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Hi Everyone! Our first monthly chat is scheduled for May 9th. I'm so excited. The topic is great and so is our guest. I hope you can attend. Cissy Location: Online / Parenting with ACEs Group It’s hard to know if, when and how to talk to children about abuse, addiction and ACEs. How do we find the right words or time? Please join Beth O’Malley , our special guest for the first in our Parenting with ACEs chat series . Beth has dedicated her life to supporting kids, adoptees, parents and...

What if focusing on the negative side of every situation could have a toxic impact on those around you, particularly children, much in the same way that secondhand smoke is harmful to those in the same breathing space? Would you change your perspective? Tom Lottman, senior director of research-to-practice at Children, Inc. points out that the comparison is not a stretch. Back in 1998, as part of a $206 billion dollar settlement, major tobacco companies agreed to pay for advertising campaigns...

Rizi Manzon is a teacher, so naturally, he has a lot to worry about: a stack of homework assignments to grade, a week’s worth of culinary arts classes to prepare for, kitchen supplies to purchase on his own time and dime. And the assorted crises, dramas, and anxieties of the 36 teenagers in his care at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara. But unlike most public school educators in California’s Silicon Valley, one thing Manzon doesn’t need to worry about is how he’s going to pay rent this...

A bipartisan bill to fund the government through the end of September protects higher-education programs that are under threat from the 2018 White House budget proposal, setting the stage for a fight over appropriations before the end of the year. [ Congress reaches deal to keep government open through September ] The congressional budget agreement reached Sunday pares back total federal spending on education by $60 million, but upholds or increases funding for a series of higher-education...

I teach at the Millennium School, a new independent middle school located in the heart of San Francisco. Mindfulness and compassion are essential parts of our curriculum. Yet on November 9th—the day after the presidential election—the sixth-grade classroom I walked into was anything but calm or kind. What I noticed that morning was more troubling than understandable shock, anger, or confusion. In chorus with half the nation, our students voiced sentiments that had been reverberating across...

Hannah Baker has killed herself. So begins Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, a searing, melancholic 13-episode television series based off Jay Asher’s young adult novel of the same name, and produced in part by singer and actress Selena Gomez. The premise: Before committing suicide, a teenage girl records a number of cassette tapes calling out the role that other students at her high school had in driving her to the brink. After her death, her classmates are forced, one by one, to listen to them.

In most courts in the Cook County district, a person accused of a crime will have their case decided in a courtroom, by a judge. There’s little attempt to tackle any issues underlying the crime, and few alternatives to incarceration if they’re found guilty. A new court opening this summer in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood is looking to change that equation for some offenders. The Restorative Justice Community Court will offer select young people charged with non-violent felonies or...

Recently, I asked my 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old students what they thought all children need in order to grow up healthy and strong. They responded readily: Lots and lot of water. Fruits and vegetables. Love. Schools. Homes. Parents. A life. Stuff to play with. A 5-year-old went a step further: “Legos.” A 6-year-old snapped back. “Legos? You don’t need them, but you would want them.” The list my students generated around our meeting rug is remarkably similar to the list of rights named in the...

Like the sweet onions for which Walla Walla is famous, the story of this community's 10+ years of investment in becoming a Trauma-Informed Community has many layers. Teri Barila is the person widely recognized as the initial champion and catalyst for Walla Walla's trauma informed approach, after she attended a conference in 2007 where Rob Anda, one of the original authors of the ACEs study, challenged attendees to take the information he had presented about ACEs and "get something started in...

They arrived sharing the same goal of closing youth prisons, the same desire to address the racial and social disparities they see daily and the same belief that rehabilitating youth is always smarter and more moral than locking them away. Today’s Youth First conference could have been preaching to the choir of like-minded activists. Instead, speakers and organizers hoped to send attendees out with something they didn’t have: a blueprint to follow as they returned home to work with...

It was a particularly warm June day, and we were sitting at a kitchen table talking with a mother distraught about the recent arrest of her teenage son, who was being held pretrial at the adult jail in Philadelphia. After a few hours of conversation about the challenges that she, her son and other children had experienced, along with their shared traits of resilience and determination, she asked if we had just a few more minutes to take a look at something she had received in the mail. While...

Our lives may revolve around the sun—quite literally—but the same can’t be said for urban design. Cities have always reflected societal values; they are a physical reminder of our shared history—from the privileged space offered to churches in medieval towns to the democratic ideals embodied in Philadelphia’s grid. However, in an increasingly data-driven world, urban designers can now augment traditional approaches with analytical research. This approach is well-established in other fields,...