Benjamin Perks

Book signing with my little helper!

Normal neurological changes make the teens & early twenties the riskiest period in human development. Adding intense social media culture wars and easy access to semi-automatic weapons pushes that risk over the edge.

Lead the Fight: Building a Trauma-Proof World Join us at The Breakers for an exclusive afternoon with Benjamin Perks—a global champion for addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Hosted by Kathy Leone, this high-impact event will feature...

Thrilled to be taking all things Trauma-Proof to in Palm Beach this week. Be part of the event at The Breakers—or join us online—on September 9

🗓️ September 9, 2025
🕞 3:30 PM
💻 Join us in-person or virtually via Zoom
🎟️ Register today—space is limited! www.tinyurl.com/LTFBPerks

‘Most baby boomer’s parents didn’t go to secondary school. In contrast, the baby boomers all went to secondary school and nearly half of their children continued in education after 18. That is an extraordinary leap in educational status across three generations.’ Eliza Filby #Inheritocracy

‘If you have a depressed parent you are more likely to be depressed because you were raised by a parent who couldn’t meet your emotional needs, because they couldn’t meet their own emotional needs because someone didn’t meet their emotional needs.’ Erica Komisar

From Adversity to Advocacy: Healing Childhood Trauma with Ben Perks The Psycho-Social · Episode

Loved doing this podcast on Trauma Proof with Warren Larkin open.spotify.com/episode/7p7y...

Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...

USAID cost $ 68 billion last year, 0.3% of the US budget.

Congress passed a bill adding $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next few years while a Lancet study forecasts USAID’s closure to cost up to 14 million deaths including 4.5 million children under 5

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The Truth About Black Freedom This year’s Juneteenth commemorations must take a deeper look at the history of Black self-liberation to understand what emancipation really means—and how far the country still has to go.

"Enslaved people received, took, filed, fled, reclaimed, and sued for their freedom," writes Daina Ramey Berry. "What we acknowledge this Juneteenth must be about more than what was given. It must be about what had already been claimed."

#copyediting

martial law

m a r t i a l

not marital

not marshal

not marshall

We’ve had an amazing response and hundreds of professionals have already signed up. If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time to grab your place:
👉 lnkd.in/eReqNsDm
✨ Exclusive bonus for attendees: Get 25% off Benjamin Perks’ new book Trauma Proof!👌
See you there!😊 #TraumaInformed #Webinar

Word!

“The world’s richest man is killing the world’s poorest children.”

—Bill Gates

Ending Child Maltreatment Alice Munro’s story shows it’s time for a child protection revolution Many lives were upended last year when Andrea, a woman in her late fifties publicly shared a long-suppressed testim…

Alice Munro's story shows it's time for a child protection revolution benjaminperksblog.home.blog/2025/04/28/e...

In conversation with Trish Daly of @nytimes.com on #TraumaProof today

One pregnant woman dies every two minutes globally, shocking new figures reveal More than a quarter of a million women around the world died during their pregnancy or within six weeks of giving birth in 2023, WHO figures reveal. Rebecca Thomas and Alicja Hagopian report

Imagine a world where instead of culture wars or trade wars, we fight to finally make preventable death a thing of the past. www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

Levels and trends in child mortality 2024 - UNICEF DATA

The halving of child mortality is perhaps humanity's greatest accomplishment. Millions of children survive each year because of global consensus & action. This international architecture is now being dismantled by dramatic, sweeping funding cuts. shorturl.at/XhBHb

Teenage Clicks How Netflix’s Adolescence Highlights a Void we can Fill to Protect all Children Like many parents, I watched Adolescence through fingers, with a wince. It’s difficult viewing, but the four-part ser…

It’s difficult viewing, but the 4-part series may be the most consequential show since 1984, when 60 million Americans watched Something About Amelia break a public taboo on child sexual abuse & unleash a wave of investment in child protection systems. A short piece on Adolescence. wp.me/paTxIw-1la

#Adolescence on #Netflix deftly portrays how the incendiary collision of unresolved, unintentional family trauma & the onset of teenage brain development renders kids vulnerable to predatory extremism & violence. A deadly, but highly preventable social problem

Ben Perks: we can end childhood trauma “When I was young, I just wanted to change the world, and I still do”, says Ben Perks, Head of Advocacy at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). “I was always optimistic, I just think that's th...

Honoured to be featured in the @TheLancet today, ahead of the North America launch of Trauma Proof next month www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Hearts go out to all those grieving loved ones or affected by serious injury in the #kocanifire🇲🇰

Fabulous piece, as always. Looking forward to the book.

U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World Here are some of the 5,800 contracts the Trump administration formally canceled this week in a wave of terse emails.

“People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/h...

Most trauma lives in ordinary looking families & occurs automatically across generations, often without intent to harm. Ultimately there is no such thing as a normal family. Prevention needs to be universal & #ForEveryChild. Together we can build a #TraumaProof world.

Political movements built on aggregating trauma and grievance always make things worse for the people they claim to serve.

Children in Uganda speak out on violence & suggest alternatives

'I feel bad when I am caned for minor minor mistakes'

'This caning can lead to serious injuries'

'Guide & counsel me, show me where I have done wrong. No severe punishments'

📺https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5ZmnnGLMI

@HSCmediaUg

Libraries are great for the books, sure, but it's also nice to have a quiet and safe space to sit and think- a place where no one is trying to sell you anything.

Crucial findings from the @unibirmingham.bsky.social shed light on the impact of social media school bans on adolescents. Reduced time on social media enhances learning, wellbeing & behavioral outcomes, but relying solely on school bans doesn't work. lnkd.in/etJgu_-z.

If I were the stock market I simply wouldn't open tomorrow.

Mychal smiles in his “The Library is for Everyone” shirt from Out of Print clothing

UNSTOPPABLE JOHN: How John Lewis Got His Library Card-and Helped Change History BY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR PAT ZIETLOW MILLER, ILLUSTRATED BY JERRY JORDAN

When Congressman John Lewis was a child, he tried to get a library card. He was turned away & told “The Library is not for coloureds” 💔

He’s a civil rights icon, lover of books, recipient of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

“The Library IS for Everyone” 💚
#BlackHistoryMonth

Dame Esther Rantzen is one of my heroes. She unleashed a child protection revolution on Britain in the 1980s, bringing the taboo of child abuse to public consciousness. She gave voice to the victims and shape to how society should protect them. I am honored to get her praise for Trauma Proof.