Blog

PC Reacts is a new series by PACEs Connection in which we look at current events through a trauma-informed and PACEs science lens. In the next episode in this series, we will respectfully and mindfully discuss issues related to the recent national fascination with the missing person and murder case of Gabby Petito, who was found at Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on September 19th. While this case has seen hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of media coverage over the past weeks, it...

It’s clear that, in many cases, food is not the real problem, but rather a solution to temporarily relieve stress, feel comforted, and have a temporary escape from the bad memories, shame, and guilt that often come with trauma. Addressing the root cause of weight gain isn’t as black-and-white as simply changing the way one eats or exercises. Learn what it takes and how you can get the support you need along the way.

By Evelyn Johnson, Alan Pesky, and Claudia Aulum, Stanford Social Innovation Review, October 6, 2021 As our education systems move from scrambling to adapt to school closures and distance learning towards something approaching normality, many are asking questions about how to recover what was lost. How have children been impacted by this unprecedented gap in their learning? Will there be long-term effects? Will they suffer socially and emotionally from the “ COVID slide ”? And what can be...

By Lily Bohkle, Dig Boston, October 6, 2021 With the new school year in full swing, a new report from the Sentencing Project outlines key steps Massachusetts and other states could take to end what they call the school-to-prison pipeline. A number of districts in the Commonwealth employ police officers in schools, known as school resource officers. Leon Smith, executive director of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, said there is little evidence the presence of a police officer improves school...

By Drew Lindsay, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, October 5, 2021 After Haiti’s August earthquake, as relief organizations rushed in, Eboo Patel pointed to a lesson for equity advocates in the United States. Many groups putting boots on the ground in the Caribbean country were anchored in a religious faith, with aid workers who were Catholic and Jewish, Islamic and evangelical Christianity, Lutheran and Episcopalian. Patel’s rhetorical question: If people who embrace different ideas of...

By Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, October 6, 2021 Typical 2-year-olds in Denmark attend child care during the day, where they are guaranteed a spot, and their parents pay no more than 25 percent of the cost. That guaranteed spot will remain until the children are in after-school care at age 10. If their parents choose to stay home or hire a nanny, the government helps pay for that, too. Two-year-olds in the United States are less likely to attend formal child care. If they do, their...

In advance of COP 26, health professionals from around the world are signing on to demand action to avert the climate crisis. Please see below for more details, and consider signing here: https://healthyclimateletter.net/sign-the-letter/. This action is for health professionals and allied health professionals, including public health, environmental health, etc. Thank you! Dear Colleagues, I am writing to ask you and your organization to join me in signing a letter:...

Transforming Trauma Episode 053: Mind-Body Healing with Dr. Lissa Rankin in conversation with Dr. Laurence Heller In this episode of Transforming Trauma, we hear an extraordinary conversation between mind-body physician and author Dr. Lissa Rankin, MD, and NARM creator Dr. Laurence Heller, PhD. Their conversation centers around healing through the integration of western and non-western healing modalities. Dr. Rankin believes that to optimize healing it takes an integrated approach between...

This article will tackle active and passive suicide and may not be suitable for sensitive audiences. In our first article about self-harm, we tackled the subject with as much kindness as the topic would allow. Self-harm is a sensitive subject that had to be tackled to bring it out of the shadows and into the light where we can understand it and perhaps, someday, make it possible to end it. Suicide is a topic most people would rather sweep under the rug because we are all afraid of the...

By Mila Koumpilova, Chalkbeat, October 5, 2021 As students across the country wrestled with pandemic stress last winter, sophomore Nathaniel Martinez logged on to a virtual retreat. Forty mostly Black and Latino teens in Chicago were getting a crash course on gauging how their peers were coping. They also opened up about pressures they faced amid the COVID-19 outbreak and an uptick in gun violence , from depression to disengagement from school. Nathaniel spoke about struggling to focus in...

By Elaine Godfrey, The Atlantic, October 5, 2021 T he grain elevator exploded on a cool April morning in 1987, six years before I was born. My father was testing a clay sample in a lab two miles away when suddenly the dial jumped. He ran outside, thinking that a car had smashed into the building. My mother, doing yard work at home, assumed that the nearby ammunition plant was testing a new explosive. Dale Alison saw the blast up close. He was 32 years old, and it was his first day as the...

By Katie Prout, Chicago Reader, September 29, 2021 Early in April 2020, my boyfriend Carter asked, not unkindly, if I’ve ever been diagnosed with anything besides my generalized anxiety disorder. “What do you mean?” I asked innocently, my pockets full of rocks. He warily eyed the front of my pink raincoat, which bulged like the pouches of bullfrogs. “Can we keep the rocks down to maybe five a day?” he said. We shared the apartment with four other people and two dogs; in our tiny bedroom, the...