Blog

Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being used in this area...

“Enough food” is each person having daily access to an average of 2,353 calories of culturally appropriate, locally available, affordable, unrefined, and delectable nourishment. The good news is that we already grow enough food to feed 10 billion people . The challenges are that the food is not fairly distributed, a lot of it is thrown away, and the process of growing it industrially is trashing the planet. Contrary to conventional mythology, smallholder farms and regenerative agriculture...

HEAL HISTORICAL TRAUMA & Iya Affo PRESENT: The Historical Trauma Specialist Certification- Level 1 is a comprehensive understanding of Historical Trauma from a multicultural lens. The training is designed for participants serving, leading, advocating and working with people of color. It is the perfect training for people in a variety of disciplines as well as multicultural families and for anyone with the desire to understand the impact of slavery, genocide and colonization. The course...

In The Black Panther movie, we marveled over Okoye and her magnificent band of the Dora Milaje, powerful female warriors. In this true-to-life depiction, Wakanda is Dahomey, present day, Benin, West Africa. Okoye is a famous female warrior and forgotten queen named Queen Hangbe who lead the most powerful army in West Africa fighting against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the MINO also known as the Amazon Women of Dahomey. Today, we are remembering their brilliance, fierceness, discipline...

LEVEL 2 HISTORICAL TRAUMA SPECIALIST CERTIFICATION MARCH 2022!!! The wait is finally over! Iya Affo and Heal Historical Trauma will present: Historical Trauma Specialist Certification- LEVEL 2: A Neurological, Environmental & Cultural Perspective on March 1st & 2nd 2022. LEVEL 2 will cover the following: Neurological implications of Historical Trauma and how to align neurobiology with desired behavioral outcomes. Indigenous Attachment Theory Understanding the injurious relationship...

Kevan and Ritha Rowe’s journey to buying their own home was both long and very fast. Shortly after marrying in 2003, the Rowes thought about buying a home, but it was the height of the housing bubble that eventually burst and led to the Great Recession. In the time since, they started a family and pursued their personal finance goals. “It’s funny because everyone makes fun of me because I like watching the news at mid-day and at night just to see what’s going on,” Ritha recounted. “I was...

For generations, Indigenous communities in the United States have protested Columbus Day—a centuries-old observance in the United States—and for decades have led a movement to rename the second Monday in October from “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous Peoples Day.” Today, more than a dozen states have formally embraced Indigenous Peoples Day as part of a process to recenter Indigenous communities and end the glorification of settler colonialism. Precisely within this context, educator and author...

By Shania Degroot, New York Amsterdam News, July 8, 2021 Consolee Nishimwe, 41, lives in New York City and devotes much of her time to advocating for women’s rights as well as helping the people who have survived genocide-related trauma. Nishimwe, a Rwandan genocide survivor, recalls much of her current work being influenced by the trauma she experienced during her childhood in Rwanda. Consolee grew up in Rwanda, where both of her parents worked as teachers. Prior to 1994, she was raised...

What should every American know? This question has long been debated, discussed, and deliberated. And while answers need to come from all of us—not just a powerful few—young people have often been excluded from these conversations. A partnership between Chicago Public Schools and the Aspen Institute’s program on Citizenship and American Identity aims to change that. Together they seek to elevate youth perspectives, beliefs, and values as vital to our national conversation of civic purpose.

Anneliese M. Bruner was in her mid-30s when her father presented her with a small red book. It was bound in cloth and worn at the corners. “This is a book your grandmother wrote,” he told her, “and I want you to see what you can do with it. You are the matriarch of the family now, and I’m giving this to you.” Opening it, she saw a panoramic photograph that revealed the utter destruction of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Okla. , in the immediate aftermath of a white mob descending on the...

We recently sat down with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s first surgeon general, and Dave Ellis, the first executive director of the Office of Resilience at the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. A pioneering voice on prevention, early identification, and treatment of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Dr. Burke Harris gained national prominence with her viral 2015 TED talk on this topic. Dave Ellis made his name as a national leader in providing trainings and...

Evanston, Illinois, on Monday became the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery. The Chicago suburb’s City Council voted 8-1 to distribute $400,000 to eligible black households. Each qualifying household would receive $25,000 for home repairs or down payments on property. The program is being funded through donations and revenue from a 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana. The city has pledged...