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By Laura Newberry, Illustration: Patrick Hruby/Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2023 Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the most common mental health conditions in the world, with an estimated six out of every 100 people in the United States alone experiencing PTSD at some point in their lives — a figure that doesn’t account for people who live with complex trauma . Yet despite its pervasiveness, available treatments for PTSD don’t work for at least a third of people...

By Lexi Pandell, Illustration: Marcos Chin, UCSF Magazine, Winter 2023 When Tom Solis, a renowned chef and baker, fell ill with AIDS in the 1990s, he believed he would soon die. But breakthrough drugs called protease inhibitors quickly put him back on a path to a fairly normal life. Still, he struggled for years with the challenges of managing his disease and the deaths of loved ones in his community. “I felt I always had this tight armor that I could not get out of,” he says. Then, in 2016,...

We’ve all heard it: “our team is a family.” Organizations across every industry use this language. From non-profits to corporate teams, the idea that our working relationships should be as close-knit as our familial ones has become embedded into cultural norms—and even some of our mission statements. But “The Corporate Family” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This news might be hard for some of you to hear: calling your work team a family is not a trauma-informed practice. If you use family...

48-HOUR 6-Level HISTORICAL TRAUMA SPECIALIST CERTIFICATION in collaboration with THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORICAL TRAUMA ASSOCIATION ****NEW**** LEARNED HELPLESSNESS EDUCATION AND HEALING JUST ADDED!!! We are the only entity offering a comprehensive, 48-hour Historical Trauma Specialist Certification Program. The Program is broken into 6 levels and is built on a foundation of BIPOC cultures and neurobiology. It is taught from a multicultural perspective, injecting traditions and ideology from...

Image from abc.net.au We are not lazy. Our cultures are not deficient. "Have you ever felt very helpless, also had a strong desire to overcome that feeling, but somehow, something has stopped you? No matter how hard you have tried, you have never been able to get out of that helpless mindset?" The image of those beautiful creatures lined side by side and held in chains is heart-wrenching and analogous to the reality of our relatives from BIPOC communities. (As egalitarian people, we use...

By Stephanie Malia Cross, Illustration: Nelli Polk/Shutterstock, EdSurge, February 17, 2023 Content warning: gun violence. The morning of Oct. 24, 2022, I was facilitating a meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia for education and youth development leaders when I got word that my 15-year-old godson had been shot at his high school in St. Louis, where I live. He was alive, seriously wounded and being treated at our local children’s hospital. One of the meeting attendees was my friend and...

By Jeneen Interlandi, Photo: Donovan Smallwood, The New York Times, February 22, 2023 I. ‘Let’s not crowd her right out the gate.’ It was late summer, and the sun was high over East Harlem. Terrell Jones stepped out of a large black van that advertised help with detox and free hepatitis C testing and scanned the homeless encampment beneath the elevated train tracks across the intersection from where he stood. He was looking for a specific inhabitant, a white woman in her late 20s or early...

By Jill Suttie, Greater Good Magazine, February 6, 2023 What makes for a happy life? Philosophers have pondered this question for millennia, coming up with different theories and recommendations for people to follow, but not necessarily having any hard evidence to prove their ideas. That’s what inspired the long-running Harvard Study of Adult Development . Starting in the 1930s, researchers tracked men from different neighborhoods in the Boston area over several decades, asking them to...

By Lexie Manion, Illustration: Lexi Manion, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), February 4, 2023 I am in recovery from mental illness and have been on a positive path for the last few years. In the past, I have struggled with depression, anxiety, unresolved trauma, an eating disorder and, later, bipolar disorder. Recently, I have felt more balanced and stable with the help of regular therapy and appropriate medication. However, I still experience the effects of trauma and symptoms of...

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily is joined by Dr. Jim Coan, a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia. Dr. Coan is well known for his Social Baseline Theory which resulted from his research on the psychological and physical health benefits of strong friend and family networks. His theory states that the human brain depends on relationships to coordinate the body’s resources. Dr. Coan and Emily dive into...

PACEs Connection members are encouraged to join as many communities as they are interested in. Keep scrolling to find our list of geographic communities to join your local, state, or country community! Interest Based: PACEs Connection Community Champions, Facilitators, and Managers (for Community Managers only) PACEs Connection Cooperative of Communities (for coop affiliates only) 16 Strong Project Addiction & Recovery Balancing ACEs with HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences)...

By The HOPE Team, 2/23/23, https://positiveexperience.org/category/blog/ February is Parent Leadership Month, bringing attention to the importance of parent voices, and parent leadership in the child and family serving sectors. When parents lead and advocate, children and families get better access to the services and supports they need. Encouraging parents to use advocacy tools supports their roles as experts of their children, families, and communities, and supports their skills and...