"Anything that made me stand out or that I wasn't sure I was good at, I stayed away from."

"I spent most of public school sure that I was the only one who was scared to go home at night"

"because of the abuse I experienced from the psychiatric system, believing that there was something wrong with my brain, how could what I think/say be a valid contribution to anything?"

Would you like to write for us?

Submit your Dispatch from the “front line” where you live or work. You can write about anything that speaks about the impact of violence, trauma, or neglect on learning and life, and/or approaches to supporting successful learning in your setting for yourself, your family or friends, or for the students or clients with whom you work.

  1. Keep your writing short – 500 to 750 words *

  2. Write clearly for everyone to understand, avoid terms that might exclude some people

  3. Focus on one main point you want others to understand

  4. Get personal! We encourage including real life stories to bring your story to life

  5. Ask the readers. What do you want to teach or ask others to think about?

  6. Include at least one image or illustration (either original work, or something with permission for reuse)

  7. Write from a stance of respect for survival strategies, not from a perspective of diagnosis, or disorder

  8. Reflect on the Guiding Principles of the website, making sure your submission illustrates at least one of the Guiding Principles

*   If your dispatch references a longer reflection or report, you may be able to add it to our resource collection if it is not available elsewhere online. If you would like us to review longer material, please write to us with details.
Submit your writing to hlash@georgebrown.ca and include your full name, location, and a bio 50 – 75 words. Before you submit please make sure you have paid careful attention to all the guidelines, and have included your article, image, and bio. Incomplete entries will be returned.
If we select your Dispatch for publication we will edit it and return the copy to you for approval before posting. We will select one Dispatch per month, offering an honorarium: $50 Canadian for the writing, and $50 for demonstrated promotion on social media, and/or through your personal networks.
If we do not select your submission for the monthly Dispatch we may invite you to rework your submission to be included in the Reflections section of the Resource Collection.
Reflections, as the name implies, are more personal reflection on a relevant experience than are the Dispatches. For a featured Dispatch, we are looking for more of a teaching about some element of the complexity of how violence impacts learning, in a particular setting and/or how to support learning in the presence or aftermath of violence in any of its complex incarnations, with an approach you have seen make a difference, or one you imagine would have helped.