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I was lucky. In a day and time when childhood sexual abuse (CSA) was little understood and usually swept under the rug, my parents and others stood up for me. That was wonderful for building resilience in the life of the little girl who was me. However, it did not prevent the cascading biological effects of the trauma from plaguing me for decades. I published my story because I saw studies that related CSA to gynecological problems but no one was talking about it in the ACEs literature.

Peacetown was always just a summer concert series with a vision to promote peaceful coexistence, kindness, love and joy. Peacetown is now a non profit with more room to expand and offer more to our community. Last year I founded The Family Village. This was a space sectioned off at the summer concert series where hundreds of families came through, played with their children, made positive social connections, and had a great time. Every week a different organization was invited to set up a...

Sebastopol's FREE summer concert series, Peacetown, usually attracts 800-1500 people every week. This year it is being done virtually. Last year a new element was added to Peacetown called The Family Village. This was a space sectioned off for families to play, access local resources, make positive social connections, and feel supported. This is one of the virtual Family Village videos https://youtu.be/wYXvScX1HEM

The organization Zero To Three estimates that in the U.S., a child is taken into the child welfare system every six seconds. “Many of society’s most intractable problems can be traced back to childhood adversity. Being in the child welfare system increases the likelihood of more adversity and criminality. Baby court is a proven approach to healing the trauma of both child and parent, and breaking the cycle of maltreatment,” says Mimi Graham, Ed.D ., director of the Florida State University...

By Ashley Gold, California Healthline, July 20, 2020 While the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Hispanic Americans is no secret, federal officials have launched studies of the disparity that they hope will better prepare the country for the next great epidemic. The National Institutes of Health began the ambitious “All of Us” research project in 2018 with the goal of enrolling at least a million people in the world’s most diverse health database. Officials saw it as an...

From WV Center for Children’s Justice and the WV Children’s Justice Task Force, July 2020 Our agency is dedicated to a trauma informed response to child maltreatment and children’s exposure to crime, violence and abuse. We are proud to announce the 2020 National Handle with Care Conference. The 2020 Handle with Care Conference is going virtual this year with one 90 minute session at a time every week. You will be able to attend every session this year. No more having to choose from one out...

This training designed to give the participant a working knowledge of how to engage in the process of trauma treatment. Focusing not only on interventions, but how to sequence the interventions to maximize outcomes. This training contains 19 hours of on-demand video and 24 downloadable resources.

Hi Folks, The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us. FYI - The Surviving Spirit newsletter has been going out for many years. The idea behind the newsletter is to share news, resources and helpful information that could help any and all who have been impacted by the concerns of trauma, abuse or...

By Leigh Parise, MDRC, July 20, 2020 Subsidized employment uses public funds to create jobs for the unemployed and are especially useful during economic downturns. Many have argued that subsidized employment programs should be part of policymakers’ response to pandemic-induced mass joblessness. MDRC has been studying subsidized employment for more than 40 years and recently completed two large-scale federal projects that rigorously tested 13 subsidized employment programs in eight states.

“For the past six months we have been living through a pandemic.” I say that as a matter of fact because the truth is that at some point our innate systems begin to falter. Our organisms were not meant to stay on high alert for extended periods of time. Much like other systems, our fight, flight, or freeze responses are intended to help us navigate acute life or death situations and then organically return to balance. In order for us to be in our healthiest state, these systems must maintain...

By Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times, July 29, 2020 Those annoying puffy spots under the eyes of eighth-grader Natalie Alvarez began to disappear, followed by the 10 a.m. hunger bouts and the midafternoon yawns — much to the Carson girl’s delight and surprise. At first, Natalie, 14, had resisted the distance learning thrust upon her when schools closed amid the coronavirus emergency. “I was worried about the distractions of being home with my mom and my sister and doing extra chores,”...

By Matthew Choi, Politico, July 29, 2020 President Donald Trump is pining for support in the suburbs, and pushing out low-income housing is playing a part in his bid to get it. In a set of tweets and in remarks in Texas on Wednesday, Trump bragged about his administration’s rescinding an Obama-era fair housing rule that was meant to combat housing discrimination. He characterized low-income housing as a detriment to the suburbs and claimed that Democrats were out to uproot and destroy...