Blog

By Katherine Martinelli, Child Mind Institute, September 2020 Debbie Weingarten’s son has been going to the same school for three years, loves his teacher and friends, and has a great time once he’s there. But the five-year-old still struggles with drop-off and often cries when Weingarten leaves . Similarly at soccer — which he enjoys — he gets overwhelmed or upset several times a practice and runs off the field. For many kids, adjusting to social situations — whether it is a birthday party...

By Edore Onigu-Otite, Sindhu Idicula, MedEdPORTAL, September 15, 2020 Abstract Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with negative mental and physical health outcomes and predictive of higher sociodemographic risk. Introducing ACEs into undergraduate medical education is key to prevention, early recognition, and intervention. Methods: In a 1-hour lecture, held live and viewed online, we delivered a condensed introduction to ACEs to first-year medical students.

By Mandy Savitz-Romer, Heather Rowan-Kenyon, Tara Nicola, and Laura Hecht, Education Week, September 16, 2020 As the global pandemic threatens students' academic progress, recent reports have also raised alarms about students' mental health. Fear, loss, and the anxiety brought on by uncertainty are raising already-high levels of trauma and stress among young people. It will be tempting for schools to direct resources and attention this fall to bolstering the instructional core, given...

By Suzanne B. Haney, American Academy of Pediatrics, September 16, 2020 Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) studies have clearly shown that trauma in childhood places one at risk for long-term health consequences . 1 This trauma is also recognized to manifest as behavioral and learning issues even in childhood. 2 In the same vein, Keenan et al ( 10.1542/peds.2020-0638 ), in an article being early released this month, surveyed almost 200 parents whose children had experienced physical abuse...

As most cases of complex post-traumatic stress disorder involve adverse childhood experiences and the damage done by them, I felt it was important for us to look at how ACEs affect the developing brains of children. Einstein’s Brain Albert Einstein is considered by many to be one of the most intelligent men to ever grace humanity. But, what was different about Einstein’s brain? Was the density of brain cells and how well wired his brain appeared to be really much different from the rest of...

Unrelenting natural disasters like the current West Coast wildfires and smoke outs are terrifying. Those of you who don’t live here might not understand how terrifying it feels to not be able to breathe in your front yard. This morning, I got online to see if there’s some place I can escape to, someplace my family and I can breathe. The closest place I can find with a good AQI is Sedona. That’s terrifying. 10% of the population of Oregon has evacuated according to the New York Times this...

When Laurie Noble was growing up, in Fort Bragg, California, in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, her family’s home doubled as a government weather station. The house was equipped with rain and wind-speed gauges, thermometers, a barometer, and a recording barograph, and the family belonged to a network of part-time observers paid by the federal Weather Bureau, the forerunner of the National Weather Service, to fill in gaps between its professionally staffed stations. By the time Noble was a...

By Dr. Robert Sege, 9/16/20, positiveexperience.org/blog This past spring, we began blogging about ways to look at the world from a child’s eyes, in order to make sure they’re having the positive childhood experiences that they need to grow and be healthy, even in the face of disruption and adversity. In the six months or so that we have been experiencing the pandemic, the HOPE team has seen and heard many stories from around the country of families that are doing just that. Now, as the...

By Jamil Zaki, Harvard Business Review, September 14, 2020 The last several months have stacked painful experiences on top of each other: a global pandemic, economic collapse, and new reminders of perennial racial injustice and police violence. This July, rates of depression and anxiety in the U.S. were more than triple those of early 2019. The simple question, “How are you?” has turned into an emotional minefield. Workplaces are saturated with trauma, too, and leaders are agonizing over how...

By Christina Severin, MedCityNews, September 13, 2020 If Covid-19 has a silver lining for healthcare, it is the light it shines on the value of primary care. On the front lines of pandemic testing and management, primary care serves the majority of patients, enabling emergency departments and hospitals to treat the acutely ill. But primary care – and the relationships that form its foundation – is equally important in treating the everyday epidemic of chronic conditions we face in the U.S.

Retired FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Freeze presses on the need for the police to work with behavioral health centers, the Mississippi Department of Mental Health and the community.

Transforming Trauma Episode 022: Intergenerational Trauma and Decolonizing Jewish Identity with Brad Kammer This special bonus episode of Transforming Trauma welcomes Brad Kammer, NARM Training Institute Senior Faculty and Training Director, to introduce listeners to a series of “High Holiday” episodes featuring two different Jewish leaders advocating for healing of cultural and intergenerational trauma for the Jewish people. Brad begins by framing the next two episodes that will focus on...