Blog

By Erika D. Smith, Los Angeles Times, November 29, 2020 As a Black man and a nurse practitioner working at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Long Beach, Walter Perez hears a lot of cringeworthy stuff from his Black patients. Like how the forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines won’t be safe because Big Pharma is cutting corners to make more money. Or how the medical establishment wants to use Black people as guinea pigs to test those vaccines. Or how the vaccines could actually prove...

By Corey Jones, Tulsa World, December 2, 2020 Oklahoma’s social supports have eroded over time as budgets shrink, but a legislative task force is establishing framework to better coordinate and revive help for children and families across the state. The Oklahoma Trauma-Informed Care Taskforce on Tuesday released its second report in two years, which establishes a strategy to better leverage existing resources as it works to develop pilot programs and an overall plan in 2021. The goal is to...

By Roy S. Johnson, Al.com, December 4, 2020 Danielle Lacey Chavers rolled the dice. Though she didn’t fully grasp the depth of the consequences. Not even as she rounded the corner inside a gated Trace Crossings community in Hoover and saw a fire truck leaving the cul-de-sac where her family lived. Or as she saw an ambulance and a phalanx of police cars in front of their home. Or realized it was a drug raid. The oldest of Chavers’s two sons, Jeremy, a teenager who had picked his younger...

By Vanessa Grubbs, California Health Care Foundation, December 2, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking havoc across the US for eight months, and new cases and deaths are reaching alarming and record-setting heights. For many Americans, especially people of color with low incomes, the effects of the pandemic are far more personal than the devastating numbers that dominate news media reports. To better understand the scope of the pandemic’s impact on the health care experiences of...

After the U.S. education system fractured into Zoom screens last spring, experts feared millions of children would fall behind. Hard evidence now shows they were right. A flood of new data — on the national, state and district levels — finds students began this academic year behind. Most of the research concludes students of color and those in high-poverty communities fell further behind their peers, exacerbating long-standing gaps in American education. A study being released this week by...

By Evelyn Kwong, The Toronto Star, December 6, 2020 Thirty-one years ago, 14 women were murdered at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, simply because they were women. Today, as they remember the victims of the anti-feminist attack on Dec. 6, 1989 — Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and...

Save the dates! Resilience Week VA 2021 will take place May 2-8. It's not too early to start planning for the next Resilience Week VA! Take some time over the last few weeks of December to look back at our first annual Resilience Week VA and get the wheels turning on creative ways to celebrate this coming year! The MARC website has some great recent articles on different trauma-informed and resilience-building initiatives throughout the U.S. Visit the links below to read more. Nashville's...

By Senator Sylvia Santana and Senator Erika Geiss, Guest Writers, November 11, 2020, Lansing State Journal. Over the past several months, Michiganders have faced unprecedented traumatization. The devastation from COVID-19 disproportionately taking lives and impacting residents across our state, along with the anguish from the turmoil during this moment in history, has been traumatic. Community violence, a persisting issue in Michigan, has been exacerbated by the strains placed on communities...

Resident Engagement to Achieve Racial Equity The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps* program: Date & Time: December 15, 2020 3pm EST Follow this link to register https://chrr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bJSI6KdFThCTtoHWTmLKbg In the midst of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, people are increasingly engaging in conversations around racial equity. To achieve racial equity in access, opportunities, and power, communities across the country are having intentional and...

This series of articles has focused on emotional flashbacks. We’ve discussed how they feel, what causes them, and the turmoil they bring into relationships and lives. In this article, we will cover ways to conquer the emotional roller coaster that accompanies complex post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional flashbacks. Self-Loathing Comes from Adults that Mattered When you were a child living in an abusive home, you saw first-hand how the words and actions of a parent or other caregiver...

Just a gentle reminder of the program -- Dec. 11. Registration includes a copy of Trauma Doesn't Stop at the School Door. One session on trauma's impact on students; another session on the impact of trauma on educators (broadly defined). There is a Q and A and follow on session too. Join us virtually but there will be hands on activities, some of which will help during the holiday season, including Positive Feeling Tree and Holiday "Trauma" Kits.

Please click the here to view the recent FB Live with Dr. B regarding Trauma and Resiliency!