Blog

Virtual Conference | April 5-6, 2022 Our world gets more complex every day. So it's more important than ever to address the traumas that affect our communities. That’s why we’re coming together at the Hanna Institute Summit: to heal our communities. But why should you join us? Here are the top three reasons people attend the Summit: 1) Learn from Experts From best-selling authors Ibram X. Kendi and Resmaa Menakem to Nancy Dome and Dr. Gary Slutkin, national and Bay Area experts will bring...

Gardening is oft-noted for its therapeutic value – spending time outdoors improves mental health, relieves stress and anxiety, and can increase feelings of well-being. It was with this intent that Bayside Community Center launched its garden therapy program last year, one of many programs offered by 88 nonprofit partners throughout San Diego County through the Level Up SD grant program. After a year of pandemic restrictions and online learning during the 2020 – 2021 academic year, the San...

Social justice advocate and philosopher, Dr. Cornel West visited San Diego today to talk to 150 middle school and high school students. Many of whom are from underserved communities. It's a visit hosted by UC San Diego with the intent to motivate those who oftentimes feel marginalized. Dr. West is famous for being a social justice advocate and he’s been interviewed thousands of times on big T.V. networks, but he made the drive to San Diego to speak to our future generation. “The focus on...

It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces at our meeting! Special thanks to Linda Ketterer from San Diego Mission Academy and Micaela Cunningham from NAMI San Diego! They started our discussion with brief presentations on the role of Family/Youth Support Partners and services offered to FYSPs by NAMI! See attached minutes and handouts for details.

Has the pandemic stressed you out? Want to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series, Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental well-being. (CEUs are...

Linda Ketterer provided a moving and informative Learning Exchange presentation, The Value of the Voice, on the importance and evolution of the voice of lived experience in our system of care. See attached for Linda's PowerPoint presentation and meeting minutes.

The San Diego County Probation Department has a new Chief to lead the department’s transformation and support the successful transition of people back to the community. Tamika Nelson is the first woman to lead the County’s probation department. She recently served as the Assistant Chief Probation Officer in San Joaquin County, managing a department with more than 350 sworn and non-sworn personnel. In her position with San Joaquin County, Assistant Chief Nelson helped deploy evidence-based...

This year, the California legislature approved $209 million for competitive 3-year grants to cities disproportionately impacted by violence to improve safety and promote healing in communities. 53 California cities are eligible to apply for this grant, more than ever before! In San Diego County, community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve the residents of the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, or El Cajon are also eligible to apply. You are receiving this email either because your...

Decolonization starts inside of you. It is a lot about finding compassion and kindness, and less about anger and fear. We should remember that it begins with an internal process of healing and reconciliation. Once we find that peace, then we will be able to move forward and unify as peoples. We must remember that we are all related. At Standing Rock, we saw a new vision of what it means to be human. The fire and the water were our tools for healing. It was not just a protest; it was an...

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to explore expanding a special, intensive and in-demand criminal court program that aims to get mentally ill offenders out of jail and into housing and treatment. The board wants to take a closer look at growing what is known as Behavioral Health Court, designed for offenders who have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia. The 12-year-old program the county funds in San Diego Superior Court is relatively small, capped at...

Hinton, Henderson, and Reed start at the beginning, showing how the abolition of slavery led to a certain insidious ingenuity for Southern lawmakers, who devised “unique forms of policing, sentencing and confinement” in order to “capitalize on a loophole in the 13 th Amendment that states citizens cannot be enslaved unless convicted of a crime.” The resulting Black Codes, Vagrancy Laws, and Convict Leasing ensured that law enforcement would aggressively target newly freed Black people. The...

YMCA of San Diego County is not new to the intersection of workforce and child care. In its over 40 years of service to the San Diego region as the County’s Child Care Resource and Referral, helping parents find the best child care solutions to fit their needs has been a significant piece of YMCA’s work with families. As conversations increase on how to better support working families, what’s becoming more and more apparent is that employers have a vital role to play. “Across San Diego, too...