve, county leaders are scrambling to find them all stable homes. The youth raised in government care who are set to lose basic needs benefits had been granted a reprieve during the pandemic. They turned 21, but did not have to leave the program known as “extended foster care” that provides housing and other government...

By Roger Cohen, Photo: Eric Gaillard/Reuters, The New York Times, December 13, 2021 A recent cartoon in the French daily Le Monde featured a bedraggled man arriving at a doctor’s office for a Covid-19 vaccine. “I am here for the fifth shot because of the third wave,” he says. “Or vice versa.” His bewilderment as France suffers its fifth wave of the pandemic , with cases of the Delta variant rising sharply along with Omicron anxiety, captured a mood of exhaustion and simmering anger across...

Empowering Youth to Find their Safe People and Spaces: Youth are often reminded to reach out for support when they feel overwhelmed, afraid, or worried about the stress at home. This continues to be an essential reminder as the holiday's approach and more youth are off from school. However, for youth who have been impacted by a parent's drug or alcohol use, reaching out for help can, itself, become an incredible source of stress. Why? The literature and the stories have shown that the stigma...

How can we center the role of race in our economic policy and in our politics in a way that will drive real change? Kyle Strickland , the deputy director of race and democracy at the Roosevelt Institute , explains how our leaders have fallen under the sway of racial liberalism, which focuses solely on disavowing personal bigotry and overt discrimination. In order to realize true racial and economic justice, he argues we should move beyond racial liberalism and toward a greater understanding...

“There is no way that Delaware would have built the connections and gained the understanding that we have without participating in the National Governors Association (NGA) Addressing ACEs Learning Collaborative ,” says Alonna Berry. Berry, Delaware’s statewide trauma-informed care coordinator, said that the impact (of the Collaborative) was “really immeasurable to the progress being made in Delaware.” The 12-page NGA report , released December 9, captures the essence of a variety of...

“I was floored,” she says. “I felt understood. I felt heard. I felt acknowledged. It was confirmation that I wasn’t crazy. That what I was going through was actually normal.”

By Judy Langford, 12/14/21, positiveexperience.org/category/blog "Having an alternative way of understanding ACES and putting it in the larger picture of positive experiences is essential to the ongoing mission of virtually every professional working with children or families. “ Please introduce yourself and your work to our readers. Over the years, my work has included leadership in organizations that developed innovative programs and policies for young children and their families: the...

Center for Child Counseling’s Lead the Fight Against ACEs to feature an exclusive international book reading and conversation on February 22, 2022. Lead the Fight, Giving Children with Trauma a Voice , will take place Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM. The event will feature a virtual, international book reading of “Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows: A Story about ACEs and Hope” and conversation with author Juleus Ghunta, as well as the keynote address given by Benjamin Perks, Head...

This essay is part of a special issue of PREE magazine that seeks to raise awareness of the causes and impacts of ACEs in the Caribbean and elsewhere. PACEs Connections is working closely with PREE to ensure the issue reaches a broad audience. Click here to read the full essay on PREE’s website. PREE is a unique online magazine for contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean. This special issue on ACEs is co-edited by children’s writer Juleus Ghunta and PREE’s editor-in-chief Annie...