Blog

In the introduction to his beautiful book The Body Keeps The Score , psychiatrist Bessel Van der Kolk writes: “One does not need to be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to encounter trauma. Trauma happens to us, our friends, our families and our neighbours.” Trauma is the result of overwhelming situations that exceed our ability to cope or process the emotions they generate. Memories are typically stored in what is known as declarative memory , which you might...

Gloria Sandoval, former Executive Director of STAND! For Families Free of Violence discusses hope for those experiencing abuse and the power of community partnerships.

The Third Annual Capital District Symposium on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma, and Response (2016). Photo credit: LaSalle School _______________________________ More and more people in the Albany region now know that HEARTS means something more than the muscle pulsing inside their chests. At a meeting last year of regional health care providers, “I was told that the HEARTS Initiative came up, and people had heard of it,” says Heather Larkin, Associate Professor at the University of...

CII is pleased to announce that as a follow-up to our 2016 Fatherhood Summit, our 10th Annual Fatherhood Solution Conference will be themed: Fatherhood Roadblocks: Race, Culture, Masculinity and Systems

I am adopted. I am grateful everyday my parents adopted me without knowing anything about me. Today I received a "booklet" which features stories and photographs of children waiting to be adopted. Some of the things written are " Imagine your Thanksgiving meal- the love of a family, the joyful sharing of stories, the clinking of dishes as a mountain of mashed potatoes and turkey are piled high on plates. Did it make you smile? Then (insert child's name) is a perfect fit for y our home. She...

When a long-awaited study on whether the San Diego Police Department engages in racial profiling finally dropped in late November, the results were unsurprising: It found that black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched, though they were less likely to actually have contraband items, and that minority drivers were more likely to be subjected to field interviews. [For more of this story, written by Kelly Davis, go to ...

Few Americans fully appreciate just how many of their fellow citizens are ensnared in the criminal justice system. Some may have heard that there are about 2.3 million people behind bars , but that figure tells only part of the story. Yes, in a stunning array of 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails and 76 Indian Country jails, as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers and prisons in...

The U.S. has one of the largest income-based health disparities in the world, according to a new paper out in the journal Health Affairs. Among the poorest third of Americans studied, 38.2 percent report being in “fair or poor” health, compared with 12.3 percent of the richest third. Only Chile and Portugal have a larger income-based gap in the health status of their citizens. Most of the 32 nations studied had income-based differences in how healthy their citizens are. Only in Japan and...

The cost of imprisoning each of California’s 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year. That’s enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over for pizza and beer Gov. Jerry Brown ’s spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because voters in November approved earlier...

The issue: When children in the United States are abused or neglected, government agencies sometimes remove them from their homes and place them in foster care with the goal of providing a safer, more stable environment. In late 2015, an estimated 427,910 kids were in foster care nationwide, according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Researchers have estimated that 6 percent of all U.S. children will enter foster care before age 18, including 12 percent...

Wisconsin has been on the leading edge of trauma informed transformation at the state level for more than a decade, but when First Lady Tonette Walker took this on as her platform issue, the work advanced with new momentum. In partnership with Fostering Futures , Mrs. Walker has been working to prevent trauma and address adverse childhood experiences . While the work in Wisconsin continues, Mrs. Walker has her sights set even higher, now advocating to promote change at the federal level and...

When we feel bad, we often turn to others for help and support. And when others come to us in pain, we do our best to help them feel better. This natural cycle seems to be part of the human experience. Now, two new studies suggest that trying to make people feel better not only supports them—it allows us to practice emotional skills that may help us with our own problems. While negative emotions feel isolating and personal, the best way to deal with them may be profoundly social. Both...