In the past few days we have witnessed two international tragedies. The 6.8 earthquake in Morocco has killed over 2900 individuals and displaced thousands from their homes. The floods in Libya have killed over 8,000 individuals with 10,000 still missing. These tragedies are more than any of us can comprehend....
Fentynal Funding Assistance Announced for Rural Communities
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced more than $80 million in awards to rural communities in 39 states to support key strategies to respond to the overdose risk from fentanyl and other opioids. More than 100,000 people die each year...
The Challenges of Contextualizing Trauma Training
Lakeside has one of the most exhaustive trauma curriculum content in the country. We feature a series of trauma workshops, a full certification program for trauma competent professionals, a school-based Neurologic training for teachers and administrators, and a full organizational trauma-informed certification program authored by Dr. Sandra Bloom. We're continuing...
Giving Family Grace for Trauma Within Family Systems
Even for those of us who deal with adversity and trauma all the time, we often look at our own families and become concerned about some of the issues that are so prominent in those who are close to us. When we discover these kinds of issues, it's hard to...
Trauma Knowledge Can Bring a New Lens
I was reminded this week how important it is that individuals who have experienced significant adversity and/or trauma have an understanding about the impact of their trauma even though it might have been years ago. The ACES research has reminded us that children who have had certain life adversities have...
AI-generated Child Sex Abuse on the Internet
There is a recent discovery that is featuring AI-generated sex abuse material on the internet that has been proliferated. The Washington Post just released an article that openly displayed examples of this abuse aimed at our children. An evidence of this proliferation is what happened at the popular internet chat...
The Connections Between Drug Use and the Mental Health Crisis
One of the pre-COVID crises was identified as a frightening drug abuse problem particularly with opioids. Drugs like oxycotin and fentanyl were used both legally and illegally in significant ways to the point that we were forecasting addictions and deaths to be increased significantly. The trending was so impactful that settlements...
The Value of Process Learning
We all have had training that is presented and then once it is over we forgot most of what was presented. It is just how our brains work in that we do not retain well no matter how well the training was presented. It is rather alarming to me that...
Helping Direct Service Workers Become Trauma-Informed
Almost everywhere I go, I hear the stories of how tragic and impactful the current mental health crisis is in children and adults across our country. I have spoken with schools, healthcare organizations, community leaders, foundation staff, mental health organizations, child protective services and other treatment facilities. The tone is...
Should Exposure to Gun Violence be Classified as an ACE Score?
Over 3 million children are exposed to some form of gun violence each year in America. This means they have seen guns that have been discharged, or they’ve seen people wounded and may even have seen individuals close to them killed. When we think of the post-traumatic stress, the fear,...