Blog

As the federal narrative around President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy rapidly shifts, and Congress struggles to draft legislation to ensure humane treatment of children and their families at the border, the nation's mayors and governors are scrambling to take what local action they can. Recently, 19 mayors of large United States cities gathered in Tornillo, Texas, hoping to get a glimpse of the 1,500 children being held in a detention facility there, only to be denied...

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is taking a new approach to Title II (the portion of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act authorizing states to innovate efforts to improve juvenile justice systems and ensure the fair treatment of youth) that will facilitate better communication and increase trust between OJJDP and the states. This will give OJJDP more time to focus on compliance and programming assistance, and it will allow states to redirect...

As we scroll through the latest apologies in our news feeds ( I’m sorry if anyone was offended ; it was the culture back then ; I’m mostly sorry but not for THAT one ), it’s easy to see what apologies are not. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what apologies are, and why we make them. A few months ago, I flew from New York to Wisconsin to say I’m sorry to my ex-wife. We had been together for 14 years when she was told she had breast cancer in 2006. I was beside her through her surgery and...

Empathy, tolerance and acceptance: More and more, educators are focusing on the importance of schools' paying attention to stuff other than academics. And for the past two months, an exhibit at the U.S. Department of Education's headquarters in Washington, D.C., has gathered the work of student artists expressing themselves — through their work — about these issues. The exhibit is called "Total Tolerance," and it highlights themes of racism, sexism and diversity. [For more on this story by...

Trauma is a complicated experience, and what happens after a traumatic experience even more so. Two people's reaction to trauma may be completely different, and we're learning more about how different and varied those reactions are every day. While many of us are familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which may develop as a result of acute trauma, the growing body of research around complex PTSD , or C-PTSD, is helping people who may have experienced trauma over a prolonged...

The first few years of life are crucial in establishing a child’s path toward—or away from—health and well-being across the entire lifespan. This report, produced in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, examines some of the barriers to health equity that begin early in life, and promising strategies for overcoming them. Key Findings Poverty limits childrens’ and families’ options for healthy living conditions. Poverty can limit where children live, and can lead to...

Across the country yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in small towns and big cities to march and voice their opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Demonstrators in more than 700 locations called for the swift reunification of immigrant families separated by border agencies, and an end to the policies that cause so many separations. Collected here, photos from Indianapolis, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia,...

The phrase “self-harming behavior” may call up images of troubled teenagers with cuts on their arms. But self-injury can occur for people of any age, in children, adolescents and adults, whether male or female. This is not at all a teenage fad! People who self-harm or cut are people who are in pain. We have to notice that. The important thing is to notice the emotional pain — not just the outward expression of it — and view the person using self-harming behaviors with understanding and...

Asia Argento is under sickening attacks following the suicide of her partner, Anthony Bourdain. One of the most vitriolic attacks was by the female writer of an article in Penthouse who talked about ‘toxic femininity’ while bashing Asia and other sexual assault victims. Apparently, in the writer’s view, someone forcing oral sex on you is not sexual assault but transactional sex. Not only is that view unfathomable but it defies belief that women could bash other women and then accuse THEM of...

My co-author and I facilitated our first community talk, “The preventable death of Anna, age eight in New Mexico” yesterday. I’m eager to review my notes. It felt like the beginning of something very important. It’s gratifying to see a book on the data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment turning into a catalyst for community dialogue focused on change. We had presentation participants from the child welfare, public health and education sectors and all levels of government.

https://qz.com/1298387/brazils-wildly-ambitious-incredibly-precarious-program-to-visit-every-poor-mother-and-change-their-childrens-destiny/

In adult mice, neurogenesis increases social confidence by suppressing the activity of mature neurons. I f youngsters told their elders to be quiet, stress levels would surely rise. But, when it comes to brain cells, it seems the opposite is true—silencing of old neurons by young ones appears to make an animal more stress resilient. A report today (June 27) in Nature shows that mice whose production of new hippocampal neurons was ramped up suffered less anxiety in a stressful social...