The Ethics Project

08/17/2026

Every child has a dream. As adults, it's our job to help them realize them.

08/16/2026

A high school tradition that should blanket the country.

https://youtu.be/jzRPUeEHb8I?is=97NX1ftoID7JeaZF

The moment my mother pulled up to the corner store is still etched in my mind. A group of upper classmen, all girls, were gathered a few feet away. Kissing my mother good-bye was going to be torturous.

By 12, my best friend had lost her mother -and still, it was hard to recognize the importance of having a mother in my life, and a mother I loved and admired.

By the age of 14, one in every four Black children have at least one parent in prison. More have lost theirs to drug addiction, illness or guns. The impact of that loss is staggering, yet we have the power to substantially reduce that harm, to eliminate the cause of those losses, and to reduce the trauma that follows.

Silence isn't option. The price is far too high.

Steve Hartman goes on the road to uncover an embarrassing initiatio...

08/15/2026

Maxwell sat front and center in the 4th grade classroom. His long, stringy hair suggested it hadn't been washed or even combed for days. The splotches in his swarthy skin reflected an unhealthy diet.

The over-sized knit sweater ber wore daily exceeded the size of a typical hand-me-down. The shoulders draped off of his, the arms covered his hands, but Maxwell wore that sweater everyday, like a comfortable pair of old shoes that had out lived their appearance - or, out of necessity.

Yet, there he sat, just feet from the teachers desk, eyes brighter than his apparent struggles would suggest. When a question was posed, his hand waved with the typical energy of a ten-year-old and the enthusiasm of one who knew the answer.

Maxwell always knew the answer. His hand often waved with an answer before I posed a question. He needed both the attention and the stimulus of learning. He needed a space where his intelligence could shine.

Maxwell, never caused a problem. He never broke the rules, never used his laptop other than for his work. Maxwell's only shortcoming was dominating the class, he dominated it with enthusiasm, his smile and bright eyes, and a willingness to engage and answer questions.

I met Maxwell at a school where a bevy of little first grade girls surrounded me during yard duty; each little girl was desperate for attention. One little girl planted a Post-It Note on my top. She had drawn a heart and the word Bestie. Her note has a permanent place on my prayer wall where I often pray that she, Maxwell, their classmates and families are doing well.

I specifically requested a 4th grade classroom. I wanted to see if I could turn a classroom around in the 2000s the way I was able to do in the 1980s. Times had changed. Mass incarceration had upended the lives of millions of children leaving dysfunction that has impacted classrooms across the country. The principal warned me that "These children are traumatizing my teachers." I noted her choice of words.

Within days I knew the answer to my question was yes. The same techniques I used in the 1980s when the first for-profit detention facility was being built, were showing their effectiveness by day two in 2023. By day three, however, it was obvious throughout the school that remedial efforts were needed not just in my classroom but in classrooms I'd never see.

From that experience the Center for Relational Healing emerged. A place where teachers, administrators, law enforement, judges and others can learn about the impact of trauma on childfen, on learning, on disruptive and violent behavior.

We can lobby for more money for schools and higher pay for teachers, but until we start addressing the trauma that has blanketed entire communities, we will never see our children, schools, and neighborhoods thrive.

08/09/2026

There are consequences of unaddressed trauma, consequences we see daily in reckless driving, disrupted classrooms, rampant gun violence, and physical altercations between students and teachers.

We've struggled for decades to curtail violence, yet fail to fully understand how trauma impacts the brain and thus decisions.

The Center for Relational healing recognizes the outcomes of unaddressed trauma and we're here to help educators and other professionals who work with traumatized children and youth.

While systems continue to generate trauma, we can cultivate awareness of the behavior trauma generates, help navigate emotional triggers, and redirect disruptive actions to positive self regulation.

08/08/2026

To do anything with such excellence.

08/04/2026

Classroom management, safer streets, children being children.

The Center for Relational Healing has tools for every professional who works with children exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences and those who make laws or policies that impact the childrens' lives.

05/31/2026

An interesting point made by Econews. Self-regulation is a key component of Trust-Based Relational Intervention. What came naturally during the 60s and 70s, can be taught in 2026.

"Psychology asserts that children of the 1960s and 1970s did not become emotionally strong thanks to better parenting, but because they grew up with enough daily neglect to learn to self-regulate, solve problems on their own, and develop a resilience that modern comforts make difficult to build."

Did less supervision make kids stronger? Research links independence in childhood to better emotional resilience later

05/30/2026

For decades treatment of disruptive, even violent behavior, involved electrical shock, surgery, confinement, and psychotropic drugs. Largely experimental, the outcomes were ineffective at best and life alterring at worst.

Today, evidence has proven that the abnormal development of the brain in infancy or childhood due to trauma, can be reversed through cognitive behavioral intervention and developing trusting relationships with adults.

Treating trauma through punitive measures is not only ineffective, it punishes the most wounded, neglected, abused, and traumatized among us and negatively impacts an entire community.

05/09/2026

Join me next Saturday, May 16th at San Francisco Temple where I will moderate Attorney Ben Crumps conversation about his new book, Worse Than A Lie. A formidable civil rights attorney, Ben Crump will, shed light on his remarkable insights into America's legal system.

05/09/2026

Thank you to everyone who sacrificed and supported The Ethics Project on GiveSTL Day.
You understand the importance of giving the proper tools to professionals and others who interact with traumatized children. Understanding behavior, healing damaged brains is the only path to undoing the harn caused by an overly punitive society.