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Tonight I send my love out to you. You the Grandma who sleeps with a baby monitor on her nightstand to hear each breath, possible cough or cry of the grandchild she’s raising. To you the Grandpa who gives up a romantic dinner with grandma to attend the “Daddy” Daughter dance with his granddaughter. To you the Pre-School, Pre-K, Headstart, Great Start Readiness Program Teacher who manages 16 children with unconditional love for each one, even the boy who closes his eyes, shakes his fists and...

From Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation, February 2020 California students have big dreams. Unfortunately. some students face a much tougher road to achieve them. It’s up to us to remove barriers in the education system that get in their way. Working with Alliance for Continuous Improvement partners, Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation developed this video as a way to help local educators, families, students and community groups engage with their schools, districts and...

By National Voices Committee, February 2020 This VOICES Coloring Book, released in 2020 by the National VOICES Committee, is a coloring book designed by survivors for survivors. VOICES Chapters from across the country designed original coloring pages that were then digitized and bound into this coloring book to provide hope and healing to survivors walking into Family Justice Centers. Our vision is that the VOICES Coloring Book would be printed and shared in Family Justice Centers across the...

I just completed this short piece on Medium. It may help as educators and others reflect on the 2nd anniversary of the Parkland School Shooting. The piece has current and future resources. https://medium.com/@KarenGrossEdu/use-your-heart-today-b0439ab29070

Andrea C Hummel is trained in multicultural diversity, mediation and trauma recovery. She holds a Masters in applied anthropology from American University, with post-graduate studies in intercultural conflict mediation. She's trained in ShadowWork and Multi-Track Diplomacy, and holds a theory certification in TSM psychodrama for post-traumatic growth.

Love Yourself!

The journey toward mental wellness and self-care can be especially challenging for trauma survivors. According to the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) Trauma is literally translated to “wound, injury, or shock,” and Esther Giller of the Sidran Institute says “[trauma] refers to extreme stress that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.” With these statements in mind, we can begin to understand the challenges trauma survivors face when working toward...

Social work has never been the focus of my professional life. I was born and raised in the IT world, so it was a surprise when someone suggested that childhood trauma was something that I could help solve. When I first heard the term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), I was asked to take a ten question survey about experiences that may have impacted my life. No problem, I thought, my childhood wasn’t perfect but “trauma?” Nah! It’s amazing how triggering ten questions can be. As I...

By Lucia Graves, The Guardian, February 13, 2020 Louise Godbold had recently come from a press conference at Harvey Weinstein’s criminal trial in New York and within 24 hours she’d be on a plane again going back there. But today Godbold, one of more than 90 women to come forward with claims against the disgraced movie mogul, is doing what she’s trained to: helping trauma survivors overcome the injuries that powerful abusive men like Weinstein so often leave in their wake. On a cloudy Tuesday...

By April Dembosky, KQED, February 6, 2020 Years later, Rudy Coronado still refers to what happened as "that day." He thinks about what he said, what he didn't say and what he wishes he could take back. The signs he missed – and the signs he saw, but ignored. "That day, Carol was acting kind of weird," he stammered. "She was just different." Not different the way his wife was usually different, the traits that charmed Rudy when they first met at a doughnut shop in Carson: her simple, no...

By Amanda Merck, Salud America!, February 12, 2020 Early childhood adversity like abuse and divorce is a root cause of many of the greatest public health challenges we face today. But doctors don’t even screen children for exposure to adversity. That’s changing in California, thanks to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and other child advocates. As of Jan. 1, 2020, almost 100,000 physicians in 8,800 clinics will be reimbursed for routinely screening Medi-Cal patients for adverse childhood experiences...

By TCR Staff, The Crime Report, February 7, 2020 Thousands of Texas schoolchildren—many of them African Americans— are victimized by “zero tolerance” school discipline policies that land them in the criminal justice system, says the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC). In a new report, the TCJC found that the over-reliance on police to impose discipline inside classrooms resulted in 144, 432 students from Pre-Kindergarden to 5th grade receiving in-school suspensions between 2015 and...