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It’s been all over the news for months: Black women in the United States are dying from complications during their pregnancies or in childbirth at alarming rates, and those deaths are preventable. Less well explored is how systemic racism and historical trauma have been at the core of what’s driven up these rates over several decades. A March 20 conference entitled The Impact of ACEs on Black Maternal Health took an in-depth look into why Black maternal mortality and complications during...

HEARTS Professional Learning Institute We know how hard it is especially now to manage deadlines. To provide a bit of ease to folx, we’ve extended our deadline to Monday May 17th at 11:59pm . If you need any more information, we are here to help , so please respond directly to this email with your questions. Hope you can join our HEARTS community! This year only , those who join us will be able to participate for the full two years of the Institute free of charge . This inaugural institute...

Chloe Yang, 4/27/21, positiveexperience.org/blog On April 9 th , the HOPE National Resource Center hosted our first annual summit! In addition to rich discussions on HOPE in various sectors, we celebrated the growing recognition of our work around the country. Just over four hundred people participated from across the U.S. and five other countries, from the health, education, child welfare, and public health sectors, including front-line providers and senior executives. For those who joined...

Submitted by Stephanie Ostrow: Link to Article and Resources https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/origins-health/202104/positive-childhood-experiences-may-improve-mental-health https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/about-thirteen-million-united-states-workers-have-more-than-one-job.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/02/new-way-to-measure-how-many-americans-work-more-than-one-job.html The other day I had the pleasure of reading an article in Psychology Today titled...

Picture four virtual showcases, 35 brave survivors of childhood sexual abuse reading to 200 people --- a wonderful gathering of supportive witnesses. That’s what occurred the last weekend of January 2021at our event: Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Read more about it here . I can tell you what it looked like before we went live. We had readers who kept forgetting to breathe; two so proud of themselves they could hardly stand it,...

By Heather Tirado Gilligan, California Health Care Foundation, April 26, 2021 Despite an induced labor necessitated by the potential danger of preeclampsia, Morine Cebert Gators had a beautiful birth experience. Cebert Gators, who is Black, searched diligently for a Black ob/gyn provider when she moved from North Carolina to Knoxville, Tennessee. She was mid-pregnancy, had recently finished her PhD in nursing, and was having no luck finding a doctor who looked like her. Googling and joining...

By David L. Kirp, The New York Times, April 25, 2021 The boy I’ll call Jackson is the kind of youngster who drives a preschool teacher around the bend. The 4-year-old bites and hits other children, and curses out his teacher, Mariana Lopez. During circle time, when the class is supposed to cluster around and listen to one another, he is a hellion, and nap time turns into a pitched battle. Preschool teachers rely on parents to relate what’s happening on the home front, but Jackson’s mom...

By Katie Jane Fernelius, The Appeal, April 21, 2021 In recent years, prosecutors on a mission to challenge mass incarceration have been using their power to keep people out of prison, but now they’re beginning to turn their attention to those who are already locked up. Few have pursued this as promptly and publicly as Jason Williams, the new district attorney of New Orleans, who may be setting the bar for DAs nationwide. And this focus could be transformative in New Orleans, the largest city...

By Ashley Vaughan, CNN Health, April 20, 2021 "There is a difference between being informed and getting retraumatized." That's what clinical therapist Paul Bashea Williams tells himself and his clients as they struggle with the distressing images that resurfaced during the Derek Chauvin trial. The proceeding churned up a persistent trauma. The frequent replay of George Floyd's final moments may have left many feeling raw, vulnerable and without relief. [ Please click here to read more .]

It’s always stressful to do things that scare you, but, generally speaking, it usually helps you learn something. Last year, our NGO, Jojo's Sanctuary , was invited by Carmen Filbeck, the director of Lanna Theological College in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to come teach a course about child protection and trauma informed care to the seminary students there. The goal was to broaden the educational curriculum of the school and prepare the students to work with children and adults who may have...

Hi Folks, The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php Once again I've tried to create a mix of articles, videos, music, books, podcasts, resources, etc, that offer Hope, Healing & Help. As the saying goes, “ Take what you like and leave the rest. ” or here's the PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2021-04-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_April_2021.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please...

Written By Teju Ravilochan . Some months ago, I was catching up with my dear friend and board member, Roberto Rivera . As an entrepreneur and community organizer with a doctorate and Lin-Manuel-Miranda-level freestyle abilities, he is a teacher to me in many ways. I was sharing with him that for a long time, I’ve struggled with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs . The traditional interpretation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is that humans need to fulfill their needs at one level before we can...