Blog

I did not understand how poor my family was until my maternal grandmother told me a story about sackcloth dresses and beans. I was in my 20s, and we were sitting in her kitchen, the tickle of cool air from the window air-conditioning unit barely on us, when she told me that while she was a child, her mother made dresses for her and her siblings from sackcloth, and that she was always disappointed because the sacks with pretty patterns were taken by the time she was given the opportunity to...

For more than 60 years, it has been the standard of care to try to speed up childbirth with drugs, or to perform a cesarean section if labor was seen as progressing too slowly. Now a new set of recommendations is changing the game. In February, the World Health Organization released a set of 56 recommendations in a report called Intrapartum Care for a Positive Childbirth Experience . One key recommendation is to allow a slow labor to continue without trying to hurry the birth along with...

Much like its adult counterpart, the United States’ juvenile justice system teems with racial disparities and overcrowding in settings inundated with non-violent, low-level offenders, according to a new report. Nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative released “ Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie ” on Tuesday (February 27). Per the report, although Black kids represent less than 14 precent of all American youth under the age of 18, Black boys make up 43 percent of the male population in juvenile...

How to Find Sacredness in Our Shared Humanity The healthy shift towards inclusivity—socially, culturally, politically—must also infiltrate our notions of ‘spirituality’ if it is going to bring us together as a humanity. Does this matter? It matters a lot, particularly for those of who seek an inclusive and humane world. In the same way greedy, unconscionable capitalism is destroying us, humanity-severed spirituality is destroying us. It’s all part of the same power-seeking patriarchal...

If you haven't heard Dr. Felitti speak, make it a point to attend CAMFT's Advancing the Art and Science of Psychotherapy Conference Sunday, April 29, 2018. Dr. Felitti will be speaking about the profound relationships between adverse life experiences in childhood and adolescence and the major implications for the health and economy of the nation. To register or to learn more about the conference go to www.camft.org/ac18.

In the aftermath of the Florida shooting, as with every shooting, journalists scramble for explanations. They wonder what went wrong, or were there signs. They parse the shooter’s social media accounts, school and work histories, and recent breakups, searching for motives. As a Court Appointed Special Advocate, my perspective is somewhat different. I work with foster youth. My job as a CASA is get to know and empathically understand a traumatized child, in order to effectively advocate for...

March 8th is International Women’s Day. I need your help in bringing Women of the World onto the center stage to join the conversation on women’s rights. Women of the World is a poem anthem dedicated to women's empowerment. I wrote it in response to the Harvey Weinstein exposé, and the "me too" movement, as well as to the endlessly devastating reports of domestic violence, murder of women, sex trafficking, and child abuse. The media design animator, Lucia Martinez, who lives in Colombia,...

(A written version of a presentation given at the February Sonoma County ACEs Connection meeting.) Sonoma County ACEs Connection is trying out a few new meeting topics to focus on trauma, recovery, and lessons learned. We’re calling this one Personal Stories. Let me tell you quickly what we hope it will do, and then I’ll tell you a personal story to show how this feature might work. There are three reasons why personal stories are useful and powerful. The first is that people like and learn...

Maybe you have heard about this initiative on one of the social networks or you followed the tour last year. If not, The Campaign to Heal Childhood Trauma is a grassroots partnership between Calo Programs and three leading, national attachment, trauma and adoption nonprofits; The Attachment and Trauma Network (ATN), The American Adoption Congress (AAC) and Association for Training on Trauma and Attachment in Children (ATTACh). The purpose of this collaboration is to increase compassion and...

THUNDER BAY – The Anishinabemowin word for sickness – aakoziwin, which means out of balance, was highlighted during the opening presentation at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care’s Empowering and Promoting Healthy First Nation Communities conference in Thunder Bay. “It’s a translation — it’s like you’re out of balance,” says Christopher Mushquash, clinical psychologist for Dilico, associate professor at Lakehead University and a Pays Plat citizen, during his presentation on Understanding the...

The question of nature vs nurture extends to our microbiome -- the personal complement of mostly-friendly bacteria we carry around with us. Study after study has found that our microbiome affects nearly every aspect of our health; and its microbial composition, which varies from individual to individual, may hold the key to everything from weight gain to moods. Some microbiome researchers had suggested that this variation begins with differences in our genes; but a large-scale study...

Cities and states are trying new ways to entice food stamp recipients to eat their fruits and vegetables. One approach that’s gaining popularity: offering rebates to low-income families when they buy fresh produce. A program in Massachusetts was so popular that it ran out of rebate money and had to be suspended. By rewarding food stamp recipients for making healthy choices, advocates hope to encourage low-income people to eat more fruits and vegetables. [For more on this story by Teresa...