Blog

Understanding and limiting the spread of coronavirus has consumed our focus over the past few months. Physical distancing, child care and school closures, the persistence of masks, hand washing, have been essential steps to help protect each of us from the virus. However, this physical distancing has consequences that we need to talk about: isolation, loneliness, boredom, monotony, stress, anxiety, and fear. Mental health often takes a backseat when physical health is at risk. Health is both...

Article by Andrew J Yawn, Published on July 28th, 2020 - The American South The barber’s chair may be the new therapy couch for parts of the South where mental health care is in short supply. In Mississippi, one of six Southern states ranked in the bottom 10 for mental health care access, approximately 60 Black barbers have been trained over the past year to engage their clients in mental health discussions that may not otherwise happen. "As a barber, people listen to our advice a lot, and...

By Satcher Health Leadership Institute, August 2020 The COVID-19 outbreak is having a disproportionate impact on communities of color, raising urgent questions about why that’s happening — and about what can be done to reduce risk and harm for people of color. A new $1 million grant from Google.org will help the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine answer those questions by collecting and analyzing detailed data that can get to the root causes of why...

By Steven Harper, Moyers On Democracy, July 29, 2020 The director of the CDC has capitulated. Under the guise of “guidance,” Dr. Robert Redfield recently released a full-throated promotion of Trump’s latest pandemic talking points urging all schools to reopen in the fall. If he had based his action on the evolving medical evidence relating to COVID-19, it would have been appropriate. He didn’t. Instead, Dr. Redfield surrendered the independence and credibility of the CDC at a time when the...

By Frank Muscara, Maria C. McCarthy, Meredith Rayner, et al., JAMA Network Open, July 31, 2020 Key Points Español 中文 (Chinese) Question Is an acceptance and commitment therapy–based group intervention, delivered using videoconferencing, effective in reducing posttraumatic stress symptoms in parents of very ill children? Findings This randomized clinical trial found that videoconference-based acceptance and commitment therapy (compared with a waiting list) was effective in reducing...

By Brita Belli, Yale News, July 27, 2020 When college students learn specific techniques for managing stress and anxiety, their well-being improves across a range of measures and leads to better mental health, a new Yale study finds. The research team evaluated three classroom-based wellness training programs that incorporate breathing and emotional intelligence strategies, finding that two led to improvements in aspects of well-being. The most effective program led to improvements in six...

By Thomas Frank, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2020 T he great underlying political crisis of this plague year, it is often said, is the stubborn refusal of Americans to respect expert authority. There’s an epidemic raging... and just look at those people frolicking in a swimming pool at the Lake of the Ozarks, repeating stupid conspiracy theories, spreading non-peer-reviewed medical advice on social media, running errands without a mask on, setting off roman candles in the street. And just...

I was lucky. In a day and time when childhood sexual abuse (CSA) was little understood and usually swept under the rug, my parents and others stood up for me. That was wonderful for building resilience in the life of the little girl who was me. However, it did not prevent the cascading biological effects of the trauma from plaguing me for decades. I published my story because I saw studies that related CSA to gynecological problems but no one was talking about it in the ACEs literature.

Peacetown was always just a summer concert series with a vision to promote peaceful coexistence, kindness, love and joy. Peacetown is now a non profit with more room to expand and offer more to our community. Last year I founded The Family Village. This was a space sectioned off at the summer concert series where hundreds of families came through, played with their children, made positive social connections, and had a great time. Every week a different organization was invited to set up a...

Sebastopol's FREE summer concert series, Peacetown, usually attracts 800-1500 people every week. This year it is being done virtually. Last year a new element was added to Peacetown called The Family Village. This was a space sectioned off for families to play, access local resources, make positive social connections, and feel supported. This is one of the virtual Family Village videos https://youtu.be/wYXvScX1HEM

The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...

By Ashley Gold, California Healthline, July 20, 2020 While the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Hispanic Americans is no secret, federal officials have launched studies of the disparity that they hope will better prepare the country for the next great epidemic. The National Institutes of Health began the ambitious “All of Us” research project in 2018 with the goal of enrolling at least a million people in the world’s most diverse health database. Officials saw it as an...