Trauma-informed Teaching

"Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer."

From acclaimed directors/producers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson (HBO’s I Am Evidence, Class Divide) comes an enlightening HBO documentary that explores the causes and effects of chronic stress from scientific, economic and sociological perspectives. In investigating the recent three-year decline in U.S. life expectancy for the first time in a hundred years, neurosurgeon and Emmy®-award winning CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta travels across the country, interviewing experts from a wide range of fields who share their insights on why we are experiencing so much stress, its effect on Americans, and its consequences for the health of the nation. Along the way, Gupta also speaks candidly with Americans struggling with stress-related ailments and loved ones lost to “deaths of despair,” particularly in communities facing economic and social instability. Shedding light on the origins and nature of stress, including its biological and social roots, as well as various treatments and strategies being developed to help cope with it, One Nation Under Stress is a timely and vital film that encourages us all to focus on the mental and emotional well-being of the nation, a process that involves education, enlightenment and empathy (HBO, 2019).

In the moving and immersive film LONG STORY SHORT, over 100 people at homeless shelters, food banks, adult literacy programs, and job training centers in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in Northern California discuss their experiences of poverty: why they are poor, how it feels, and what they think should be done about American poverty and homelessness today. Numerous interviews are stitched together to form a polyphonic account of American poverty told from the inside (Icarus Films, 2016).

THE HOMESTRETCH follows three homeless teens as they fight to stay in school, graduate, and build a future. Each of these resilient, inspiring teenagers - Roque, Kasey and Anthony - will surprise and challenge audiences to rethink stereotypes of homelessness as they work to complete their education while facing the trauma of being alone and abandoned at an early age (Bullfrog Films, 2014).

"ACESTooHigh is a news site that reports on research about adverse childhood experiences, including developments in epidemiology, neurobiology, and the biomedical and epigenetic consequences of toxic stress. We also cover how people, organizations, agencies and communities are implementing practices based on the research. This includes developments in education, juvenile justice, criminal justice, public health, medicine, mental health, social services, and cities, counties and states."

ACEs Connection is now PACEs Connection. PACEs stands for Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences.