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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter September 2021 Healing the Mind, Body & Spirit Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran Hi Folks, Twenty years ago today at this time of the morning I was getting ready to leave for Ellenville, New York to perform and speak at the Annual New York Association of...

This article was first published in RACMonitor and appears with explicit permission. Another week, another report on Americans facing concerning access to basic human needs. This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its annual report, Household Food Security in the United States in 2020 . Data for the report was collected from 34,330 households in December 2020, though at first glance, this is misleading. While 89.5 percent of U.S. households were “food secure” at that...

A moving and interesting piece that explores the role of trauma in the lives of urban Black youth: https://www.teenink.com/nonfiction/academic/article/1136976/The-Notorious-Big-Had-It-Right

By The HOPE Team, 9/15/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Each person is an individual with essential human dignity. Our society, however, continues to struggle with persistent racism. Today, we have posted a new statement about how HOPE intends to infuse an understanding of race, racism, and anti-racism into our work. Beyond individual biases, systems perpetuate inequity via systemic racism, endangering the health of children and families of color . HOPE core faculty member Dr. Baraka Floyd...

By Dr. Jeff Linkenbach, Director / Research Scientist at The Montana Institute & Co-Investigator at HOPE Center HOPE – Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences emerged by applying the Science of the Positive framework to child maltreatment prevention. I have had the honor of co-developing HOPE through initial conceptualization and research which occurred through involvement the CDC’s three-year Knowledge-to-Action (K2A) think tank on The Essentials for Childhood framework in the...

By Conal Hanna, the Guardian, September 13, 2021 The dawning realisation of my limitations as a parent came in the aftermath of a(nother) pre-swimming meltdown. My son was approaching four at the time but still swam like a baby. That might sound harsh but I mean it literally – he was still in the “parent and bub” class splashing alongside six-month-olds. What’s more, his stubborn resistance to the class was growing by the week. We had tried seemingly everything. Lots of cuddles, reassurance,...

By Heather Long and Amy Goldstein , the Washington Post, September 14, 2021 U.S. poverty fell overall in 2020, a surprising decline that is largely a result of the swift and large federal aid that Congress enacted at the start of the pandemic to try to prevent widespread financial hardship as the nation experienced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. Census reported that the official poverty rate rose slightly in 2020 to 11.4 percent, up from a record low 10.5...

By Melinda D. Anderson, the Guardian, September 14, 2021 H istory teacher Valanna White filed into the auditorium the first week of August for the customary back-to-school all-staff meeting at Walker Valley high school in Cleveland, Tennessee. What she heard shifted her outlook for the coming school year. On 1 July, a new law took effect banning the teaching of critical race theory in Tennessee public schools. White listened intently as a school district official gave a vague overview...

By Brady Dennis and Adam Taylor , the Washington Post, September 14, 2021 Nearly three-quarters of residents of countries with some of the world’s most advanced economies worry that climate change will one day create suffering in their own lives, according to a far-reaching survey published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The findings, based on responses from a representative sample of nearly 20,000 people in 17 countries spanning North America, Europe and Asia, underscore growing...

The word trauma is so important to help those who suffer from emotional injury. Yet people so often think of trauma as only including physical or sexual injury. Many overlook its role in their overall health and quality of life. They don’t know they are struggling with a changed nervous system that leads to a wide range of physical and emotional symptoms. Confusion about the emotional injury we call trauma is a barrier to care. That’s why it’s important to help more people understand the...

Trauma can take many forms. You may have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most people have at least heard of PTSD, as it relates to veterans. Did you know it impacts many others as well? Have you heard of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD or CPTSD )? People often ask how CPTSD and PTSD are similar and different. I want to help more people have a deeper understanding of what they are experiencing and ultimately get the help they deserve. My goal, as a...