The Lionheart Foundation

10/09/2026

Lionheart is extremely honored that our Executive Director, Dr. Bethany Casarjian and her mentor, Dr. Marla Brassard were 2026 recipients of The Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award.

This award “recognizes higher education faculty whose extraordinary mentorship has inspired former students to create organizations or establish concepts, procedures, or movements that benefit society.” Dr. Brassard’s pioneering work provided the definition of psychological maltreatment adopted by the field and set the stage for understanding its profoundly negative effects on youths’ development and well-being. Dr. Brassard’s work demonstrated that youth exposed to caregiver rejection, exploitation, spurning, neglect, isolation, and lack of emotional responsiveness experience negative outcomes similar to and often more severe than youth exposed to other types of abuse. Why? Because the underlying message to the child is that they are useless, unworthy, damaged, unlovable, or only good for meeting others’ needs.

Power Source, Power Source Parenting, and EQ2 work to transform the pain of psychological maltreatment, helping youth understand their inherent worth and value. By teaching youth that no matter what has been done to them, they remain decent, wise, and worthy of love, we interrupt cycles of trauma. And people who heal, don’t transmit their pain.

Thank you, Marla, for your groundbreaking work and for inspiring programs that have changed the lives of thousands of youth for over 30 years.

10/02/2026

What if the thing that makes a detention facility safer is also what helps youth and staff feel like they're working toward the same goal?

This is what we'll be exploring in our upcoming webinar: 𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝘼 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙢: 𝘼 𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙅𝙪𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣, where we'll hear from Kim Picot at Paul Dojack Youth Centre in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Kim will share how her team's rollout approach built buy-in across the agency, how EQ2 complements the Indigenous cultural practices already central to the facility's operations, and how they built EQ2 into their existing training structure to support youth with complex needs. Kim will also discuss what EQ2 has meant for facility safety, and how it has helped leadership, staff, and youth develop a shared sense of purpose. We hope to see you there!

📅 November 19th at 1PM EST
📍Live on Zoom
🔗Click this link to register: https://hubs.la/Q04z3fkR0

09/22/2026

The Lionheart team was delighted to meet the KY DJJ leadership team in person last week to discuss ongoing rollout of our staff self-regulation and workforce capacity program, EQ2.

07/22/2026

For many people in custody, the hardest part of getting help is often just access. That barrier just got a lot smaller in California.

In partnership with Edovo, Houses of Healing's 25-hour Complete eLearning Program is now live on all tablets across CDCR's prison system – giving nearly 90,000 incarcerated individuals in the state access to the same evidence-based tools we've used for over 30 years to help people regulate emotions, alter destructive patterns, understand the effects trauma, and ultimately transform their lives. This is the widest access point Houses of Healing has ever had.

Thank you to Edovo for building the platform that made this possible, and to CACorrections for its continued partnership in this work.

Check out this brief video to learn more about the Houses of Healing eLearning Program:

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07/14/2026

We’re honored to announce that Lionheart has received a grant from the John W. Alden Trust to support the next phase of development for EQ2! Combined with recent investments from the Pyle-Nye and Gildea Family Foundations, this funding will help transform the EQ2 mobile health app and support development of the EQ2 dashboard – giving youth-serving agencies new insight into staff emotional readiness for work and strengthening their ability to support the workforce.

Key enhancements will include:

✅ A redesigned check-in feature that helps staff assess their emotional state, energy, and stress levels in real time.

✅ Personalized, evidence-based support strategies grounded in cognitive behavioral and mindfulness practices to help staff stay regulated and effectively co-regulate with youth.

✅ A new "Emotional Weather Report" dashboard that provides agency leaders with aggregated, de-identified insights into workforce stress, morale, and capacity, allowing for more proactive supervision, staffing, and support decisions.

This next phase represents an important step toward helping organizations better understand, support, and retain the professionals who provide trauma-informed care every day. We are deeply grateful to these foundations for their partnership and belief in the importance of workforce wellness, self-regulation, and organizational responsiveness as essential components of effective care for youth.

Thank you for helping us build stronger supports for those who support others.

06/25/2026

When young people are given the tools, support, and space to express themselves, powerful things happen.

Recently, youth from the New Beginnings Youth Development Center at DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services took the stage to perform original spoken word pieces they created through a program designed to help them explore their experiences, build confidence, and find their voices. Under the guidance of Trey Baker, Voices Unlocked: Reclaiming Our Stories, helps youth highlight not only their creativity, but also their growth, resilience, and potential.

What makes this especially meaningful is that many of these young people drew on lessons learned through the Power Source program, turning personal reflection and self-discovery into poetry. Their performances were more than poems. They were declarations of who they are becoming.

Power Source equips young people with the social-emotional skills, self-awareness, and resilience they need to navigate challenges, heal from trauma, and build brighter futures. By helping youth strengthen their sense of self, develop healthy coping strategies, and find their voice, youth become confident communicators, emerging leaders, and changemakers. Watching these young people transform their experiences into powerful spoken word is a testament to what's possible when youth are given the tools and support to grow, heal, and thrive.

Check out the article here:

The program, led by Emmy-nominated spoken word artist Trey Baker, uses poetry to promote restorative justice and emotional intelligence.

05/28/2026

Big news! The Lionheart Foundation has received its 10th grant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CACorrections), marking a decade-long partnership bringing Houses of Healing to California prisons.

This funding will expand access to the HOH Complete eLearning Program on CDCR tablets statewide via the Edovo platform – expanding trauma-informed healing and personal transformation opportunities to nearly 90,000 incarcerated individuals across California. The grant also supports weekly, in-person, 14-session Houses of Healing Circle Programs, augmenting the eLearning Program in two CDCR institutions.

We’re deeply grateful to CDCR’s Division of Rehabilitative Programs for its continued investment in this work.

Learn more about this milestone and our decade-long partnership here: https://hubs.la/Q04jfdc_0

Interested in the impact of Houses of Healing (HOH)? Explore the program here: https://hubs.la/Q04jf54b0

Lionheart received its 10th grant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, marking a decade of partnership in bringing transformative programming behind the walls of California's prisons. This funding will make the Houses of Healing Complete eLearning Program – a 25-hour c...

05/26/2026

It's always a good time getting to see and support our partners at Roca as they implement the Power Source and Power Source Parenting!

Power Source is Lionheart’s evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) program designed to support systems- and trauma-impacted youth in building the skills shown to increase self-regulation, positive identity development, and reduced engagement in high-risk behaviors.

Power Source Parenting extends this work by equipping teen parents with the social-emotional competencies and self-regulation skills needed to become emotionally available, nurturing caregivers and to foster healthy, supportive environments for their children.

We’re grateful for organizations like Roca that continue investing in trauma-informed approaches that move toward lasting transformation for systems-impacted youth.

Looking forward to continuing this work together!

05/19/2026

We’re excited to share our newly rebranded website, designed to better tell our story and make it easier to connect with our mission.

With a fresh new look, improved navigation, and a more user-friendly experience, the new site reflects who we are today and where we’re headed next.

This reimagined website represents more than just a redesign — it’s a step forward in how we engage with our community and partners. We’re proud of what we’ve built and excited for you to explore it.

Check it out here: https://hubs.la/Q04h6Jkg0

05/07/2026

If you’re a reader of Youth Today then you already know the wealth of resources including in-depth reporting and thought leadership it provides to those committed to helping youth thrive. So, we couldn’t be happier to contribute to this mission with an article on the importance of turning a trauma-informed lens on how we support direct care staff. There is no more challenging or critical role on the planet than caring for youth who have experienced trauma. By better serving our workforce, we better care for our youth, creating communities where everyone thrives. Thank you, Youth Today for your unwavering commitment to elevating the voice of youth and those caring for them.

🔗 Check out our article here: https://hubs.la/Q04fSjlt0
📧 Subscribe to Youth Today here: https://hubs.la/Q04fScfy0
🎁 Consider donating to Youth Today to keep this amazing platform free: https://hubs.la/Q04fRt5w0

For trauma-impacted youth to thrive, they need a direct care workforce who can regulate their own emotions despite repeated exposure to youth trauma.