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Humanizing school environments

Often, we are confronted with dehumanizing practices in education setting—practices that cause trauma, induce shame, and contribute to the adversity that many children and adults already face. Practices that push us away from our better selves, and strip others of their dignity and humanity. Practices and institutions that punish, harm, exclude, degrade, dismiss, disrespect, and disregard. Educators and students alike have experienced being dehumanized in their school environments at some...

Labels v. the roots of trauma

When articles on self-harm are posted, I recommend we understand that diagnoses are merely labels for symptom clusters, almost always resulting from early trauma. Professionals use labels primarily for billing. They are also used widely as derogatory terms, at least when I was working as a mental health professional. "Borderline personality," "dissociative disorders," etc. are shorthand descriptions of desperate coping measures that survivors use to manage the pain from early extreme abuse.

The Coming Age of Climate Trauma [washingtonpost.com]

By Andrea Stanley, The Washington Post Magazine, October 27, 2021 J ess Mercer received a call from her stepmom, Annette, that morning, a little after 8 a.m. “We’re coming,” Annette said, her voice so unrecognizable it sounded foreign. Jess was at her apartment in Chico, Calif., a slightly overgrown university town that sits in a valley below the hilltop community of Paradise, about 20 minutes away. She was confused. It was early, on a weekday: Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. She wasn’t expecting a...

Forward Together: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives on Protecting Children from Abuse | 11/05/21 [caprotectiveparents.org]

Register Today Friday, November 5, 2021 At California Protective Parents Association, we are so grateful to be co-hosting this special day on Friday, November 5 starting at 9 am PT with UCI Initiative to End Family Violence. This full-day virtual conference will offer multidisciplinary perspectives on protecting children from family violence in the context of child custody or divorce cases. National experts, leading legislators, survivors and courageous kids will address policy reforms,...

Building a mental health delivery system by the people, for the people

The state’s unprecedented investment in children and youth , which will roll out over the next few years , represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine our mental health system centered on equity and justice. California's bold action acknowledges a growing national consensus that the mental health crisis among children has become a national emergency. Key to achieving the state's vision is creating a workforce that engages people with lived experience as peer providers,...

The Hidden Biases of Good People: Implicit Bias Awareness Training

The Dibble Institute is pleased to present an introductory webinar by Rev. Dr. Bryant T. Marks Sr. of the National Training Institute on Race and Equity , which will provide foundational information on implicit bias. It will focus at the individual level and discuss how implicit bias affects everyone. Strategies to reduce or manage implicit bias will be discussed. Broadly speaking, group-based bias involves varying degrees of stereotyping (exaggerated beliefs about others), prejudice...

Wildfires, Climate Change, and How Philanthropy Can Make a Difference: an Interview With Alan Kwok [philanthropy.com]

By Eden Stiffman, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, October 18, 2021 Alan Kwok began his job as director of climate and disaster resilience at Northern California Grantmakers in November of 2018. Barely a week later, sparks from a faulty electric transmission line ignited the Camp Fire, which began its devastating spread through Northern California’s Butte County. The blaze became the most destructive and deadly wildfire in the state’s history, burning an area nearly the size of Chicago. “There...

'Down to My Last Diaper': The Anxiety of Parenting in Poverty [californiahealthline.org]

By Jenny Gold, California Healthline, October 21, 2021 For parents living in poverty, “diaper math” is a familiar and distressingly pressing daily calculation. Babies in the U.S. go through six to 10 disposable diapers a day, at an average cost of $70 to $80 a month. Name-brand diapers with high-end absorption sell for as much as a half a dollar each, and can result in upwards of $120 a month in expenses. One in every three American families cannot afford enough diapers to keep their infants...

Envisioning a More Just and Inclusive Health Care System [chcf.org]

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, October 15, 2021 To support CHCF’s vision of health equity for all Californians, the foundation has launched the Health Equity Fellows program to identify, develop, and support emerging leaders who are Black, Indigenous, or other people of color. The program’s mission is to help fellows become local and regional catalysts for health equity across the state. After an extremely competitive application process, CHCF selected the first...

Education experts show how federal funding falls short of school health goals

After educators’ experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, a 2014 approach to school health has gained even greater urgency. Under this model, a student's physical health is considered to be inseparable from their mental and social health. Moreover, it assumes that school climate, family engagement, community involvement, and, importantly, the health of school staff are all integral to the health of students. Researchers with ChildTrends recently released a report using metrics based on this...

Who Keeps Us Safe? [motherjones.com]

By Madison Pauly, Mother Jones, October 14, 2021 Early on a Saturday morning in June 2015, a passerby notices a silver BMW stopped at an off-ramp in Oakland, California. The car’s turn signal is on, and the motor is running, but it doesn’t move as the traffic light cycles. Through the tinted windows, the driver appears passed out in the front seat. So the bystander calls 911 to report a medical emergency. Soon, armed police officers swarm the scene. If they are concerned the driver might...

Join us October 27, 2021 for the inaugural event in our Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice System series, “The Relationship between PACEs and the Criminal Justice System”

Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection Midwest and Tennessee community facilitator and 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...

A US small-town mayor sued the oil industry. Then Exxon went after him [theguardian.com]

By Chris McGreal, The Guardian, October 16, 2021 Serge Dedina is a surfer, environmentalist and mayor of Imperial Beach, a small working-class city on the California coast. He is also, if the fossil fuel industry is to be believed, at the heart of a conspiracy to shake down big oil for hundreds of millions of dollars. ExxonMobil and its allies have accused Dedina of colluding with other public officials across California to extort money from the fossil-fuel industry. Lawyers even searched...

Stanford study finds why writing a letter to a teacher can turn around the lives of some students [edsource.org]

By Carolyn Jones, October 19, 2021 F ormerly incarcerated students who wrote letters to their teachers — describing their hopes and dreams, asking for a second chance — were less than half as likely as their peers to return to jail, a Stanford University study found. Researchers spent two years working with about 50 students in Oakland Unified who had spent time in the county’s juvenile justice system and had recently returned to their regular schools. Researchers asked the students to write...

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