Blog

Dr. Damon Francis doesn’t shy away from sparring with a room full of journalists when he thinks the media is getting the story all wrong. Delivering the keynote to nearly two dozen reporters at the 2019 California Fellowship , Francis took the profession to task for perpetuating damaging myths about homelessness while overlooking root causes and the historical context that explain today’s crisis. Francis is an assistant clinical professor at UC San Franciso and serves as the chief clinical...

A controversial theory is swaying family court judges to award custody to parents accused of harming kids. We trace the origins of “parental alienation” and learn how it has spawned a cottage industry of so-called family reunification camps that are making big profits from broken families. [For more on this story by Trey Bundy. Reported by Bundy and Whitney Clegg, go to https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/bitter-custody/ ]

It will come as no surprise to you that childhood trauma, particularly unresolved trauma, can lead to mental health issues and addiction later in life. While less was known about the specific correlation in decades past, today we have a pretty good understanding of just how damaging adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can be on development and coping. The first few years of life are full of many important developmental milestones in terms of brain pathways, attachment , coping mechanisms...

US-based paediatrician Nadine Burke-Harris had a glut of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) cases at the clinic where she worked in Bayview, a poor area in San Francisco. She felt in her bones that these cases didn’t come out of the blue, and were directly linked to high levels of toxic stress in the community. Toxic stress, experienced through consistent exposure to violence, abuse and the consequences of poverty and inequality, has a lasting effect on the brain, notably in the...

Kathy Reiner is a Colorado school nurse who champions climate justice. She is clear that the science is irrefutable and what is needed is immediate action. I learned of her passion for saving our planet through her tweets. Kathy showed me why climate change is an issue for school nurses. Follow Kathy Reiner on Twitter and you will learn to view the issue of climate justice through a nursing lens. One example is Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, an organization I learned about...

POETRY SPEAKS WILL YOU LISTEN? RESPONSE TO THE NIHILISTIC QUESTION WHAT’S THE POINT & DOES ANYTHING MATTER? WALKING TOGETHER WE MANIFEST HUMANITY MY MIND MATTERS! YOUR MIND MATTERS! HANDS EMBRACING HANDS HEARTS TOUCHING HEARTS FEAR & ISOLATION MELTING AWAY ENLIGHTENED BY INNER LIGHTS GLOW HEALING ALL BROKENESS CREATING SACRED WHOLENESS EMPATHY’S POWER IS PROFOUND LEARNING WE GROW & CHANGE LIVING BRAVELY WE LEARN TO LET GO THANKFULLY WE LEARN TO LET BE LOVE’S COURAGE IMAGINES...

According to many sources in the mainstream medical literature , anywhere from 60-90% of illnesses have stress-related emotional underpinnings, which can be translated into one word—trauma. Indigenous healers, shamans, energy healers, and gurus have known this for millennia, but in spite of statistics thrown around in medical journals, the medical community’s approach to disease treatment has been slow to catch up. The good news is that things are changing, and this idea that...

Do you ever get STUCK in thoughts of the trauma you endured in your childhood -- and of all the hardships that hindered you as a result? It's almost like being hypnotized... the dark thoughts cast a spell that makes it almost impossible to imagine feeling better. But there is a way to break the spell. In this video I talk about the powerful idea that stopped my trauma-thinking, making a soft and quiet space where I became aware of the little sparks of hope and goodness all around. Anyone can...

By A. Hosack, P. Berman, & K. Hecht Davy had been going to Head Start for months now ; sometimes he fussed getting ready, but he always seemed happy when he got off the bus at the end of the day. Claire has been going to some parenting programs Head Start offered on the weekends. She was learning a lot and had begun to trust Davy’s teachers and the program -- they really understood kids! When Claire thought back on the night when Larry hurt Davy, she felt th a t a ll the problems were...

I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down with this compassionate soul whom I personally consider to be a trauma-informed guru in the trauma movement. Thank you, Jim Sporleder (I now know how to properly pronounce your name! Ha!) for all you have done and continue to do to spread awareness about the critical need of becoming trauma-informed individuals so as to meet the growing need in our schools and society.

You can do the work necessary to live fully alive in spite of ACEs. It takes persistence, a constant connection to the part of you that knows without a doubt that you can heal, that you no longer want to just survive among the living dead. Sometimes it’s messy and even painful to resolve but from my perspective it’s totally worth it. Feel that primal urge inside you to come alive and live authentically whatever that means to you. Back then you had to compromise to survive. Now it’s time to f

This initiative will develop, pilot, evaluate and implement an evidence-based, infant mortality-focused home visiting curriculum to support maternal and infant health, prenatally through age one. Who: NICHQ is working in partnership with these Ohio organizations: Ohio Department of Health; Stacy Scott, PhD, MPA, of the Baby 1st Network and the Global Infant Safe Sleep Center; and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Two communities will pilot the model. Funder: The project is funded by the Ohio...