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For more information, click here . There is hardly a public health challenge today that can be resolved without the assistance of legal or policy solutions. Public health professionals at the local, state, and federal levels need to have a clear understanding of our legal system and its role in improving overall population health. The Public Health Law Academy, supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provides a deeper understanding of the use of law and policy to...

On Tuesday, the City of Philadelphia was awarded a $1 million grant to create a 24/7 trauma-informed facility that will be an entry point into the criminal justice system for children who are arrested. The city was one of five winners out of 35 finalists in the yearlong Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge . The location and an official timeline for the opening of the facility — named the Hub for Juvenile Justice Services — are still being determined, said Julie Wertheimer, the...

Registration is now open for the Family Trauma Institute's November webinar. Our monthly webinars are designed to provide strategies and techniques that support mental health professionals in becoming family trauma experts. When Nov. 27, 2018 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Topic Failure to Launch: The Safety Planning Technique Register for free here . The webinar includes: • Why childhood and family trauma clients are often unmoved by the professionals most sophisticated techniques...

One of the things going on in Childhood PTSD is dysregulation of our brains. When we’re calm, brain activity is even and it’s driving emotions and body responses (like heart rate variability, shown in the very badly drawn illustration below) in an even and predictable way. With dysregulation, our thinking, behavior, heart rate and breathing can become erratic. We might feel panic or depression out of nowhere, or our emotions can suddenly explode and flood us with adrenaline (the fight/flight...

When Kristy Yates’ daughter passed away in 2010, Yates sank into a deep depression and alcoholism that led to a drunken driving arrest. After a slew of health issues and losing all three of her jobs, the Fort Worth, Texas, resident became homeless and end ed up checking in at the Presbyterian Night Shelter. Yates’ new address made it hard to get hired. But after two months of living in the shelter, she learned about Clean Slate, and her life has changed since. Toby Owen, CEO of the shelter,...

When Dan McNevin was nine years old, he served as an altar boy to Father James Clark in Corpus Christi Church in Fremont, California. There he worshipped alongside generations of his Irish Catholic family, attending mass and answering phones for the parish office. At first, says McNevin, now 60, Clark was "grooming him." But soon the priest began to abuse him both physically and emotionally, undressing, touching, and assaulting him. He didn't tell anyone, including his parents, for more than...

The parents in Overland Park, Kan., were fed up. They wanted their children off screens, but they needed strength in numbers. First, because no one wants their kid to be the lone weird one without a phone. And second, because taking the phone away from a middle schooler is actually very, very tough. “We start the meetings by saying, ‘This is hard, we’re in a new frontier, but who is going to help us?’” said Krista Boan, who is leading a Kansas City-based program called START, which stands...

HAILEY LECLAIR SAYS SHE was about 12 years old when she started noticing her mother's drug use. “She had been losing weight, and she hadn’t really been home as much – she’d been out with friends,” says Hailey, now 15. In October 2017, the Bangor Daily News in Penobscot County , Maine , told Hailey's story, publishing diarylike entries she'd written that reflected feelings of frustration, confusion and hurt as she tried to navigate the effects of her mother's and stepfather's addictions. [For...

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” – John Muir As a mother, a therapist, a partner, how good am I to any one if I am not taking care of myself? Not so good at all. Those of us in the helping professions (or roles that give out a lot of nurturing energy) especially need to take a pause and focus on replenishment and self-care. When our cup is not topped off, we run on fumes. And that’s...

A new study, published in Translational Behavioral Medicine, reveals that the majority of clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of major depression do not incorporate a stepped care approach and often fail to include physical activity or exercise as a recommended intervention. There is some concern that the variability in guidelines may influence the ability of clinicians to provide adequate care for individuals diagnosed with subthreshold or mild to moderate depression. In 2016,...

When we talk about “building the capacity” of frontline and grassroots leaders who are changing structures, policies, and systems, what does that really mean for funders? Many funders use antiquated and static systems of inquiry to identify and make judgements about which groups are well-equipped to achieve social change. The truth is that philanthropy holds a disproportionate amount of power; it serves as a gatekeeper for the resources that belong to our communities. And while the folks...

You know an issue has momentum when Oprah is talking about it. In a 60 Minutes segment aired in March 2018, Oprah talks about the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and a trauma-informed approach. She described the story as one that had “more impact on me than practically anything I’ve ever done.” That’s a lot coming from Oprah! As we pass the 20-year anniversary of the publication of the original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, the landmark study that demonstrated the...