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E ven as crime has dropped in L.A. over the last two decades, there are thousands of children who grow up with a constant drumbeat of death while navigating safe paths to schools in neighborhoods where someone has been killed nearby. The impact of close-up violence can be devastating and costly for students, schools and communities: Some students suffer PTSD-like symptoms. Schools have begun incorporating the inevitability of trauma into their design, with curriculum addressing stress...

It may not seem like a lot compared with centuries of genocide, displacement from their land and separation of their families, but some Southern California Native Americans say they appreciate how local public universities are moving to recruit more American Indian students and faculty and generally improve relations. UCLA is the most recent campus to reach out to Native Americans. Last fall, Chancellor Gene Block created the position of Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American...

Introduction The need for a caring school culture that promotes a sense of connectedness and belonging is essential and must begin the day a child begins their educational experience. Yet, for those of us who work in alternative education environment, we often hear the all too common story of a school experience that didn't meet the students needs. Meeting the needs of a student is a broad connotation that can vary considerably depending on the school setting and the student describing the...

Never before have we gathered such a range of interesting, revolutionary and effective means of healing from trauma. If you don’t come for yourself, come for those you love and/or serve.

Pepper spray is excruciatingly painful, according to firsthand reports by many former L.A. County juvenile hall and probation camp inmates, and inflicts its torture on contact with the skin and especially the eyes, nose and mouth. As used by the staff, it causes a burning pain that continues as its victims are detained, away from the working sinks and showers that are needed to “decontaminate,” or wash the chemicals off. And the pain returns at night, the youths say, as chemicals absorbed by...

First 5 LA and its partners are calling for a commitment within organizations and systems to help individuals, families and communities heal from trauma, strengthen their resiliency, and become trauma and resiliency informed. This work began in 2016 with a kick-off event to hear about promising practices underway in other counties and progressed to a workgroup of foundations, community-based organizations and Los Angeles County Departments that convened for nearly a year to provide...

Hi BSCC partners, Check out this opportunity to learn more about the Youth Reinvestment Grant 's RFP process at a Youth Reinvestment Town Hall on Friday January 25th from 10am-12pm ! If you know others who may be interested in applying, please share out this information ASAP. As a reminder, the new grant program will distribute $37 million in the form of $ 50,000 - $1 million grants to support community-based, trauma-informed, culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate and health-based...

In communities across the nation, complex care management teams are deploying “non-traditional” health care workers — including individuals with lived experience or skills that transcend the traditional bounds of health care — to better connect with high-risk patients. The New Faces of the Complex Care Workforce series showcases how these workers are helping in innovative ways to address the needs of adult Medicaid beneficiaries with complex health and social needs. In the second profile of...

As the Los Angeles teachers strike continued Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $10 million in funding for the Los Angeles Unified School District to pay for more mental health counselors in schools. As part of its contract demands, the teachers union has called for smaller class sizes as well as more nurses, counselors and librarians in schools. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who co-authored the motion along with Supervisor Hilda Solis, told reporters the...

As Los Angeles County continues efforts to move its juvenile justice system in a direction that emphasizes diversion over incarceration, supervisors hope to leverage arts programming as part of a broader set of reforms. Arts-oriented programming has long played a role in the nation’s largest juvenile justice systems, but L.A. County leaders hope a grant from one of the nation’s leading funders will expand these services. A one-year, $750,000 grant from the Ford Foundation’s Art for Justice...

How to Navigate Amidst Overwhelming Times Whether because of trauma, crises, or extremely rough days. Please join us for a day of raising awareness of trauma, vicarious trauma, and systematic oppression. This workshop will address how we’re being impacted by current and past overwhelm, crises, toll, or trauma and establish concrete means for how to keep on keeping on both individually and collectively. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky will offer a compelling mix of personal insight, cutting-edge...

In Los Angeles, it’s now far simpler for nonprofits to find apartments to help people get off the street. For someone living on the street or in a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, the wait to get housing through the county’s Coordinated Entry program–a system that tries to connect people who are homeless with an apartment or house as quickly as possible–usually takes months, leaving a person waiting without a home. A new platform may help make the wait a little faster, by making it easier...