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Free Interactive Webinar on Building Positive Relationships with Children who have Experienced Trauma. Perfect for professionals, parents, foster-parents, and teachers. Meets Tuesday nights from March 23rd to May 11th from 5 to 7:30 pm central time. The curriculum is aligned with the NCTSN, has TF-CBT components, and is researched based. Please e-mail Rhonda Rude by March 12th if you are interested in attending, it's an amazing training!

Family Estrangement (FE) is an emotional distancing and cessation of communication between one or more members of a family. It is the breakdown of the support from and to a person who can no longer trust their family to be on their side any longer.

Trauma-informed community networks throughout Virginia are beginning planning for Resilience Week VA 2021, May 2-8. Last year, Governor Ralph Northam signed the first Resilience Week VA proclamation , and there were many wonderful initiatives and events throughout the Commonwealth. Communities and individuals showed up in exciting and innovative ways to creatively celebrate the week in the wake of a global pandemic that shifted the way we are able to engage with one another. Now a year into...

By Joshua Vaughn, The Appeal, January 28, 1978 A new working paper from researchers at Duke University has found that policies that secured access to housing and utilities like water and electricity played a major role in preventing COVID-19 infections and deaths. Counties with a moratorium on evictions reduced county-level infections by nearly 4 percent and led to 11 percent fewer deaths, the paper found. And policies that prevented the disconnection of utilities like water and electricity...

From Prevention Institute, February 2021 Catastrophic events like the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, or other disasters can cause major upheaval in the lives of individuals and communities as a whole, disrupting the social fabric and cutting people off from much needed support. Preventing trauma and suicide under these conditions, and in the long term, requires dedicated attention and resources. Where do I start? The CDC’s Suicide Prevention Technical Package (link is external) and Adverse...

By Karen D'Souza, EdSource, February 24, 2021 Even before the pandemic pushed the early childhood sector into crisis, California educators were paying a wage penalty for working with younger children, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at the University of California at Berkeley. Preschool teachers and child care workers earn 38% less than their colleagues in the K-8 system, the report says. This explains why 17% of early childhood...

By Whittney Evans and Ben Paviour, National Public Radio, February 25, 2021 Virginia is on the verge of legalizing recreational marijuana for adults and trying to learn from other states how to make sure the rollout is as equitable as possible, despite the pandemic. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Virginia is poised to become the 16th state to legalize recreational marijuana. As lawmakers there finalize the legislation, they're trying to learn the lessons of states that have come before them -...

Are you emotional about a certain situation? Or feeling "too much,"? Well, you are not alone in this, and it is not entirely a bad thing to feel this way. However, our emotions shape the way we perceive certain events and might even cloud our judgment regarding people and incidents. At the same time, it is also important to understand that emotions are part of life, and they complete us. It is part of human nature to feel certain things, and one cannot simply escape this reality. What we can...

Recently, I was provided a form letter addressed to a local police chief and friend of mine who knew of my interest in trauma-informed policing and who thought I should read the letter. The letter claimed that trauma-informed policing, specifically as it related to domestic violence and sexual violence allegations, was everything from “junk science” to “prejudicial against men.” Needless to say, I found the letter uninformed and unpersuasive.

The child welfare system — like other powerful institutions, including law enforcement and the incarceration system — is under attack. The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic along with a reckoning with systemic racism and inequality over the past year are shining a harsh spotlight on child protective services (CPS), the nation’s system for protecting children from abuse and neglect. Similar to the movement to defund the police, long-standing concerns about racism and other gross inequities...

Hello, It's Sunita here. You are precious to me every day. Including Valentine's Day. But more importantly, I treasure you every day. I love you. I adore you. I put you above all others. Most times, I only want to be with you. I can't bear to be away from you. So, I keep you close to me, even when I am far from you. When I don't get enough alone time with you, I get irritable and cranky. I don't think right, and I can't see things clearly. It has taken a lot of courage and work to put you...

People who have eating disorders frequently have a history of adverse childhood experiences and trauma. Find out what parents need to know