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She is always so happy. He is always doing something cool. She is so much prettier than I am. He is so much more confident than I am. My life is so boring compared to theirs. I wish I had that kind of money to travel like they do. I wish I had a house as beautiful as theirs. Does that sound familiar? Why can’t I be as good, rich, attractive, etc. as that person? I am worthless because they are always posting awesome pictures and I could never live up to that! But have you ever wondered how...

By Moriah Balingit and Laura Meckler, The Washington Post, September 17, 2020 President Trump pressed his case Thursday that U.S. schools are indoctrinating children with a left-wing agenda hostile to the nation’s Founding Fathers, describing efforts to educate students about racism and slavery as an insult to the country’s lofty founding principles. Trump, speaking before original copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the National Archives, characterized...

By Emily Peiffer, Housing Matters, September 16, 2020 The pandemic’s devastating health and economic effects and the national reckoning around police brutality and systemic racism have highlighted pervasive inequities in communities across the US. A key issue lies directly at the intersection of those crises: homelessness. The nearly 570,000 people experiencing homelessness (PDF) on any given night, especially the 210,000 people forced to live outside, face greater risks of exposure to the...

By Kindhumans, September 9, 2020 Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is James Redford? I am a storyteller. Many years ago, I encountered my best friend from early childhood. Upon learning that I was writing screenplays, he said, “I could have guessed.” When I asked him why, he said that I was always “making up stories that got me into trouble.” I am very curious. I am constantly developing interests and passions and I tend to be an adrenaline junkie. Unfortunately, I’m accident prone,...

By Elena Sheppard, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall 2020 On June 9, 2016, 19-year-old Deston “Nutter” Garrett was shot in his home in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento, California. He had a friend over, and they got into a fight over a YouTube video. “Nutter thought of this friend as a big brother, and I thought of him as my son,” says Garrett’s mother, Tanya Bean-Garrett. “It was an argument that went bad, and my son got the worst end of it.” Nutter died two days later in the...

September is suicide prevention month and according to a June CDC survey on mental health, 1 in 4 youth ages 18 to 24 said they had "seriously considered" suicide in the past 30 days—more than twice as high as any other age group. The tragic fact is that more youth die from suicide than any other cause. Even before the pandemic, and the headlines that highlight our nation’s history of racial injustice and violence, there was a mental health crisis driven by social determinants tied to...

Legislation SB 803 - Introduced by state Sen. Jim Beall What it does: The Bill will set up a standardized process to train and certify peer support specialists. Why it’s important: Medicaid allows federal dollars to help pay for peer support specialists – but only in states with a process for standardizing training and certifying workers. Passage of SB803 will greatly expand the network of support for people with mental illness, and compensate people who are already providing informal...

Raising Awareness "How will we provide sanctuary for our kids? Protecting children from police surveillance, brutality and violence is critical to their health and well-being." In her NBC News op-ed, Dr. Rhea Boyd, CCT’s Director of Strategy and Equity, explains the life-long impact when children witness violence—in their schools, homes, neighborhoods. 1-click tweet An urgent and vital call to action from @CAChildrenTrust Director of Strategy and Equity @RheaBoydMD "How will we provide kids...

Films have been instrumental in helping us understand individual, generational, and historical trauma - and healing. Documentaries can inspire and inform public policy and system-level change as well and that is why ACEs Connection, CTIPP, and the Relentless School Nurse have come together to stream documentaries from this community site, quarterly, starting in September of 2020. We held our inaugural event to discuss the first documentary in our film festival, Portraits of Professional...

Just let it go … get over it … stop living in the past …it could have been so much worse … don’t be so soft, so weak … it’s time to forget about it and move on …. These are some of the messages that people who’ve experienced a traumatic event may give themselves. Sometimes, concerned co-workers, friends, or family may communicate those same messages to those who’ve experienced trauma. Whether it comes from self-talk or from someone else just trying to help, the implication is the same:...

Over 100 Community Collaboration for Children’s Success (CCCS) partners participated in a Trauma-Informed Leadership Training hosted by Trauma Transformed on August 24 to learn how to bring a trauma-informed approach to their leadership during this COVID-19 crisis in order to support their communities and staff. Partners engaged with the four phases of a pandemic and applying the 5C’s to leadership in the pandemic response phase. To learn more, please contact Francesca Osuna, Training...

The 45th Parallel Resilience Network has launched with this great new name and new guiding principle and mission statements. Guiding Principle: We believe resilient communities value and empower all toward love, healing and prosperity for all. Mission Statement: To nurture resilience and healing in the lives of individuals, families and communities. Who We Serve: The 45th Parallel Resilience Network serves 10 Northwestern Michigan counties in our Lower Peninsula. They are: Manistee, Wexford,...