National Child Traumatic Stress Network

Claudia Gold, MD. focuses on Children's Mental Health Awareness, this month--particularly, childhood trauma and the need for Trauma Informed Care. An excerpt:  "In a powerful recent New York Times op ed, Post-Traumatic Childhood, leading trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk writes about the possible of loss of funding for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, an organization developed in 2001 to evaluate and develop treatments for traumatized children nationwide. He writes:

Most traumatized children now do not even receive a proper mental health assessment. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of them are numbed by powerful drugs that help control their "bad behavior," but that don't deal with the imprint of terror and helplessness on their minds and brains. Drugs can sedate, but they do not help children deal with trauma - in fact, they may prevent recovery by interfering with learning and the formation of relationships, essential preconditions for becoming functioning adults."   read the rest:  Preserve Important Childhood Trauma Treatment Program  

 I also would like to introduce two new blogs to the blogroll.   The first is Regina Holliday's Medical Advocacy Blog.  This woman is simply inspiring, uplifting and a force to be reckoned with.  She describes her blog as: "A PLACE WHERE ART, MEDICINE, SOCIAL MEDIA AND POP-CULTURE COLLIDE AND CREATE A PATIENT VOICE IN HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY."  It seems like so much more than that--She has a "show" coming up in Washington DC  on the evening of Tuesday June 7 th 2011 the Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health, located beside Union Station in Washington DC; a one of a kind show, where the art will be worn by Regina, and many others check it out: The Walking Gallery


The second is one I just discovered today...when reading Child in Mind, written by a mother of an adult son whom she adopted after first becoming his foster parent.  It's called,  Raising a Traumatized Child  and it was started a week ago--so it is virtually brand new---