Personal experience, common sense, and science confirm that temperatures are rising globally. Heat waves are occurring with greater frequency and lasting longer than ever before. According to the World Meteorological Organization , 2023 is believed to have been the hottest year on record. Humans have successfully adapted to a wide range of climates, but there are limits to our tolerance and climatic conditions beyond which our bodies cannot cool themselves sufficiently. While the dangers of...

As Texas leads the nation in Black growth, Tiara Dawson, a newcomer, acknowledges that many lack the survival skills needed for the state's increasing number of climate disasters. Credit: Riot Muse By Adam Mahoney, Inside Climate News, December 15, 2023 Stephanie Roberson wasn’t expecting this phone call from her husband, Corey. “I can’t do this anymore,” she remembers him saying. Do what? Her mind went racing. He was stuck on a mountain over 400 miles away from his family in Cincinnati, his...

Lonely in New York City, as shot by the legendary street photographer Weegee in 1946. While social isolation isn’t new, many experts believe that modern life has made it worse. Photographer: Weegee (Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography/Getty Images By Linda Poon, Bloomberg CityLab, December 14, 2023 On a recent afternoon stroll though Baltimore’s Mount Vernon Place, British artist Andy Field surveyed his surroundings. There were lots of people out enjoying the historic park, a...

A mother embraces her 5-year-old son, whose school was evacuated during the Route Fire, on Aug. 31, 2022 near Castaic, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) By Jeff Brady, KQED, December 14, 2023 Eighteen California children are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming it violated their constitutional rights by failing to protect them from the effects of climate change. The suit is the latest in a series of climate-related cases filed on behalf of children. According to the...

By Abigail L. Zeamer, Marie-Claire Salive, Xinming An, et al., Image: from article, Translational Psychiatry, November 18, 2023 Abstract Patients exposed to trauma often experience high rates of adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae (APNS). The biological mechanisms promoting APNS are currently unknown, but the microbiota-gut-brain axis offers an avenue to understanding mechanisms as well as possibilities for intervention. Microbiome composition after trauma exposure has been...

Want to keep up with PACEs news and science when you're not on our site? Connect with us on social media to stay up to date on trauma-informed and resilience-building practices! We will be sharing articles, resources, and upcoming events. Check us out across all of our social media platforms: PACEs Connection on LinkedIn PACEs Connection on YouTube PACEs Connection on Twitter PACEs Connection on Instagram PACEs Connection on Facebook PACEs Connection on TikTok If you're ever looking for...

From Pathways to Resilience, November 2023 Projections estimate the United States will be home to approximately 100 million young people under age 24 during the next decade. Engaging youth in policy development and program design is an opportunity to equip young people with skills and learning experiences. It is also a critical element of developing effective, responsive, and equitable programs and policies with the help of youth’s insights, observations, and innovations. Join Pathways to...

In Libemuket, Ethiopia, climate change and drought are threatening crops and livestock, pushing the local population to the brink. UNICEF/UNI417897/Pouget By Tess Ingram, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), November 13, 2023 1 in 3 children – or 739 million worldwide – already live in areas exposed to high or very high water scarcity, with climate change threatening to make this worse, according to a new UNICEF report. Further, the double burden of dwindling water availability and...

From Human Rights Campaign, Image: from artice, November 2023 Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance is a time for the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate, uplift and honor our trans community. By publicly demonstrating support while challenging anti-trans legislation and negative rhetoric, we can turn our solidarity as LGBTQ+ people and allies into a collective power to advance equality and justice. Together, we can transform the world. [ Please click here for more...

By Daphne Chouliaraki Milner, Photo: Sabine Villiard / Trunk Archive, Atmos, October 24, 2023 Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, the first Palestinian executive director of the Arava Institute, an Israel-based academic institute focused on transboundary climate solutions, explains how environmental cooperation can help with regional stability, especially in crisis times. More than one million people have been displaced in Gaza, following Israel’s evacuation orders of the northern part of the sealed-off...

By Susan Clayton, Christie Manning, Alison Nicole Hill, et al., Image: from article, ecoAmerica, October 11, 2023 Building on the success of Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Inequities, and Responses , ecoAmerica collaborated with the American Psychological Association to bring forth the next edition, Mental Health and our Changing Climate: Children and Youth Report . The Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Children and Youth report chronicles the effects of climate...

From Center on the Developing Child, Photo: from article, Harvard University, October 2023 In June, we hosted a webinar about our latest Working Paper, Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development , which examines how a wide range of conditions in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn can shape how children develop. The paper examines the many ways in which the built and natural environment surrounding a child can affect their...

Steven James, 12, waits to hunt geese on St. Lawrence Island, in Alaska, sitting hidden behind a wood bar and a whale bone. Credit: Ann Johansson/Corbis via Getty Images. By Victoria St. Martin, Inside Climate News, October 23, 2023 For over 2,000 years, the Indigenous people known as the Yupik have occupied St. Lawrence Island, a sliver of Alaska that rests in the Bering Sea just below the Arctic Circle and where, on a clear day, it’s said that one can see the coastline of Russia about 40...

By Carly Mellenbaum, Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios, Axios, Ocotober 23, 2023 A new, more expansive definition of " infertility " could lead to more help for hopeful LGBTQ+ or single parents. Why it matters: The decision by an influential organization of reproductive health providers to redefine the condition could lead to broader insurance coverage of fertility services like egg freezing and in vitro fertilization for all people who need help starting families — not just those in...

By Kareem Fahim, Ali Al-Muhajed, and Lorenzo Tugnoli, Photo: from article, The Washington Post, October 12, 2023 There are never enough hospital beds for all the malnourished children across this poor and parched province. But this summer, even more families than usual had to be turned away from the bursting wards. In Hodeida’s city hospital one afternoon, infants were crowded two or three to a bed. Their mothers and siblings sat slumped in the gaps in between. Wails filled the ward. Another...

Overview The science of P ositive and A dverse C hildhood E xperience s (PACEs) shows that childhood adversity is the root cause of the most prevalent and costly childhood/adult diseases, as well as most social, economic and mental health issues. PACEs Connection brings together resources to integrate trauma-informed and resilience-building practices in identifying and healing the impact of childhood adversity in families (abuse, bullying, addiction to alcohol or other drugs), communities...

Maksim Batuyev is an environmental activist who runs climate cafes in Los Angeles. Sept. 27, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for Cal Matters By Shreya Agrawal, Cal Matters, October, 10, 2023 Maksim Batuyev’s college studies on the climate crisis left him feeling depressed. “I was questioning the sheer gravity of it all and how all of it is systemic. None of it has an easy solution,” he said. “That really started to bring me into some dark places.” During his senior year at Michigan State...

By Jillian McKoy, Image: from article, Boston University, January 3, 2023 [Editor's note: This article is from several months ago. However, due to the current climate, the concepts continue to be relevant.] Major natural disasters such as last month’s 6.4 magnitude California earthquake , tornados in Louisiana, and a “once-in-a-generation” multi-state winter storm caused major damage to homes across the US and disrupted daily lives. As experts predict these events will continue to increase...

Graphics from a UC Denver studio project that applied trauma-informed design and universal design principles to Mestizo-Curtis Park in Five Points, Denver, a neighborhood historically characterized by redlining that continues to experience the ongoing impact of housing discrimination. / image: Charlotte Rose By Charlotte Rose, The Field, October 10, 2023 Segregated communities in various parts of the world have long been subjected to systemic oppression, resulting in enduring cycles of...

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 3:00 - 4:00 pm ET The impact of historical trauma on Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities is widespread and ongoing. Each community has diverse and distinct histories, cultures, traditions, and strengths, but they face many shared challenges stemming from colonization. The response, as noted by many Native leaders, needs to be rooted in community and culture. Join Pathways to Resilience on October 17 at 3:00 pm ET to learn about Native...

Small reading nooks provide a great example of human scale for children at the Smithfield Elementary School. Source: HKS INC. By Erin Peavey, Psychology Today, September 23, 2023 Childhood can be hard even in the best of times. Children are inherently at a power disadvantage, still learning how to manage their emotions, and at the will of adults for food, shelter, and emotional regulation . Frustration, failure, and conflict are unavoidable, but not necessarily bad for children in the long...

From Trauma-informed Design Society, Photo: from article, Trauma-informed Design Society, October 5, 2023 (retrieved) What is Trauma-informed Design? Our physical environment can impact our emotions and behaviors, both negatively and positively. They have the ability to increase or reduce our stress. The spaces in which we live and receive services can communicate safety and promote supportive relationships, or they can symbolize lack of dignity and agency, encouraging re-traumatization.

Cool pastel hues encourage calm mental and physical states at Spacesmith’s Genovese Family Life Center for SCO Family of Services in Queens, New York. (Eric Laignel) By Ámbar Margarida, The Architect's Newspaper, October 4, 2023 Imagine you’re sitting in a waiting room. It’s hot, and your knees are tight to those of the people sitting across from you. You can feel the cramped space closing in. It’s uncomfortable, so you look to the walls: They’re empty and painted a drab beige, with the...

By Laura Gallant, Photo: from article, Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE), April 20, 2023 Earth Day is this Saturday, and the HOPE National Resource Center wants to share ideas of actions that help protect the well-being of our planet, and the future of all children. When we promote practices that heal the Earth, we are celebrating all the amazing things this planet provides for us to create positive childhood experiences (PCEs), and happy, healthy children. This is at the...

By Frida Berrigan, Illustration: from article, Waging Nonviolence, August 23, 2022 Nothing like some light summer reading! My beach reading stack was less whodunits and guilty pleasures and more of a Climate Change 101 survey course. But in this summer of widespread drought, heatwaves melting roads , super storm events, a deadlocked international climate meeting, the protracted political saga of the senator in Big Coal’s back pocket, and lots of other top-of-the-fold climate catastrophe...

Back to School with PACEs Connection: Creating Positive Childhood Environmental Experiences in the Classroom Every aspect of someone’s environment will impact how they live, learn, play, and grow. Those under the age of 18 in traditional learning models will spend the majority of their time in a school setting, where the environment itself lays the foundation for their development. Creating positive childhood experiences in schools and the classroom has a profound impact on students'...

By Michael Gerstein and Jena Brooker, Image: K1tyara/iStock via Getty Images, Grist, September 29, 2023 Wilma Price was sleeping in her basement bedroom in 2021 when she woke up to a cacophony of noise, including an alarm coming from her sump pump, a device meant to prevent basement flooding. As she sat up in bed she saw her freezer and its contents floating by on several inches of water. The bedroom of her home in Detroit’s Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood was quickly flooding with water...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hugs Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) as they speak at a news conference in September 2023 on the launch of the American Climate Corps outside the U.S. Capitol. Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images. By Aynsley O'Neill, Inside Climate News, September 30, 2023 AYNSLEY O’NEILL: In the throes of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps to put more than 3 million men to work. At state and national parks across...

Environmental activists protest outside City Hall in June. (Pat Nabong/Sun-Times file photo) By Brett Chase, Inside Climate News, September 19, 2023 Promising to end the practice of piling on more environmental burdens to the same South and West Side communities, Mayor Brandon Johnson is proposing a series of reforms aimed at changing city practices after federal investigators last year determined Chicago violates the civil rights of its residents by concentrating polluting businesses in...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an interview in Sacramento, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. Newsom signed a bill on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023, to ban school boards from rejecting textbooks based on their teachings about the contributions of people from different racial backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities, calling the measure "long overdue." Rich Pedroncelli/AP By Jonathan Franklin, National Public Radio (NPR), September 26, 2023 California Gov. Gavin Newsom...

Mocha Celis director Francisco Quiñones Cuartas. Photo: Luli Leiras By Diego Jemio, LGBTQ Nation, September 19, 2023 In Argentina, 3.8 million students attend almost 12,000 secondary schools. In this tremendous educational world, there is one school unlike any other: the “Bachillerato Popular Travesti-Trans Mocha Celis.” This institution was born in 2011 with the mission of promoting trans and nonbinary equality in formal education. It was the first of its kind in the world. The school is...

A small group of volunteers work to clean trash from the Watts Branch Stream, in Washington, DC., in 2010.Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post via Getty Images file By Megan Lebowitz and Caroline Kenny, NBC News, September 20, 2023 The White House on Wednesday announced the launch of the American Climate Corps, which the administration said will mobilize more than 20,000 Americans in the clean energy and climate resilience sectors. "This is important because we’re not only opening up...

Cue Ball (left) and Roni (middle), who are both homeless, made their way toward a market amid the city's worst heat wave on record on July 24 in Phoenix, Ariz. MARIO TAMA/GETTY By Sabrina Shankman, Boston Globe, September 17, 2023 With a sweltering heat wave in Massachusetts not far behind us, new research is finding that periods of heat and humidity so great that humans cannot survive without sources of cooling are likely coming much sooner than previously believed. Hundreds of millions of...

Cleveland, Ohio is no stranger to harsh winters, but the city faces little risk from drought, wildfires, and hurricanes—natural disasters expected to worsen as the planet warms. PHOTO BY ANGELO MERENDINO, CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES By Stephen Starr, National Geographic, September 18, 2023 Before September 2017, Dianiz Roman and Wilfredo Gonzalez had never given a moment’s thought to leaving Aguadilla, the couple’s hometown in western Puerto Rico. But after Hurricane Maria struck that month,...

A sample that tested positive for tuberculosis is seen from a microscope in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Magali Druscovich/File Photo By Jennifer Rigby, Reuters, September 18, 2023 Climate change and conflict are hitting efforts to tackle three of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned. International initiatives to fight the diseases have largely recovered after being badly affected by the...

By Molly Sprayregen, Photo: provided to publisher, LGBTQ Nation, September 18, 2023 Five years after my wedding to Scott, I stare at my 29-year-old reflection in the salon mirror. My inner child screams at me, Do it! Do it! When I was six years old, I found the scissors in Mom’s sewing kit and sliced a chunk out of my bangs. Unable to hide it, Mom stared at me with wide eyes, and a lecture from Dad ensued. “According to God’s Word,” he said, “women and girls should have long hair.” My heart...

By Sahar Habib Ghazi, Image: from article, Greater Good Magazine, September 13, 2023 Deadly wildfires in Maui and Canada. Chaotic floods at the Burning Man festival and around the world. More, and more, intense hurricanes. Hottest day on record ever, every year. Climate crisis is all around us. In a world where billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are charging millions of dollars for private trips to space while releasing extraordinary amounts of planet-heating greenhouse gases, our...

Climate models have suggested that the safe boundary for climate change was surpassed in the late 1980s Photograph: Alamy By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, September 13, 2023 Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have warned. Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world. The planetary...

By Gray Babbs, Em Balkan, Jae Downing Corman, and David J. Meyers, Photo: from article, HealthAffairs, September 11, 2023 In July 2023, the US House of Representatives made bold and decisive moves to erode gender-affirming health care coverage, marking the beginning of a new frontier in the battle for transgender rights. The House passed two bills and released a third bill that would impact gender-affirming care coverage for Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Indian Health Service (IHS), and...

Four major fossil fuel developments have been approved by the Albanese government; four examples of just how broken Australia’s environmental law is. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian By Tim Flannery, The Guardian, September 8, 2023 Late on a Friday evening, just a couple of weeks ago, Australia’s federal environment minister quietly waved through a coalmine extension that will outlive most of us. The Gregory Crinum coalmine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin now has a green light to...

The bicycle lanes on Kottbusser Damm in Berlin started as a pop-up and have since been made permanent. Credit: Dan Gearino By Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, August 24, 2023 One of my first impressions upon returning to Berlin after four years was that there were more bicycles than before. Bicycles were just about everywhere, on streets and sidewalks, in parks and carried onto trains. The growth of bicycle traffic followed two big events. First was a law passed in 2018 by the equivalent of...