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By Veronica Penney, The New York Times, September 30, 2020 In most American cities, white residents live near parks, trees and baseball fields, while communities of color are left with concrete and the heat that comes with it . Now, in a push that could provide a road map for other cities, officials in Denver are working to rectify that historical inequity. The effort, one of a handful around the country, has been bolstered by an environmental tax that added tens of millions of dollars to...

By Aneesah McClinton & Cato T Laurencin, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, October 1, 2020 Abstract Numerous organizations implement a trauma-informed approach. This model assists institutions in providing care and education that delivers support to members who have undergone traumatic experiences, and many institutions apply the principles as a universal precaution. Student and trainee experiences in medical education reveal a hidden curriculum that may deliver...

By Iridain Casarez, October 1, 2020, North Coast Journal. New programs were beginning to address the traumatic foundation of Humboldt's health problems. Then came COVID. Mary Ann Hansen probably understands the landscape of early childhood education in Humboldt County better than most. Before she became the director of First 5 Humboldt in 2015, she worked as a full-time lecturer in the Child Development Department at Humboldt State University and had been the head preschool teacher at the...

A non-clinical, boots-on-the-ground approach to offering restorative services to individuals seeking sustainable change in their lives.

Remember those scenes in Hercules movies where the hero battles the multi-headed dragon called a hydra. You cut off one head and more appear. It took every ounce of creativity and strength for Hercules to defeat all those twisting heads. That pretty much describes life in the US today. It's just one crisis after another. Heroic people battle what we call three-headed hydras, people guided only by apathy, envy and fear. They are the so-called leaders that have allowed a pandemic to grow. We...

The following is a letter I sent to Dr. Jack Shonkoff of Harvard University. Dr. Shonkoff, My name is David Dooley. Wednesday during the National Press Foundation webinar you answered a question I submitted. The question was… ”In an effort to prevent the aces associated with unsupportive and harmful parenting, should public health organizations be developing a new kind of parenting education...one that reaches everyone, everywhere, all the time. Perhaps parenting education campaigns akin to...

Discipline disparities between Black and white boys have driven reform efforts for years. But Black girls are arguably the most at-risk student group in the United States. BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — Zulayka McKinstry’s once silly, sociable daughter has stopped seeing friends, talking to siblings and trusting anyone — changes Ms. McKinstry dates to the day in January 2019 when her daughter’s school principal decided that “hyper and giddy” were suspicious behaviors in a 12-year-old girl. Ms.

From Immigrant Legal Resource Center, October 1, 2020 A new report, a collaboration between the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) and the University of San Francisco School of Law Immigration & Deportation Defense Clinic, has catalogued 100+ policies that have detrimentally affected countless immigrants. The report divides the policies into six categories: preventing entry; denying status; taking away status; destroying due process; detaining, deporting and terrorizing; and,...

Fritzi Horstman is the Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project an organization dedicated to bringing compassion, childhood trauma awareness and creative inspiration to all men and women living behind bars. She directed “Step Inside the Circle,” after working with 30 incarcerated men living at Kern Valley State Prison for over a year and learning about the extent of their childhood trauma.

With funding from the ACEs Aware Initiative, Education Training and Research (ETR), the California School-Based Health Alliance (CSHA), and consultants, Drs. Naomi Schapiro and Victoria Keeton, are partnering to host a 6-session, virtual professional learning collaborative with a cohort of 8 licensed Medi-Cal Providers from School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) across California operated by community health centers and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Please see the attached...

ACEs research has highlighted the significant public health challenges that childhood adversity and toxic stress create. Surgeon General Harris is right to give priority to addressing those challenges, but public health officials have better alternatives than universal ACE screening to respond to them.

The American Counseling Association (ACA) is the flagship for Professional Counselors across the United States. A handful of dedicated members are preparing an application for Organizational Affiliate (OA) -- the stepping stone organization to full Division -- in ACA focused exclusively on counseling for traumatic stress, resilience, and post-traumatic growth. Why this? Great question! Because trauma counseling differs sufficiently from the broader field of mental health counseling to...