California Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday made two appointments to the California Children and Families Commission, also known as the First 5 California Commission. To serve in the role of First 5 California Commission Chair, Governor Newsom appointed Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California Surgeon General. Additionally, Governor Newsom appointed Elsa Mendoza Jimenez, Director of Health, Monterey County Health Department, as a Commission member.

Do you feel your stress rising, especially as COVID and political disturbances are raging? We Are Resilient is a practical hands-on approach to strengthening resilience and reducing stress. We can all benefit from recognizing what gets in the way of our resilience and learning how to practice these practical skills which promote it.

We Are Resilient is particularly helpful for healthcare providers and staff to be more comfortable addressing ACEs, trauma and providing trauma-informed care. The training helps providers manage their own vicarious trauma and provides anticipatory guidance to support patients/caregivers in strengthening their own resilience skills.

2 (90-min) Interactive webinars, one week apart:

OR 6 (1-hour) weekly Resilience Circle sessions:

Healthcare Resilience Circles for six weeks starting Jan 12 or Feb 18, 6-7 pm PT 

BIG TIMBER, Mont. — Grace Foulk remembers the concerts her family would host on the sprawling lawn of their three-room log cabin in Montana’s Boulder Valley, lawn chairs arranged around a campfire as her father played guitar. Her dad had passed down his love of music to her; Grace would plead with him to teach her chords on the guitar when he got home from long days working at the local mine, and though he was exhausted, he taught her how to play. But darker moments from Grace’s childhood cast a shadow on her happy memories — childhood trauma that sits with her as vividly as her father’s songs. “I didn’t recognize a lot of the dysfunction that was going on at the time,” she said of those early years.

Toxic stress is brought about by repeated stressful and traumatic experiences with no supportive relationships. This is causing huge mental and physical health problems for people across the nation, including Latinos and other people of color.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris even calls toxic stress a public health crisis.