ROCKFORD (WREX) – From drug abuse to domestic violence, health officials say the impact of trauma can be traced back to many community issues. That’s why there’s a new push in Rockford to become a trauma-informed community. “We are thinking more along the lines of what’s happen to you, rather than what’s wrong with you,” Children’s Home & Aid site director Lori Poppen said. [For more on this story, go to...
After an almost one-year delay of the Louisiana bill that raises the age of criminal responsibility to 18, the first stage of the landmark law goes into effect Friday, but not without some apprehension across the state. In this first phase of the Raise the Age law, the state will no longer automatically arrest, detain and prosecute 17-year-olds as adults when the teens are accused of nonviolent crimes. That change, advocates hope, will better rehabilitate youth, but many officials worry how...
More than 85,000 of California’s most vulnerable low-income residents, including those who are homeless and have been recently incarcerated, are now enrolled in a pilot project designed to link health care to social services. Twenty-five counties and the city of Sacramento are participating in the Whole Person Care project, a $3 billion initiative funded by the state and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The five-year project, which began in late 2016, is an...
CRI is Proud to Present the 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference Session Descriptions and Presenter Biographies! Join us for the latest information, and strategies to build RESILIENCE! CRI is honored to have expert presenters in their fields to showcase a diverse selection of sessions revolving around the BPT Conference theme, "Building Resilience Across the Life Span." Conference Session Descriptions and Presenter Biographies are now available for review! If you have not purchased conference...
I am grateful to have had the chance to sit down with Joyelle Brandt to discuss her mission of helping those who are parenting with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Thank you, Joyelle, for sharing your personal story and the beautiful work you are doing helping others along their parenting and healing journey. What a gift for those families and the children who will benefit from the steps their parents are taking to heal.
OBJECTIVES: Our purpose in this study was to adapt and validate the Traumatic Events Screening Inventory (TESI) as a primary-care childhood adversity screening tool for children living in vulnerable neighborhoods using a community-partnered approach. METHODS: In this cross-sectional, descriptive study, we used a sample of 261 children (3–16 years old) who were seeking services at a Federally Qualified Health Center with colocated behavioral health services in Chicago and had a positive...
Imagine identifying a toxin so potent it could rewire a child’s brain and erode his immune system. A substance that, in high doses, tripled the risk of heart disease and lung cancer and reduced life expectancy by 20 years. And then realizing that tens of millions of American children had been exposed. Dr. @Nadine Burke Harris, California’s newly appointed surgeon general, will tell you this is not a hypothetical scenario. She is a leading voice in a movement trying to transform our...
One of the biggest educational trends of the past decade is social-emotional learning. Experts quibble over what these soft skills are exactly but the term generally refers to things like managing emotions, learning to set goals and getting along with others. Programs to boost these skills have proliferated at schools. Some are sold by curriculum publishers and cost many thousands of dollars. Others are free but can still involve hundreds of hours of teacher training. Many of the programs...
Women in the United States face a far greater risk of dying from childbirth complications than in many other wealthy countries. Now the federal government has taken a step toward addressing the problem with the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act , signed in December, which will provide federal grants to states to investigate the deaths of women who die within a year of being pregnant. A report released by the Commonwealth Fund in December that looked at 11 high-income countries found that...
The longest government shutdown in history ended in late January. Once rare, government shutdowns have become more frequent , as the major parties fail to compromise enough to even keep the federal government funded and open. The shutdowns are one consequence of rising social and political polarization in the United States. Polarization is not the same as disagreement about how to solve public policy problems, which is healthy and natural in a democracy. Polarization is about more than just...
The number of infants under the age of one in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention at the border has increased since January, reaching levels that alarm immigration advocates. Pro-bono attorneys working along the southern border noticed the increase over the course of a few weeks last month, when visiting clients in a detention center in Dilley, Texas. Attorneys were worried to see infants as young as five months old cradled in their mothers' arms. By the end of February, they...
Have upper-middle-class Americans been winners in the modern economy — or victims? That question has been the subject of a debate recently among economists, writers and others. On one side are people who argue that the bourgeois professional class — essentially, households with incomes in the low-to-mid six figures but without major wealth — is not so different from the middle class and poor. All of these groups are grappling with slow-growing incomes, high medical costs, student debt and so...
We spend a great deal of our energy on fitting in. While insecurity and ego are sometimes part of this effort, it’s inappropriate to think of “fitting in” as a weakness or a crutch. The drive to connect is built into the essence of being human. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk in his (one of the best I’ve read in the last five years) book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” says, “Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level, we barely exist as individual organisms. Our...
At Washington State Penitentiary, Tony McGuire talks to the inmates in his construction trades apprenticeship preparation (CTAP) class about ACEs, trauma and resilience every single day. Not only is he teaching the guys a trade, but he also teaches them how to be a healthy, happy and well-adjusted employee. Note: Becoming a healthy, happy, well-adjusted employee is way harder than basic carpentry, plumbing, electrical and HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning).
Kids are pretty basic. When you're nice to them and you give them attention and buy them things, they love you. They want you around. They want to be around you. Predators know that. So, they do all of the things that a child wants to get their loyalty. They then proceed to satisfy their own physical or emotional needs.