Blog

There’s no shortage of mindfulness and meditation apps these days, promising to help you combat anxiety, sleep better , hone your focus, and more. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that more than 2,000 new meditation apps launched between 2015 and 2018, and offerings have only increased as a result of higher demand during the pandemic—according to the New York Times , mindfulness apps surged in 2020. We took the overwhelm out of finding the most valuable and easy-to-use mindfulness...

The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is a complex legislative prescription for the economic hardship COVID-19 has inflicted on families like Shawn’s. The plan aims to affect a massive economic recovery by putting more money into the hands of more Americans in need . The Center on Social Policy at Columbia University has estimated that the American Rescue Plan will cut the child poverty rate by as much as 56% this year, which would affect children of all races. The...

I. Networking (12:15 - 12:30) II. Welcome (12:30 pm - 12:35 pm) - Chairs Dana Brown and Linda Ketterer * Type Name/Organization/Role in Chat Box * Celebrate New Members (2nd Membership Meeting) III. Grounding Activity (12:35 pm - 12:40 pm) IV. Communication Committee Support (12:40 pm - 12:41 pm) V. SDTIGT YouTube Channel (12.41 pm - 12:45 pm) San Diego Trauma-Informed Guide Team - YouTube VI. Presentation: Unite US (12:45 pm - 1:35 pm) Dr. Eric Hazzard and Moira Kenney VII. San Diego County...

The number of people who became homeless for the first time more than doubled last year, a possible result of the pandemic and a concerning trend that could worsen when eviction moratoriums and rental assistance programs end. In its Homeless Crisis Response System report from 2020, the Regional Task Force on the Homeless found the number of first-time homeless people in the county increased from 2,326 in 2019 to 4,152 in 2020, a 79 percent jump. The previous year saw a 6 percent decrease...

It’s natural and desirable to grieve in the wake of so much death and deprivation. But what is grief? Is it another word for sadness? How do we work through it? And what are we working toward, when we grieve? The difference between sadness and grief While related, sadness and grief are functionally quite different. Sadness is an emotion—and like all emotions we feel it in brief episodes. Moments of truly profound sadness last only minutes at a time. Sadness leads to decreased physiological...

There has been a growing awareness in recent years that traumatic events can rewire minds and bodies in all sorts of ways that corrode health and shorten life spans. While much of the journalistic coverage of these themes over the past decade has focused on early childhood, two speakers at the Center for Health Journalism’s 2021 Domestic Violence Symposium recently walked reporters through some of the science of the trauma caused by domestic violence, with the goal of spurring deeper...

Earth Day has blossomed into a month-long celebration in April focusing on getting outdoors, appreciating nature and coming together as a community all of which are important in our work as ACEs Aware grantees. Recently, “spending time in nature” was added to the list of ways to practice self-care in relation to Adverse Childhood Experiences. The idea behind the self-care practices is to regulate an overactive stress response which can be heightened due to exposure to ACEs and lead to toxic...

If you think of Balboa Park as a crown, then its museums are the crown’s jewels. Among them is the Museum Of Us , formerly known as the Museum Of Man. After months of being closed, the museum opened its doors to visitors once again on Wednesday. The pandemic has brought changes large and small to all the museums in Balboa Park. At the Museum Of Us, it has sped up a reckoning the museum has been engaged in over the last several years with its ties to European Colonialism, beginning with the...

Companies that support mental health —meaning, they talk about it, they work differently, they offer resources and normalize people using them, they train their leaders and managers to know how to support employees, and they hold people accountable for prioritizing mental health—see a 5:1 return on investment . Some of these companies might even (gasp) work fewer hours, but they are working better, smarter, more sustainably. In other words, they are more productive and higher performing.

April is National Month of Hope. While hope is something we all need right now as we surpass one year of the COVID pandemic, HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) means something different in our work as ACEs Aware grantees. The YMCA of San Diego County , San Diego State University Social Policy Institute , San Diego Accountable Community for Health (SDACH) and American Academy of Pediatrics – California Chapter 3 are combining efforts as ACEs Aware grantees to work with...

At last week’s fabulous HOPE Summit, one person told me that they didn’t realize all the things that PACEs Connection does.