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Mytrae Meliana (pronounced “My-thray-yee”) is a holistic psychotherapist, trauma expert, speaker, author, and women's empowerment and spiritual teacher. She mentors women to heal from trauma, detox from patriarchy, and claim their truth, power, heart, and purpose.

By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, August 6, 2020 When Amistad continuation high school closed its campus in March due to the pandemic, the staff went into overdrive to stay in touch with students. They called all 205. If a student’s phone was disconnected, they went to the student’s house. If no one answered, they asked neighbors. “The effort was relentless,” said David Gustafson, principal of the public school in Indio, near Palm Springs, that serves students who’ve been expelled or are at risk...

By Brentin Mock, Bloomberg CityLab, August 6, 2020 A group of several hundred urban planners is calling for the largest U.S. planning organization to support defunding the police. While this kind of reform may seem in the purview of criminal justice policymakers, the planners lay out in a letter to the American Planning Association how neighborhoods that were racially segregated by a range of planning policies have become further denigrated by police violence and harassment of Black people —...

By Ibram X. Kendi, The Atlantic, September 2020 Marine One waited for the president of the United States on the South Lawn of the White House. It was July 30, 2019, not long past 9 a.m. Donald Trump was headed to historic Jamestown to mark the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly of European settlers in the Americas. But Black Virginia legislators were boycotting the visit. Over the preceding two weeks, the president had been engaged in one of the most racist political...

By Alden Woods, ProPublica, August 9, 2020 A couple of months after Kimasha Shorty’s son started sixth grade at an Arizona public middle school, his teachers called her at home. He had trouble adding and subtracting and was struggling to read at grade level. Shorty didn’t understand how it was possible that her oldest child could be so far behind after leaving Wide Ruins Community School , the sole elementary school in an area of about 1,000 residents at the southern edge of the Navajo...

Last Friday I went live on air on Dave Congalton's Hometown Radio, local to San Luis Obispo, CA to discuss ACEs, Mary Trump's new book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man about the Trump family legacy of trauma, and ACEs Connection's Jane Stevens' latest article . I received the full spectrum of live callers: folks who were happy to better understand their own childhood trauma as well as those who staunchly defended Trump's family values. Listen to...

From The Office of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, August 5, 2020 Today Governor Gretchen took action to elevate Black voices in state government, signing Executive Order 2020-163, which creates the Black Leadership Advisory Council. The governor also signed Executive Directive 2020-9, recognizing racism as a public health crisis and taking initial steps to address it within state government. Under the Executive Directive, the governor asked MDHHS to make health equity a major goal, as well as...

When I first learned about ACEs science, I was working for the local police department as the Director of a crime prevention program. This program was aimed at reducing drug related and violent crime by strengthening community partnerships. Our efforts yielded 19 crime prevention programs implemented by 35 community agencies. Together we reduced crime by 40% in one neighborhood, and pioneered a first probation program of its kind in Tennessee to reduce recidivism. At the end of the grant in...

Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. Friday, August 14th, 2020 12pm PT // 1pm MT // 2pm CT // 3pm ET Hosted by Alison Cebulla and facilitated by Cissy White of ACEs Connection with Guest Nick Larson, lead singer of band Próxima Parada. >>Click here to register<< "Before any of us had the vocabulary to define ACEs [ACEs = adverse childhood experiences], we were using music as the...

By Alyssa Dykman, Public Policy Institute of California, August 5, 2020 Three crises facing the nation—COVID-19, systemic racism, and the economic recession—have placed environmental justice in the spotlight. Disparities across the environment, the economy, and COVID-19 are inextricably linked to race/ethnicity and disproportionally affect communities of color. At the same time, people of color are more likely than whites to be concerned about these inequities. PPIC’s latest survey on...

Greetings! My name is Severine Hollingsworth, I am the Community Liaison for BAART Programs and MedMark Treatment Centers. We offer outpatient opioid medication assisted treatment (MAT) in three convenient locations in the greater Sacramento area (see attached flyer). We provide counseling, ease of access, continuum of care and community referrals to benefit our patients. We are collaborative in all aspect of our communities from mental health, drug and alcohol rehab to reentry programs. Our...

By UCSF White Coats for Black Lives, July 26, 2020 To Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: As doctors, nurses and healthcare workers of California, we write to you today in outrage at the conditions of the California Prison system. With 2,401 COVID-19 cases and 17 deaths, the outbreak at San Quentin is now the second largest in the nation. This is a public health crisis — one that impacts not only those Californians who are currently...