Blog

By Andrea Harris Smith, Photo: Jared Soares, The Guardian, February 21, 2023 I’m sitting in the auditorium at my children’s elementary school. On stage is a multiracial group of kids in a circle singing a K-pop song – in Korean – for the annual talent show. The gym floor that doubles as theatre seating is full of parents, teachers, caregivers and supporters of all kinds. I scan the demographics in the room like a statistician, curious at how diverse it is. Craning my head to discern how many...

By Michael Wines, Photo: Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press, The New York Times, February 20, 2023 Mississippi’s struggling capital has been a favored target of Republican leaders since the G.O.P. took total control of the state a decade ago. But perhaps none of the slings and arrows flung at Jackson has provoked as much outrage as the one the state House of Representatives loosed earlier this month. Legislators approved a bill that would establish a separate court system for roughly...

By Andrew Van Dam, Image: From article, The Washington Post, February 17 2023 Today, we look at a big, fat map of credit scores reproduced from a recent economics paper . And while the map suggests any number of tantalizing questions, we are most intrigued by that big band of credit-score calamity that stretches across the American South. Almost every corner of America’s most populous region — every race, every income bracket — appears to have low credit scores. But why? With precious few...

By Erum Salam, Photo: Robert Kneschke/Getty Images/EyeEm, The Guardian, February 21, 2023 Local news organizations across the United States need to be given serious government financial help, especially in the form of tax breaks, in order to stave off a crisis in the media sector and help save US democracy, a leading advocate for non-profit journalism has said. Steven Waldman, co-founder of Report for America, said a new initiative, called Rebuild Local News, wanted to revitalize hundreds of...

By Anna Cooban, Image: Screenshot from article, CNN Business, February 21, 2023 Men participating in the world’s biggest trial of a four-day work week spent much more time with their children, organizers say. For six months starting in June last year, about 2,900 workers across 61 companies in the United Kingdom worked 80% of their usual hours — for the same pay — in exchange for promising to deliver 100% of their usual work. That is the biggest number of companies to ever take part in such...

Use the trauma lens when you approach the keyboard for writing that's hope focused rather than trauma inducing.

Estimated Deaths Attributable to Excessive Alcohol Use Among US Adults Aged 20 to 64 Years, 2015 to 2019 Marissa B. Esser, ET AL, JAMA NetwORK Open. 2022;5(11):e2239485. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.39485 Question What is the estimated proportion of deaths among US adults aged 20 to 64 years attributable to excessive alcohol consumption, and are there differences by sex, age, and US state? Findings The estimates in this cross-sectional study of 694 660 mean deaths per year between 2015...

Early Head Start/Head Start American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act grant recipients are facing challenges regarding how to spend down ARP funding by March 31, 2023. While initial funds were a critical lifeline to child care programs during the worst of the pandemic, there's still plenty that can be done to create stability in programs for the long-term; grant recipients know the importance of building workplace environments that are safe, equitable, trustworthy, and that support healing. At the...

I am so grateful to be a happy, relieved, published author! I hope you'll join me to celebrate the launch of my new book at my book launch party tonight on Zoom at 6pm. You must register to get the zoom link: https://lnkd.in/grjDgWqH There will be free giveaways, special trauma warrior guests Teri Wellbrock Kamphaus Wellbrock, Carey Sipp & Andi Fetzner Psy.D. Fetzner and tons of FUN! #CPTSDHealing #ComplexTraumaRecovery #CptsdAddiction #CptsdAlcoholic #EmotionalHealingProcess...

Combining three generations of family experience with ACES research and positive psychology, THE WINNING FAMILY helps prevent dysfunctional behaviors and discipline problems from the inside out.

Together with Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, Prevent Child Abuse-NJ will be hosting a mini conference on March 6th, 9am to 1pm at the Middlesex County Fire Academy in Sayreville. Our conference is titled “It Takes a Village: Supporting Early Parenting.” We will have some great speakers including our keynote speaker, Hilary Waller, who is the Director of Education and Programming and a psychotherapist at The Postpartum Stress Center. There is a $20 registration fee but scholarships...

In 2016, on the "old" ACEsConnection site, I posed the question: Was Jesus' ministry trauma-Informed? What resulted was a definition for a trauma-informed ministry that has been used and cited by others (based on the SAMHSA guidelines for a trauma-informed organization), a post that has been viewed over 4,000 times ( LINK ) and a curriculum that I wrote as part of my doctoral program at Multnomah Biblical Seminary in Portland, Oregon: Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks . It is an eight-week...