Blog

We can talk about grit, resilience and mindsets all we want. These approaches, while useful in a limited way, operate off a deficit model. There is something wrong in individuals that needs to be fixed -- repaired. And, there is a built in assumption that those who have high ACEs can return to the status quo ante -- they can bounce back. But, these are flawed arguments and here's why. Those with high ACEs are forever changed; they cannot bounce back. (There are neurological reasons among...

Like the thousands of miles of mountain roads I've driven on this 3-week trip to visit trauma-informed communities in the Pacific Northwest and Canada (I drove a total of 3,011 miles, to be exact!), the road to develop a trauma-informed community has loops, twists and turns. And as with any journey, there are bound to be wrong turns, dead ends, roadblocks, detours, and days when you just plain get lost. Thankfully, there are increasing numbers of tour guides and roadmaps to help...

The Educating Traumatized Children Summit had Ross Greene, Ph.D. as the keynote. He was interviewed by Julie Beem of the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN). Dr. Greene is the author of The Explosive Child and Lost at School, Lost & Found and Raising Human Beings . He's the originator of the Collaborative and Pro-Active Solutions (CPS) model . I’d heard his name from some of the teachers in my life, but I’d never heard him speak. I’ve summarized, paraphrased and quoted a few of the things he...

In trauma-informed care there is a large focus on strength-based skill building, and we are always trying to find new ways to do this and celebrate all the great things that these young people do each and every day. I want to bring your attention to a way we attempted to this using social media this week. The Volunteer Organization of CPRI (VOCPRI) , and the Child and Parent Resource Institute (CPRI) in London Ontario Canada, are in the midst of a social media and video campaign called...

As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words. I was reminded of this after being racially targeted during a business trip to Los Angeles this week.* The incident happened after returning my rental car and boarding the company’s shuttle service to the terminal. I was second in the line of more than 30 other customers who had been waiting for nearly a half hour for the shuttle to arrive. As is customary, the driver began to ask us of our terminal destinations, but when he got to me he...

Before the Alaska Resilience Initiative could push forward on any of its goals—to grow a sustainable statewide network; to educate all Alaskans on brain development, ACEs and resilience-building; and to support organizational, policy and practice change to address trauma—its leaders had to start by listening. Specifically, they had to listen to Alaska Native people. Alaska Native people comprise nearly one-fifth of the state’s population, but historically their voices have been largely...

The postcards said a lot more than “wish you were here.” Last spring, Boston’s Vital Village Community Engagement Network created postcards highlighting key data from a survey of parents in the Boston Medical Center pediatric waiting room. Parents were asked if they took part in neighborhood activities and if their actions made a difference in their neighborhoods; in both cases, the most common response was “sometimes.” But data collection didn’t end there; the aim, says Vital Village...

Ina May Gaskin is often referred to as the “mother of modern midwifery.” But when Gaskin was asked at an April 22 birth seminar in Forth Worth, Texas, about the effects of systemic racism on high infant and maternal mortality, her response left many in the Black birthing community questioning her competence. “Drug overdoses, cause number three—that’s a biggie—and I presume these are illegal drugs. Not prescription drugs, but those are also going to be a problem,” said Gaskin, who then...

I see a lot of books presuming to explain what’s wrong with the economy and what to do about it. Rarely do I come across one with the consistent new paradigm frame, historical depth, practical sensibility, systemic analysis, and readability of Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth. Especially unique and valuable is her carefully reasoned, illustrated, and documented debunking of the fatally flawed theory behind economic policies that drive financial instability, environmental collapse, poverty,...

When it opens its doors on Monday, the Roots Community Health Center on The Alameda will be the first primary care service provider in the South Bay aimed at improving the health and well-being of African-Americans. Supporters say it couldn’t happen soon enough. Santa Clara County is home to about 55,000 African-Americans, but the black community here — like African-American communities nationwide — continues to face serious health disparities compared with other racial and ethnic groups.

Black and Latino parents nationwide are convinced that racially based disparities in funding hurt their children’s education and want their youngsters to be more challenged academically, according to a new survey by a civil rights organization. The national poll sponsored by the Leadership Conference Education Fund found that 90 percent of African-American parents and 57 percent of Latinos think that K-12 schools in their minority communities receive less funding than schools in white areas.

As a veteran educator, I have encountered my share of “troublemaker” students—those who talk when they should be quiet, stand up when they should sit down, and generally find endless ways to turn the order of the classroom upside down. For Carla Shalaby, a former elementary-school teacher who has studied at the Rutgers and Harvard graduate schools of education and directed elementary-education programs at Brown University and Wellesley College, the social order of a classroom and the...