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Educators, health care providers and researchers have known for some time that low socioeconomic status is connected to poor health, including in children, but a new study led by a San Francisco State University psychologist has shed light on what can be done to protect young people from negative outcomes. The keys? A more positive parent-child relationship as well as the child’s own ability to manage his or her response to stressful situations, according to research published last month in...

If we are lucky enough to be healthy, we probably don't worry all that much about health. If we are sick, we think about health issues all of the time. If we are lucky enough be wealthy, we probably don't worry all that much about money. If we are poor, we think about money stuff a lot. If we aren't hurt by racism or sexism or one of the many "isms," we might not even be aware these inequities exist. But if "isms" have hurt us, made life more difficult and less fair, we're probably acutely...

I'm sharing an article written co-founder of the Trigger Points Anthology. Her name is Joyelle. She and Dawn, the other co-founder, created a Facebook community as well for parents who were abused as children. It's about the power of community. I'm so grateful for the community they have created. I'm grateful for this one, too. It's wonderful to share resources, stories and solidarity online. It's great to brainstorm and know we aren't alone and that others are as passionate about ACEs and...

One thing I've learned from adoption expert and social worker, Beth O'Malley , is that talking about hard topics is essential. She knows. She was adopted from foster care as an infant, was an adoption social worker for the Department of Children and Families, in Massachusetts, and is an adoptive mother. O’Malley says that’s it up to us, as parents to initiate conversations about adoption and to make it safe to share thoughts, feelings and experiences about anything. Addiction. Abuse. Loss.

This is a beautiful and painful essay to read. Many with one or some ACEs struggle with if, when and how to take space or keep contact with one or more family members. There's no pain-free scenario that I've heard of. Sometimes there's more pain with contact and sometimes, more pain with distance. It's often a journey but not one written much about. Excerpt: I have come a long way. From the fractured child who was silenced when I tried to speak up about my abuse to the whole and healthy...

I am sharing a 20% discount and that U.S. OCSE as well as trauma experts are actively participating with a special series on March 1st at the 18th Annual Families & Fathers National Conference, "Never Giving Up - Breakthrough 2017", will be hosted by Fathers & Families Coalition of America from February 27 - March 3, 2017 in Los Angeles, CA. Early Bird Registration is now open with full event, two-day or one-day options for individuals to customize their training. The focus of this...

2017 National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence Call for abstracts is now open! Due Friday, January 13, 2017. Pre-Conference Institutes: Tuesday, September 26th, 2017 Two Day Conference: September 27th-28th, 2017 Marriott Marquis, San Francisco, California Every two years the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence hosts the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence. The conference highlights the latest research and promising practices to advance the health...

Above the simple gray churches along a dimly lit section of Detroit, the brooding eyes of Lil Wayne, who was covered in chains and holding a bottle of Hennessy, peered from a billboard in the rough neighborhood where India Wayman grew up. Her childhood had been fraught with traumatic experiences. Her father was violent and inconsistent, Ms. Wayman said, and she was bullied at school. A social worker visited her home when she was 12. “Take her, we don’t need her here anymore,” Ms. Wayman, now...

Note: This article isn't as much about epigenetics or attachment as I thought it might be. Although this one quote below is pretty powerful. As it turns out, the childhood memories we lose remain with us—albeit in a different form, as the underpinnings of our morality and instincts. This is what attachment theory supposes, says Robyn Fivush, the director of the Family Narratives Lab in the psychology department at Emory University. Infants who receive sensitive and responsive caregiving grow...

Though the language of ACEs aren't used in this piece, so much of it is about parenting with ACEs. For the parents who are in prison, as adults and the children they once were as well as the impact being in prison has on their children. E xcerpt 1: TULSA, Okla. — The women’s wing of the jail here exhales sadness. The inmates, wearing identical orange uniforms, ache as they undergo withdrawal from drugs, as they eye one another suspiciously, and as they while away the days stripped of...

It’s November. And in the United States, that means the focus has shifted from spooky and scary stuff to family and gratitude. For survivors of trauma, there’s nothing scarier than family and gratitude. I have discussed the triggers coming from the endless Hallmark commercials focusing on family, but today, I will discuss gratitude. But I want to start with a caveat. I get the importance of gratitude. I get the power of manifestation that it brings. I am not discounting that. My goal is to...

Many of us have struggled with addiction and/or lived with and loved people who are. Maybe addiction impacted our lives as children, adults or both. Maybe we know a lot about addiction or are still learning. This a rticle is written in Q&A format by a writer at The Fix with lived experience. Here's an excerpt. How do genetics play a role? Why do some people in the same family become addicts while others don’t? That is the $60-million-dollar question. Science cannot provide a definitive...