Blog

This week I had the pleasure of speaking at the 15th Annual Cynthia Lockhart Mummery Conference: Understanding Intergenerational Trauma Please contact me if you are planning a conference in 2021 whether in person or virtual. I wanted to share some of the comments I received from those in the audience: I loved it, she provided so much insight in how we can help build resiliency in children. I appreciate all you do. I too live your life every day. Very interesting - a lot of good information...

Dina Burstein, positiveexperience.org/blog, 11/24/20 Thanksgiving in 2020 is proving to be very challenging for many families. The dangers of spreading Covid-19 to loved ones is keeping families apart, and many are facing significant economic challenges. Yet, we know families and children across the nation are finding ways to safely create positive experiences, too. To spotlight these efforts, the HOPE team sought out some stories of HOPE for this Thanksgiving, and we want to share them with...

A college student on Twitter shared a pre-Thanksgiving e-mail she and her classmates received from a professor, and it's just the best example of real human-kindness. It reads: "Good morning. I know this has been a difficult time for a lot of you—some of you have had Covid, some of you are currently in quarantine, and some of you may not be able to go home for Thanksgiving as you have family members who are socially distancing. I don't want anyone to feel alone at Thanksgiving, or to miss...

Dovetail Learning has launched its next round of We Are Resilient™ trainings. We Are Resilient™ is a practical hands-on approach to strengthening resilience , designed to aid screeners, healthcare providers, and staff to be more comfortable addressing ACEs and trauma and provide trauma-informed care. The training helps providers manage their own vicarious trauma and provides anticipatory guidance to support patients /caregivers in strengthening their own resilience skills. Training choices...

This week, we are taking an opportunity to reflect on the 400 years of the genocide of the Native American people and our nation’s tragic history of theft and appropriation. Native people continue to face striking health care disparities that threaten their survival and expose our collective failure to honor the lands and culture that we have and continue to benefit from. For more information on the struggle of Native people to protect the beauty and wisdom of their way of life and to...

The Attachment & Trauma Network is excited to announce that our 4th Annual Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools Conference will include, for the first time, a track for parents and caregivers. This "Parent-Track" includes all 4 Keynote Speakers, Special Guest Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a choice of 12 workshops and a special event. The cost for registering in the Parent-Track is $150.00. Scholarships are available, made possible by a grant from The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. For more...

Whether you work in a hospital, a safety net clinic, or in another health care setting, no health care provider working during the COVID-19 pandemic needs to read the flurry of news stories that highlight the extreme stress experienced by people in this line of work – you already know it firsthand. This webinar will introduce health care providers to the Community Resiliency Model ( CRM ), an evidence-based method of managing traumatic stress, preventing burnout and building resiliency. This...

What if your dreams weren’t just dreams? What if, despite childhood trauma, we could have that life that we fantasize about? Would you take the chance to find out, or are you too paralyzed by fear? I remember lying on my bedroom floor and feeling the concrete beneath me on frigid cold winter nights and thinking to myself that there must be something more out there. Growing up in poverty and abuse is a surefire way to either engulf or ignite a child’s dream. I looked at my life as a...

When Leigh M. Ragsdale-Knoderer took over as principal of Jefferson Elementary, a public school in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, she was committed to helping reduce disciplinary actions. With a background as a teacher at an alternative school, Ragsdale-Knoderer felt that discipline, such as suspension, wasn’t always the right response to negative student behavior like substance misuse or abuse. “It goes deeper than coming to school under the influence,” she said, noting that there were substance...

The Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention received a grant from the Alabama Department of Mental Health in July and partnered with the Alabama Network of Family Resource Centers to provide 23 virtual training on Strengthening Families™- Preventing and Addressing Trauma in the months of August and September. The one-day training session was upbeat and interactive. At the end of the day, participants had a broader understanding of the long-term effects of ACEs and...

As we approach Thanksgiving, we are also approaching the anniversary of the first #COVID case. It is the first of many difficult anniversaries ahead. Please consider taking this course at Rutgers Graduate School of Social Work on how to manage trauma anniversaries -- from the pandemic to death to illness to school shootings to natural disasters. Sadly, these will be upon us all. Concrete strategies provided. Dec. 9 -- from 9 til noon. Reasonably priced. Valuable for educators, psychologists,...

Some days you just don’t got it. And that’s ok. You know, I get tired of these rah-rah cheerleaders who are always telling us that everything is lovely all the time. It’s not. And why the hell can’t we be OK with the fact that it isn’t always going to be fine? Some days life is fucking hard! Some days your husband leaves you, your cat dies, you burn the frozen pizza, your mom calls you, your bike gets stolen, and you drink too much coffee, so during that work meeting, you have to excuse...