Philadelphia Group Blogs

By Erin Arvedlund, The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 7, 2019 There was a shooting in Philadelphia every six hours in 2018. Jim MacMillan contends that didn’t have to be. “We know how to stop gun violence,” MacMillan, founder of IBGVR.org, the Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting, said Saturday at a conference designed to spread the word on what he and others contend are effective deterrents. Community activists; young people from the inner city; mothers of children killed by guns;...

Cissy's Note: I work with people who challenge systems and policies, who reform or start non-profits, and who see hope and promise where others see despair or destruction. While some folks shake their heads or shrug indifferently in the face of injustice and suffering, others organize, mobilize, and channel their time and energy towards making a change. Maybe a physician hosts an annual conference bringing trauma-informed approaches to medical practice. Perhaps a woman shares ACEs 101...

James Williams, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, addresses the Take Back Our Health Conference in November 2018. Photo courtesy of Kate Daugherty. In 2017, two youth-focused Camden, NJ, organizations were angling for the same pot of grant money—funding for a youth-led initiative to learn about community health concerns and develop projects to address them. But instead of scrabbling for the grant as rivals, Hopeworks and UrbanPromise became one another’s cheerleaders. In phone...

Attached is a Case Statement on Trauma Informed Approaches--it is a review of the Greater Harrisburg Area's and beyond's ACE scores, the outcomes of these ACEs and some ideas of how to resolve the negative consequences of this crisis of epidemic proportions. Please use it to advance the cause of moving from the bad news of ACEs towards the good news of becoming trauma informed and resilient. I would also welcome your comments, questions and recommendations! Thank you.

Thick-shouldered and reserved, almost guarded, but always polite, Nasir was the youngest and quietest member of the Community Health Worker Peer Project, a group of young black and Hispanic men who have suffered great trauma and who are now learning, in a course at Drexel University, to recognize and treat trauma in others.

By Daily Local News, July 5, 2019. Legislation to implement trauma-informed education in Pennsylvania schools has been signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf, largely thanks to a bill authored by state Rep. Christina Sappey, D-158th Dist. Earlier this year H.B. 1415 and S.B. 200, which would implement approaches to student learning that recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma and integrates that knowledge into education-based policies, learning, procedures and practices, was introduced by...

Legislation to implement trauma-informed education in Pennsylvania schools has been signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf, largely thanks to a bill authored by state Rep. Christina Sappey, D-158th Dist. Earlier this year H.B. 1415 and S.B. 200, which would implement approaches to student learning that recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma and integrates that knowledge into education-based policies, learning, procedures and practices, was introduced by state Reps. Christina Sappey,...

Chester Community Coalition (CCCC), which offers free trauma-informed programming in a group format to Chester children and their caregivers who have lost loved ones to violence, is seeking social workers to help provide the trauma-informed services to families experiencing violent bereavement in Chester. Part-time per diem: about 6 hrs/week for fall and winter/spring sessions of 12 weeks. 703 Central Ave, Chester, PA 19013 info@chestercommunitycoalition.org (610) 368-0714 For more...

PHILADELPHIA — Forty-seven community-based organizations in Philadelphia that offer violence prevention services and support were given each a cut of more than $700,000 awarded by the city. Efforts being funded include job training in areas such as culinary arts, barbershops, and entreneurship; "Peace Pop Up Shops" that offer trauma-informed care for those affected by violence; grief support programming for impacted families; and training for young adults to become "Peace Ambassadors" in...

The data collection and analysis used in the IA attempts to uncover the experience of individuals as they encounter institutions and provide an understanding of how the institutions are organized to act in certain ways and recognizes that sometimes these ways are not aligned with their desired outcomes. The IA is grounded in the viewpoint of family members—children, fathers, mothers, and other primary caregivers. Allegheny County DHS leadership committed at the very beginning of this project...

Raquel E. Gur, MD, PhD; Tyler M. Moore, PhD; Adon F. G. Rosen, BS; et al JAMA Psychiatry . Published online May 29, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0943 KEY POINTS Question What is the association of an adverse environment, including low socioeconomic status and traumatic stressful events, with psychopathology, neurocognition, and brain parameters in puberty among children and young adults? Findings In this community-based cohort study of 9498 participants, low socioeconomic status was...

What decades of healing from trauma has taught me.