Blog

When I worked in juvenile justice I would often hear the rational for sending a youth to detention was to "teach a lesson" or "give the youth pause". Yes, detention is a service that is sometimes needed to protect a youth and protect the greater community from harm, however; it should not be leveraged to "teach a lesson" or "give pause". Consider how well using detention to teach a lesson works for a youth who has experienced ACEs and/or is in foster care. Detention teaches a lesson through-...

Pat Sidmore, our expert for all things data and ACEs and a planner for the Alaska Mental Health Board, Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, has collected new data that outlines when Alaska's children (0-17) acquire their ACEs. The slide below paints a pretty grim picture showing that our children are accumulating 50 percent of their ACEs before the age of 3, and more than 26% of them before the age of 1. Please feel free to share this slide as you see fit.

There's a health threat to kids that contributes to seven of the 10 leading causes of death and in high doses, dramatically increases the risk of heart disease, cancers, substance abuse, suicide and obesity. It's one that many doctors still pay little attention to, despite being treatable and often largely preventable. The threat: exposure to trauma as a child. If, for example, you witnessed violence, didn't have enough to eat, your parent abused drugs or alcohol, or you felt unsafe, this...

President Obama addressed the country’s growing opioid addiction epidemic at a panel discussion in Atlanta Tuesday, stressing to the 2,000-plus listeners that addiction is an illness and not a moral shortcoming. He also emphasized that more people are dying each year from opioid overdose than from car crashes. The panel, moderated by CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, featured a young man who shared his story of becoming addicted to opioids as a youth, according to attendees. [For...

Once each month a conference room in an employment center tucked in the corner of an office park becomes a one-stop shop for second chances. Scores of people who were formerly incarcerated or have had run-ins with the law come in search of help getting past their record. During the lunch hour, the visitors circle the room and meet government officials and nonprofit volunteers from the Capital Area Reentry Council , explaining their stories at great length or grabbing pamphlets as fast as...

Echo Parenting & Education Changing the Paradigm Conference 2016 “See it, believe it, act on it!” That was the exhortation at the end of the Building Trauma-Informed Schools & Communities conference last week. Around 250 people gathered to share experiences, best practices, questions and dreams as Echo hosted the first ever national conference on trauma-informed schools. We were fortunate to have many extraordinary thought leaders, including Dr. Ross Greene “Lost at School” and “The...

A hearing will be held April 2 on Alaska House Concurrent Resolution 21 (HCR 21) to respond to adverse childhood experiences. The resolution is very similar to those passed in Wisconsin and California . Testimony will be heard in the Health and Social Services Committee on the bill introduced by Representative Geran Tarr. In her statement about the bill , Tarr calls on Governor Walker “to establish policy and programs to address the public and behavioral health epidemic of adverse childhood...

Often shouted in anger or groaned in disdain, the question “What’s wrong with you?!” rarely leads to an honest answer about a person’s life or experiences. That’s because it’s the wrong question to ask and the answer is complicated. A new pilot program in Black Hawk County hopes to change that interaction between two people, and in turn, create a stronger community and healthier children. The community-based child abuse prevention response to ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, project...

Jeffrey Pendleton was found dead in a jail cell in Manchester, New Hampshire, on March 13. His death can be chalked up to a number of issues: the paradox of overbearing yet negligent policing, America’s addiction to criminalizing the poor and homeless, the uninhabitable conditions of local jails , and how cities make bank from those paradoxes, bigotries and conditions. His death also illuminates how the ridiculously paltry wages inside the food-service sector leave its workers vulnerable to...

Say you have a problem child. If it’s a toddler, maybe he smacks his siblings. Or she refuses to put on her shoes as the clock ticks down to your morning meeting at work. If it’s a teenager, maybe he peppers you with obscenities during your all-too-frequent arguments. The answer is to punish them, right? Not so, says Alan Kazdin, director of the Yale Parenting Center. Punishment might make you feel better, but it won’t change the kid’s behavior. Instead, he advocates for a radical technique...

Last week, the New York City Council passed a number of changes to the city's zoning code, including a mandatory inclusionary housing provision that will require new private housing developments built in the city to permanently include units for low-income renters. The changes were proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio as part of his administration's affordable housing initiative, and are intended to ease the city's affordable housing crisis. The administration describes the housing plan as "a...

Mike Lamb, Washington, DC Executive Director of Turnaround for Children , alerted me to this interesting Cover Story in The Christian Science Monitor about how Scott Gordon, chief executive officer of Mastery Charter Schools comprised of 21 charter schools in Philadelphia, has shifted his “no excuses” approach to a “trauma-informed” approach to discipline. The article by Sarah Garland reports: Classrooms and hallways are still orderly, but suspension is now a last resort. Mastery instead...