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The election is upon us. In two short weeks, we voters in this country decide who will lead us for the next four years. We have the opportunity to embrace — as a national priority — the tenets of understanding, nurturing and healing that underlie the science of adverse childhood experiences and move in a direction that embraces cultural and racial equity and anti-racism. Or not. What is clear is that no matter what, the ACEs movement will continue.

From California Children's Trust, October 15, 2020 Alex Briscoe met Dr. Barbara Staggers 25 years ago , while he was a counselor at McClymonds High School in West Oakland. After school on a Friday, one of Briscoe’s students needed medical attention but didn’t know where to turn. Clinics were closed for the weekend, and after Briscoe had placed many fruitless calls trying to find a place for the student to go, someone said, “Call Dr. Barbara Staggers. She’ll see teens anytime.” Then the...

Thursday, November 5, 2020 | 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm (PT) Megan Gerber, MD, MPH is a general internist with a career-long focus on the medical care of trauma exposed women. She is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at Boston University and Medical Director of Women’s Health at VA Boston. She holds an adjunct appointment as Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her work focuses on optimizing medical outcomes for women who have experienced trauma as well as adapting systems of...

Students will no longer be graded based on a yearly average, or on how late they turn in assignments. Those are just some of the major grading changes approved this week by California's second-largest school district. The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) is overhauling the way it grades students. Board members say the changes are part of a larger effort to combat racism. “This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” says SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera. “If we’re...

Op-Ed by Jevon Wilkes: Young people need safe, stable housing. They need jobs paying living wages. They need access to education and training and support to complete them and go on to careers in growing fields. They need a sense of trust, autonomy, independence, and identity to heal and thrive.

Now, more than ever, there is a need for a new kind of hope, one founded in science and demonstrable, replicable progress. That hope lies in the science of adverse childhood experiences and the remarkable results from people who have used this new understanding of human behavior to solve our most intractable problems.

By David Lightman, The Sacramento Bee, October 8, 2020 Hundreds of thousands of Californians who were out of work at the start of last month will be getting another week of supplemental $300 payments from the federal government, the state’s Employment Development Department said Thursday. The Lost Wages Assistance Program payments to qualified claimants should start going out next week. They are likely to be the last such supplemental benefits for a long time. President Donald Trump...

By Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2020 When Tanita Harris-Ligons moved to Glendale in 2008, she said locals kept asking her where she was visiting from. “If you’re Black, they didn’t believe you lived there,” she said of the city that was once a bastion for white supremacy groups and a so-called sundown town, where Black people weren’t welcome after dark . About two years later, her son, Jalani, started middle school in the city, and the children began to separate along racial...

By Julianna Domingo, Shehreen Karim, and Charlotte West, Cal Matters, October 8, 2020 Pierce College theater student Sonny Lira was in the middle of rehearsing a script when his phone overheated and shut off, abruptly cutting off his performance. This wasn’t the first time technical difficulties interrupted Lira’s community college class. Since Wi-Fi wasn’t good enough at home, Lira often practiced his lines over Zoom in his car, situated in the middle of a Starbucks parking lot. The...

“If he wins I'm going to Canada.” ”I need to find and marry someone with E.U. citizenship.” “I'm going to apply for grad school in one of the Scandinavian countries!” “My family always kept dual citizenship, just in case we ever needed it.” These are just a few of the comments I have heard when people contemplate what they’ll do if Donald Trump wins the 2020 election. I would be dishonest if I said that leaving the United States had not crossed my mind. After all, I want to provide my...

By Vicki Larson, Marin Independent Journal, October 8, 2020 After making three movies together that focused on the challenges, stresses and resilience of childhood, it occurred to filmmakers James Redford and Karen Pritzker — well, what about adults? Adults seem to be increasingly stressed, even before the pandemic, although wellness has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Is there anything adults can do to help keep stress in check? Yes, they discovered — play, which they highlight in...

Announcing PLAYING FOR KEEPS The latest documentary feature from KPJR Films PLAYING FOR KEEPS examines the importance of play and downtime for all of us – children, adults, seniors, and animals. It is a tapestry of interwoven characters that takes a look at the health benefits of the play state as well as its recent decline in our lives. Premiering NOW at Mill Valley Film Festival!! October 9 - 18th, 2020 For Tickets, please visit: https://bit.ly/PFKPremiere *Original flyer attached below