Blog

Over the course of 15 years of research, I and my team at Sharpen have created a comprehensive system to help school districts accomplish all of the recommendations released in yesterday's report from Dept of Ed; including: enhancing mental health literacy, reducing stigma about mental disorders, implementing evidence-based prevention practices and establishing an Integrated Framework of social, emotional and behavioral health support.

Aligning Resources Across Georgia To Support Resiliency To Our Resilient Georgia Partners and Stakeholders: Please join us along with storyteller Chrishaunda Lee Perez for our two-year anniversary virtual celebration an intimate discussion about mental wellness, resilience, and perseverance with Georgia native, World Class Track and Field Athlete, and 2021 Olympian Kenny Selmon on Thu, October 28th from 11 am to 12:30 pm ET. We are so proud of athletes across the board who are speaking up...

By Mariel Padilla, The 19th*, October 15, 2021 In his early career as a law enforcement officer, Vernon Stanforth, the president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said he often saw arrests of grandfathers, fathers and sons of the same family — a generational cycle of incarceration. Now, he’s also seeing grandmothers, mothers and daughters enter the cycle. “Many of our children are being raised by grandparents, and I think today we’re even seeing some of our small children being raised...

By Eleanor Cummins, The Atlantic, October 18, 2021 Nothing about The Body Keeps the Score screams “best seller.” Written by the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, the book is a graphic account of his decades-long career treating survivors of traumatic experiences such as rape, incest, and war. Page after page, readers are asked to wrestle with van der Kolk’s theory that trauma can sever the connection between the mind, which wants to forget what happened, and the body, which can’t. The book...

By Carolyn Jones, October 19, 2021 F ormerly incarcerated students who wrote letters to their teachers — describing their hopes and dreams, asking for a second chance — were less than half as likely as their peers to return to jail, a Stanford University study found. Researchers spent two years working with about 50 students in Oakland Unified who had spent time in the county’s juvenile justice system and had recently returned to their regular schools. Researchers asked the students to write...

Trauma Informed Care Practioners, Dr. Warren Larkin of the United Kingdom and Becky Haas of the United States are teaming up to host a third session of the Global Resiliency Accelerator. Past events have been attended by ACEs community builders from as many as 14 countries. In this meeting, Warren and Becky will present on the topic Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) - Using Enquiry, Assessment or a Universal Precaution Approach based on their experiences working with...

There's a lot of talk about policies and understanding ACES, but there doesn't seem to be enough talk about how a person behaves in a trauma informed fashion. Like: "What do I have to do to be trauma informed?"

Tifanie Petro, director of advocacy and prevention at the Children's Home Child Advocacy Center, said the findings align with past research. She added the state is doing more to raise awareness about the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

By Margaret Coker and Hannah Knowles, The Washington Post, October 17, 2021 The weekend before the trial of three White men accused of killing a Black man in what some have called a modern-day lynching, civil rights lawyer Gerald A. Griggs stood outside the county courthouse here and reminded the mostly Black crowd of what they have already accomplished. “We no longer intend to beg for justice. We demand it. We expect it,” he said Saturday, more than a year and a half after Ahmaud Arbery was...

By Chris McGreal, The Guardian, October 16, 2021 Serge Dedina is a surfer, environmentalist and mayor of Imperial Beach, a small working-class city on the California coast. He is also, if the fossil fuel industry is to be believed, at the heart of a conspiracy to shake down big oil for hundreds of millions of dollars. ExxonMobil and its allies have accused Dedina of colluding with other public officials across California to extort money from the fossil-fuel industry. Lawyers even searched...

Transforming Trauma Episode 054: Men’s Groups, Toxic Masculinity and Developmental Trauma with Dr. Martin Lemon In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Brad Kammer, Senior Faculty and Training Director of the NARM Training Institute, is joined by Dr. Martin Lemon, a clinical psychologist who has been practicing in Chicago's western suburbs for more than 25 years. Dr. Lemon’s work focuses on the psychology of men and male identity. Beginning in 2006, Dr. Lemon developed a specific approach...

By Jim Salter nd Claudia Lauer, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 18, 2021 Gun violence is killing an increasing number of American children , from toddlers caught in crossfires to teenagers gunned down in turf wars, drug squabbles or for posting the wrong thing on social media. Shootings involving children and teenagers have been on the rise in recent years, and 2021 is no exception. Experts say idleness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shares the blame with easy access to guns...