debor016

I ’d like to update you on some of my activities and those of the Traumatic Stress Institute. This past week I was honored to attend two activities that emerged from the Newtown tragedy. My boss Dr. Steve Girelli was one of the local experts chosen to be part of a panel at an event focusing on Gun Violence. The event was held at the campus of WestConn University in Danbury and the keynote speaker was Vice President Joe Biden. Many local politicians also participated including Senator Richard Blumenthal, Senator Chris Murphy and Representative Elizabeth Esty. Attending with Vice President Biden was U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Newtown First Selectman E. Patricia Llodra was also present. The first panel focused on gun control, and some of the participants were Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra ; Lynn and Chris McDonnell, parents of Newtown victim Grace McDonnell, a first-grader; and Dale Hourigan, a state police captain and Newtown first-responder, Capt. Dale Hourigan of the Co...

Those who know me or who have been following this blog know that I am interested in the works of Bruce Perry and the neurosequential development of the brain. I believe that if we take his work seriously it could lead to a reveoution in the helping programs. To over-simplify, I believe that our most important task is to teach the child through experience that people cen be associated with pleasure. Then we also have to support brain development, offering that youth as many experiences as possible to promote his brain catching up to where it should be. This has all sort of ramifications. So what do we actually do? I am giving a seminar for CT NASW: Using the New Brain Science to Create More Effective Treatment Friday, March 1, 2013 - 9:00AM to 4:30 PM ( http://www.naswct.org/  to register, hope to see you there), and in my preparation I decided to make a list of brain based interventions. This list is not complete by any means but it might be enough to start you thinking,   Br...

Long post- please read and comment. I would like to write about the way my thinking has changed over time about what we like to call “behavior management”, I am referring to treatment programs in which, in addition to providing treatment, staff have to respond to behavior that hurts others. The idea hopefully is that we respond in a way that helps the youth decrease such behaviors. This applies to any group care program, such as a hospital, a residential, a day program, a special ed school, an after school program…in short, many programs. First of all, I wonder if we could invent another term. What could we call our attempt to change behavior in the day-to-day setting: behavior support? Learning to be kinder? Any thoughts? Anyway, once upon a time I worked in a traditional points and levels residential treatment program. In fact, when I first got there it had points, level, phases, and many punishments. The most severe was called “Sub” level because it was below all the other level...