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This article by Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, and Maryjo Webster recently published in the Star Tribune . It is part 8 of a series entitled, Denied Justice: When rape is reported and nothing happens. How Minnesota's criminal justice system has failed victims of sexual assault. To read this entire article, go here and find an excerpt below. To read the entire series, go here . Again, to read this article by Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, and Maryjo Webster, go here and for the rest of...

It's easy to feel overwhelmed when juggling career and work demands, family time, relationships, and other obligations. If you feel like you're constantly playing catch-up with no time to achieve personal or professional fulfillment, it's possible to turn it all around by changing one thing about your day: your morning routine. There's a reason successful people tend to be early risers . Think Tim Cook or Oprah. The quiet early-morning hours are a key time for focusing on a set of routines...

Check out the latest two books in the Teachers' Guide to Trauma Series by Dr. Melissa Sadin! They can be purchased at www.traumasensitive.com Or by downloading the attached order form. Gifted Children & Trauma is intended to be a resource for parents and teachers working with gifted children with an explanation of how trauma impacts children who are gifted in a unique way. Teachers' Guide to Resilience Through Art is a guide to working with children who have experienced trauma by...

Every student should have the opportunity to learn and succeed. But adverse childhood experiences — or ACEs — get in the way of this goal. As our readers know, there are ten ACEs that include physical and emotional neglect; physical, emotional and sexual abuse; and living in households where adults misuse substances, have mental health challenges, are violent to partners, parents are separated, or a family member is incarcerated. ACEs can impact students’ capacity to learn, leading to poor...

The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) In research that has gone on since the late 1990s, psychologists and neuroscientists have found that a fraction of the population is simply “wired” differently than most (Aron, E. & Aron, A., 1997). In 1997, Elaine Aron, Ph.D. wrote The Highly Sensitive Person. She describes the HSP as more sensitive to sounds, textures, and essentially all outside stimulation than average. HSPs also think more about decisions and actions, and naturally process more...

he U.S. is the only nation in the world to not sign the United Nation's International Rights of the Child Treaty adopted in 1989 leaving children as chattel with no civil rights in the home they are raised in, voice in courts, media or legislature. As a long time volunteer County CASA guardian ad Litem it has been hard to comprehend the explosive growth of child abuse in my lifetime. Trends, statistics & options.

Lately, a lot of people have been writing to ask me about no-cost options for healing Childhood PTSD. For more than two years, I’ve beens sharing the two free techniques I used to recover, but the instructions are spread out on different blog posts, and so this week, I’m putting the whole sequence in one post! Some background: We used to think that the symptoms of Childhood PTSD were primarily psychological. But we now know that abuse, neglect and chronic stress in childhood tend to cause...

For the past four decades, the mission of the Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People Initiative, was to present overarching, science-based health goals for the upcoming decade. Healthy People was launched in 1990, with a focus at that time of decreasing infant and adult mortality as well as increasing independence among older adults (Green & Fielding 2011.) Over time Healthy People has grown in scope and expanded its reach. Healthy People 2020 included the following...

I have been collecting hearts for a few years now. My friends will send me photos of hearts they find. I will post pics on social media of my heart finds . I even recently wrote an e-book, Stop Thinking . . . Just Love , filled with over six hundred heart photos. I have a collection of hearts on their own page on my website . And in my sacred writing space, I have a collection of special hearts given to me by loved ones, friends, and therapists. Christmas 2018 I added a special Rocky...

ACEs, Adversity's Impact A Sociologist and a senior collaborate to update research on adverse childhoods Shocking stories about Indigenous women and coerced sterilization Toxic stress Video: Elaine Miller Karas trauma summit interview Don't ask a homeless person 'what's wrong with you?' - ask 'what happened to you?' says Worcester hostel boss There's something wrong with Scotland but we just can't see it - Karyn McCluskey Boys need better access to mental health care. Why aren't they getting...

Christmas is about giving for the sake of giving, opening our hearts, and sharing what we have. That our children trust us enough to share their longing and to let us hold their pain, is a bittersweet gift. It may not be what we hoped to find under the tree, but it is real.

Sherri Lee’s toilet started flooding in late September. Less than a month later, the unfinished basement in her South Philadelphia apartment was a full-blown health hazard. “It actually ended up pushing out feces,” said Lee during a recent visit to the Snyder Avenue row home she shares with her family. A white utility sink on the opposite end of the room backed up too, sending raw sewage onto the floor and all over Lee’s clothes. [For more on this story by Aaron Moselle, go to...