Trauma-Informed

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships.

Two volunteers race against the clock to stack red Solo cups into the highest tower they can manage. Queenie Smith keeps knocking them down. After the one-minute exercise, Smith, 16, who is leading this hour-long training on trauma and resilience along with two colleagues, explains to her audience that the game is a metaphor: “You constantly build up your life goals, but ACEs keep knocking them down.”

From the report: “Many youth end up in the juvenile justice system, not because of the seriousness of their crime but because appropriate community-based treatments and services to address their specific needs are lacking, their conditions have not been recognized, or the relevant service systems are not coordinating effectively.

Nearly a year ago, pro-bono lawyers from Los Angeles-based Public Counsel made national headlines by launching a landmark class-action lawsuit against Compton Unified School District in federal court in Los Angeles, arguing that the district had failed to address issues of childhood trauma that prevented students from receiving a quality education.

Projected on the enormous screen at the front of the room was a blue-tinged image of a brain scan with a seemingly simple phrase next to it: “Changing Minds.” The striking image and accompanying messages are still being developed by national nonprofit Futures Without Violence (Futures) for a public outreach campaign about the complex issue of childhood trauma.

The people who are doing most of the pioneering work to integrate trauma-informed, resilience-building practices based on ACEs research (writ large) are doing so in cities and counties across the U.S.

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 12 former foster youths who completed Congressional internships.

This fall, I traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s (CCAI) Angels in Adoption celebration. The event, which draws stars from entertainment and D.C.’s political elite, always fills the cavernous Ronald Reagan Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, providing a suitable stage for some real heroes.