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By Kayla Lasure, Watauga Democrat, November 20, 2019 Businesses could improve their reputation, culture, employee retention and employee wellness by implementing trauma-informed practices, according to Watauga Compassionate Compassionate Community Initiative Chair Denise Presnell. WCCI is a grassroots group created by volunteers with the goal of building a trauma-informed community. Presnell spoke on behalf of WCCI during a Nov. 15 Wake Up Watauga event hosted by the Boone Area Chamber of...

By Dani McClain, The Atlantic, November 21, 2019 Jessica Black is a Pittsburg, California, mother of two black teenagers, both of whom have been disciplined multiple times at their middle and high schools. Her daughter has been suspended more than once, and teachers often deem her son’s behavior out of line, reprimanding him for not taking off his hoodie in class and for raising his voice. In observing her own family and others, Black has noticed a pattern: Behaviors that many black parents...

Are you looking to make your clinical practice safer and more supportive for those affected by trauma? Do you need concrete guidance about how to make your primary care organization more trauma-informed? If yes, be sure to access the newly released Fostering Resilience and Recovery: A Change Package for Advancing Trauma-Informed Primary Care Change Package ! This resource, from the National Council for Behavioral Health and supported by Kaiser Permanente, is a field-informed guide, developed...

This Sunday evening's "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" Radio Show LIVE at 8:00 pm CST will be discussing the importance of Community Resiliency and how the Community Resiliency Model is helping people who have suffered from the traumatic experiences in their lives. The special guests on the show this Sunday night will be Elaine Miller-Karas and Kelly Doty. Elaine is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and author of the book, Building...

By Jennifer Gonnerman, The New Yorker, November 25, 2019 Earlier this year, the Parole Preparation Project put out a call for volunteers, and more than a hundred people applied. Many were law students and lawyers, but there was also a Planet Fitness employee, a pediatric I.C.U. nurse, a professor of philosophy, a software engineer, a waiter, and a translator. Parole Prep invited them to an orientation, and, one Wednesday evening last April, some eighty people assembled in a lecture hall at...

For Dr. Mercie Digangi, a pediatrician at Kaiser Southern California in Downey, CA, ACEs screening provided a crystal clear before-and-after in how she changed treatment plans for her pediatric patients, she explained to attendees of a December 2 webinar organized by the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) and cosponsored by ACEs Connection. Dr. Mercie Digangi One case that turned ACEs screening into a never-go-back moment for her was a three-year-old who was speech-delayed.

Today CPTSD is recognized as needing long-term treatment because of the damages done to a person’s self-identity, deficits in self-regulation and their inability to see there is hope and healing available to them. Fear and hopelessness can be a daily reality for most survivors living with CPTSD symptoms. Therapists choosing to collaborate with patients living with CPTSD symptoms must take the time to receive the education they need to provide trauma-informed care. Additionally, they will need to

By Natasha Rausch, Brainerd Dispatch, November 21, 2019 On a grassy landscape along a sidewalk in Lindenwood Park at the edge of Fargo, Grace Poitra and Robbie Lass knelt to pray. Lass, from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, and Poitra, from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, had met four years earlier, and started dating just a few days after they’d first met. Now they had a son together, Joey Little Bear. During their relationship, Lindenwood Park had become a...

According to Alice Miller author of The Drama of the Gifted Child, an Enlightened Witness is “an understanding person who helps a victim of abuse recognize the injustice they suffered and gives vent to their feelings about what happened to them”. Brene Brown author of Daring Greatly states, "empathy is feeling with or alongside someone, while sympathy is feeling sorry for." https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw In Topeka we unpacked and explored the message of the Enlightened Witnesses in our lives.

Click here for the Change Package : Fostering Resilience and Recovery: A Change Package for Advancing Trauma – Informed Primary Care Earlier this year, to help primary care address the impacts of trauma, the National Council for Behavioral Health, with the support of Kaiser Permanente, launched a three-year initiative, Trauma-Informed Primary Care: Fostering Resilience and Recovery . “Trauma work is not new to the National Council. With effects across the lifespan, we’ve spent the last...

I never believed that a man who abuses anyone physically, emotionally or verbally is simply a monster.That's too simple.There is a reason why men do what they do, and don't do and in order to help men and women to not be hurtful to themselves or others we must as I said in my last post ”help them heal.” We must advocate for a world in which we don't punish, we transform. I have always believed this on many issues, from domestic violence to drug addiction to other acts of criminality. We...

By Susan Brink, NPR.org, November 19, 2019 Sexual violence against children happens everywhere: in wealthy enclaves, in slums, in suburbs, in rural villages. Invariably, it happens in secret: in the privacy of family homes, in dark corners of schools and churches, and in murky shadows at neighborhood, community, sporting and scouting events. It happens often, and periodically groups put out reports to call attention to the issue. "That's usually where the story stops," says Daniela Ligiero,...