Blog

A city government exists to provide services to its citizens, though it may not feel that way after spending an afternoon applying for a construction permit. Paper-driven, anachronistic processes continue to paint local governments in a negative light, making citizens’ lives more frustrating. What if cities had compassion for their citizens and approached providing services with user empathy? Existing mechanical processes such as obtaining a small business license or contesting a parking...

There is no good time of the year to have mild to moderate depression . Once the end of the year holiday season rolls around, it isn’t a matter of dealing with the same routine day in and day out. Now there are holiday parties to attend, relatives to see, and other expectations that are either of your own making or imposed by others. While it may not seem possible, you can survive the holidays, including time that you feel must be spent with relatives you would rather avoid. Here are some...

In October 2015 in Pueblo, CO, the staff members of a primary care medical clinic – Southern Colorado Family Medicine at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center – start asking parents of newborn babies to kids five years old about the parents’ adverse childhood experiences and the resilience factors in their lives. They ask the same questions of pregnant women and their partners in the hospital’s high-risk obstetrics clinic. The results are so positive after the first year that the clinic starts...

One in four people suffers from mental health issues in their lifetime, yet the stigma still attached to discussing it in some circles means it remains a delicate topic. Those circles very much include places of work, where the fear of being labelled weak, incapable or hysterical by colleagues means many struggle in silence, rather than seek help. In the world of business and finance, and the professions that feed into those sectors, such as law, accounting and advertising, where staff often...

Many people have difficulty getting their lives back on track after being released from juvenile detention, especially those from racial and ethnic minorities, a new study shows. Delinquent youth are at high risk for problems in adulthood. Some of the reasons why include a background of significant trauma and loss, limited social support or adult guidance, and limited academic success, according to study author Karen Abram. She is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences...

Barry Krisberg’s nationally acclaimed research has earned him a high level of respect in juvenile justice circles. President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for many years, he is now a criminologist at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been advocating for progressive reform since the late 1960s. Entrenched for many years in the political and human issues influencing juvenile justice and the welfare of the young people involved, Krisberg has developed an...

My own history of ACEs is too long for this blog post, but I have a score of 8/10. What is important though is that this score has brought me strength, purpose, and direction as my position of REACH Program Coordinator at Stewartville Middle and High School in Stewartville, MN. I grew up in Stewartville and am now raising my family here. REACH stands for Relationships, Education, Accountability, Character, and Hard work. REACH is an elective class offered to students in grades 7-12. Students...

As a special end-of-year sale, Tugg Edu's is offering 15% off the best selling films PAPER TIGERS or RESILIENCE . PAPER TIGERS follows a year in the life of an alternative high school that has radically changed its approach to disciplining its students, becoming a promising model for how to break the cycles of poverty, violence and disease that affect families. RESILIENCE is the exceptional follow-up to Tugg Edu’s PAPER TIGERS . This feature documentary explores the science of Adverse...

Dear Colleagues, We are excited to announce a new job opportunity at the Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) of Klingberg Family Centers . The Program Coordinator is a senior-level position in a growing department that is a leader in the field of trauma-informed care. The Traumatic Stress Institute's mission is to foster healing relationships for survivors of trauma and adverse childhood experiences by promoting excellence in trauma-informed care (TIC). TSI began with implementation of...

In this age, the extent of a youngster’s world may be determined by the size of the video screen he or she is looking at — or the cellphone being used. Staffers at the Mountain Park Environmental Center in Beulah are seeking to change that culture. They want kids to pull out the earbuds. Hang up the cellphone. Turn off the TV. And reconnect with the great outdoors. While it may be difficult to break today’s teens of their plugged-in habits, younger children may be more receptive to the idea.

The goal of journalism, in the words of Carl Bernstein, is to provide the “best obtainable version of the truth.” This is hard to do. It’s not just a matter of sorting fact from fiction, dealing with “filter bubbles” and motivated denial of facts, or even contending with the public’s lack of trust for journalists. A deeper problem is that human beings tend to form our ideas about the world from the images that come to mind most readily. In other words, if you follow the news regularly — even...

We’re all familiar with the notion of psychological trauma — damage to an individual’s psyche caused by an extremely distressing event. But there’s also another kind of trauma: a collective disturbance that happens to a group of people when their world is suddenly upended. Consider the Buffalo Creek flood of 1972. In Buffalo Creek, a mountain hollow in West Virginia, a coal-mining company had deposited more than a million gallons of wastewater and sludge, checked by a rudimentary dam. Rain...