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I was told I have to go to another meeting for me. I’m sick of meetings. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve gone to where I’ve seen the same faces talking about the same things (usually how I’m not living up to someone’s expectations or how I’m still displaying some kind of “behavior”). I hate this. My progress is a number on a piece of paper. I’m on some kind of level and I have to be on another level before I can do some things I’d LIKE to do – and I’m told I don’t have a choice...

There are many people who spread information about the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs, as defined by ( https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/ ), and how it brings light to society’s darkest problems of relationship. When a child suffers trauma, the residual damage often shows up throughout life as the inability to engage in great relationships. Yet, having an ability to enjoy interaction with other humans is everyone’s goal. How can something so simple be so...

I am reading Nadine Burke Harris’s Book: The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity . I will often come across a passage that resonates so deeply with my own life that I have to put the book down and just breathe. The reason for my pause is not about my own Adverse Childhood Experiences, although I have a few; it is because I recognize the path she is on. I first heard about Adverse Childhood Experiences from another professional in my field of practice, prenatal...

Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...

Just over a week after California officials found 13 malnourished siblings allegedly held captive and apparently not missed by schools because they were being home-schooled, home-schooling advocates say they are bracing for calls for stricter oversight of the practice. The advocates say they were horrified by accusations that the children’s parents kept them shackled in a filthy home in the Southern California city of Ferris, and some said they support mandatory medical visits or regular...

Parents do not uproot their children to make a long and dangerous journey to an uncertain future in the U.S. unless the circumstances in their home country are so threatening that the risks of migration pale in comparison to more certain risks at home. They leave their homes, other family members, schools, churches and familiar communities because they feel they must. In December 2017, the Trump Administration proposed a new policy of separating immigrant children from parents entering the...

In an interview with Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg last month, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones talked about how liberal-leaning white Americans may claim to believe in racial equality and integration, but they act in ways that maintain inequality and segregation. Case in point: where they send their kids to school. In many U.S. cities, enrollment in urban public schools is dominated by kids from lower-income households, often black and Latino. More affluent white urbanites who’ve moved to...

Marlyn Perez had no choice but to take the job at C&C Agricultural Farms in Clewiston, Florida. She was new to farming, new to America, undocumented, and desperately in need of money. Perez had just come from Guatemala. She had worked briefly at another farm in North Carolina, harvesting sweet potatoes, but when she got to C&C, a farm located in a remote area called Devil’s Garden, she “saw pretty quickly this was a different situation.” When she didn’t receive her full pay the first...

I didn’t realize until relatively recently how much my view of things is shaped by childhood. I took the position, until I went into therapy, that at age 42, all of my problems had to do with the present. But they don’t. Even my therapist said that my mother did the best she could, and I believed that and, frankly, thought I should just make do with what she did give me and muddle through. But that’s not the answer, I now realize. Reading this book has made me realize how much I am getting...

Years of scolding from health experts about a good night’s rest may be breaking through. Americans are finally getting more sleep — about 18 minutes more per weeknight compared with 2003. It may not sound like much, but researchers say it’s a positive sign. “If we only got more sleep, we would then see that we actually perform better and would probably be more creative and more productive during the day,” said Dr. Mathias Basner, the associate professor of sleep and chronobiology in...

Fanny Ortiz, a mother of five who lives just east of downtown Los Angeles, spent nearly a decade married to a man who controlled her and frequently threatened her. Then, she said, his abuse escalated. “He would physically hit me in the face, throw me on the wall,” she recalled. Ortiz, 43, eventually left the marriage, taking her children with her. A few years later, she learned that the East Los Angeles Women’s Center offered domestic violence services at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical...

Twenty-six individuals from multiple sectors across the state were selected to participate in a training and learning community around building self-healing communities. Participants spent two days with Dr. Robert Anda, Laura Porter, and Kathy Adams learning about the impacts of trauma, the ACE study, and how to support positive change within a community. The energy in the room was palpable. Over the course of two days, not only did the group gain knowledge, but a community was formed. So...