Creating Resilient Communities

Acevedo-Garcia, D., McArdle, N., Shafer, L., & Noelke, C. The State of Racial/Ethnic Equity in Children’s Neighborhood Opportunity: First Findings from the Child Opportunity Index 3.0. diversitydatakids.org and Brandeis University. https://www.diversitydatakids.org/research-library/state-racialethnic-equity-childrens-neighborhood-opportunity The Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) has integrated the Child Opportunity Index into its Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS), a vast...

Workshop after workshop asks people to check off their ACE's. Then, presenters tell you about your odds of having all sorts of adverse, unhealthy, or worrisome outcomes. You face doom without mitigation, as the story is told. As a clinician and behavioral scientist, one needs to take a sip of water and some steady breathing before resigning one's self or to affected individuals to the dung heap of life. I recall the first time I heard a breathless clinician talking about ACE's about...

Highlights of my year include time spent and powerful discussions with CRC Accelerator and Fellowship participants. Insight shared by our dedicated participants, graduates, and fellows about what they learned about trauma-informed awareness, resilience building, and PACEs science as a result of the CRC will continue to inspire the movement.

Next Sunday the zoom conference "Sunday with Gopal" will take place (for free). More information and Zoom-link: https://www.sundaywithgopal.com Everyone is invited who is interested in solving actual problems and who wants to understand what lies at the heart of all our problems and suffering. You are most welcome to attend this meeting. You will see how it is possible to deal with deep and unresolved attachment trauma that lead to all the problems we have in everyday life. For more...

Last month, Elon Musk endorsed “Bad Therapy,” a new book written by a reporter that places blame on mental health therapists and trauma-informed care as the cause of the children’s mental health crisis. The book proposes that children’s mental health professionals are taking advantage of their clients by intentionally keeping them in a therapy loop to make money. The author also posits that the trauma-informed movement is the catalyst of the children’s mental health crisis and is...

In an ideal classroom setting, students would leave their worries at the door alongside their backpacks as they step into a space conducive to learning. However, the reality is far from this utopian vision. Issues from home, conflicts in relationships, anxiety over assignments or exams, and broader concerns from the world beyond the school gates often accompany students throughout their day. This persistent background noise of stress undermines their ability to concentrate on academics,...

As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.

What gives me hope is that we have agency in this. We can make eye contact or provide physical touch, if those are appropriate and feel comfortable; we can be kind, we can bring intention to building connection – it all has ripple effects. And we can put.down.our.phones.!

Happening next week! In this workshop, we explore how the power of storytelling helps us make meaning of our lives and connect to our larger purpose. A special invitation to the PACEs community for complimentary registration with promo code "hellopaces."

Happening next week! A special invitation to the PACEs community: Use promo code hellopaces for complimentary registration. To better understand the brain and how its innate physiology impacts our day-to-day behavior, this workshop explores bottom-up regulation, the stress response, and how humans have evolved to thrive in reliable interdependent communities. This workshop will guide participants in practicing self- regulation skills, and invite thoughtful reflection around the importance of...

New book on education is being released. Webinar at Rutgers GSE offers discount code for book and PowerPoint deck.

The current conversation about anxiety and depression is lacking a vital dimension: emotions education. We are now learning that many instances of anxiety and depression are actually symptoms of buried core emotions. These types of symptoms could be prevented with more education surrounding emotions and trauma.