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Judy’s first pregnancy was planned, and she was looking forward to having a baby. Yet, halfway through the pregnancy, something changed. She began to feel down and bad about herself. She had less energy and struggled to concentrate. Thinking this was a normal part of pregnancy, she ignored it. After she delivered her son, it all got worse. She felt as if she was in a black hole of sadness. She often gave her son to her mother, thinking he was better off without her. It wasn’t until a year...

Loneliness is bad for the heart and a strong predictor of premature death, according to a study presented today at EuroHeartCare 2018, the European Society of Cardiology's annual nursing congress. The study found that feeling lonely was a stronger predictor of poor outcomes than living alone, in both men and women. "Loneliness is more common today than ever before, and more people live alone," said Anne Vinggaard Christensen, study author and Ph.D. student, The Heart Centre, Copenhagen...

As I do my community talks and agency trainings I always have to remember that for many people the phrase, “adverse childhood experiences” requires an explanation. Like many of you, I go down the list of the ten ACEs in a group setting and I find people nodding in recognition. Some start crying. This leads to a discussion about how each of these ten adverse experiences might be prevented. This is a much longer and more complex discussion. I explain that ACEs prevention may mean increasing...

ACEs, Adversity's Impact A psychologist explains how mental and emotional health changes your body (No matter how much you work out) 50,000 child sex abuse school-age children and young offenders to take part in largest cross-cultural psychology survey to date The conflicting education of Sam Schimmel When ACEs are held by more than one generation, the outcomes are concerning The truth about the sex trade: Vulnerabilities leading to "the life" Healing the United States of Trauma America's...

The Trump administration is refusing to defend key parts of the Affordable Care Act, essentially arguing that federal courts should find the health law’s protection for people with preexisting conditions unconstitutional. The federal lawsuit hinges on the ACA’s individual mandate, or the requirement to get health coverage or pay a penalty. The mandate has long been a sticking point for conservatives, who argue that the government should not be telling individuals what coverage they must...

Soon after taking office, Ben Carson, the housing and urban development secretary, tried to derail a voucher program that helps disadvantaged families rent homes in healthy, high-opportunity communities with better jobs, schools and transportation, as a way of breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty. In December, the Federal District Court in Washington wisely blocked that move . Now, Republican and Democratic Congress members are standing up for the principle of economic...

Juvenile Law Center (JLC), with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has built an excellent new resource for the field in its National Extended Foster Care Review , a website that breaks down each state’s foster care guarantees after the age of 18. Fittingly, the site was launched on the 10th anniversary of Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, a law signed by President George W. Bush in 2008. Fostering Connections, among other things, amended the Title IV-E...

“I can’t believe they lost!” I blurted out to confused looks from my five cellies while reading a recent edition of The New Yorker. Thinking my outburst was likely baseball-related, one of the guys asked me, “Did your Pirates drop another one, Throop?” “No,” I replied. “Norfolk lost to Harvard.” [For more on this story by Daniel S. Throop, go to https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/06/07/the-inside-story-of-a-legendary-prison-debate-team ]

A Honduran father separated from his wife and child suffered a breakdown at a Texas jail and killed himself in a padded cell last month, according to Border Patrol agents and an incident report filed by sheriff’s deputies. The death of Marco Antonio Muñoz, 39, has not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security, and it did not appear in any local news accounts. But according to a copy of a sheriff’s department report obtained by The Washington Post, Muñoz was found on the...

A federal judge in a fifth lawsuit has ruled that the Trump administration illegally terminated the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program , restoring grants to all 81 programs nationwide that had their funding abruptly axed last year. U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s decision on a class action suit, issued last week, ordered the administration to handle all the applications “as if the agency had not undertaken to shorten these grantees’ federal awards.” Reveal from The Center...

Introduction Nurses may struggle to understand how adverse experiences in childhood (ACEs) can negatively affect physical and mental health in adulthood, and may not know how to approach patients who may have had ACEs. This article explains ACEs and their impact, and looks at a trauma-informed care model as a framework for prevention, early intervention and recovery. Adverse childhood experiences The term ‘adverse childhood experience’ was coined in the US in the 1990s by Felitti et al...

Nobody welcomes feelings of sadness or dejection, but feeling down is sometimes part of life. Sadness is a normal, healthy emotion, and a natural response to loss or disappointment. Depression is a mental health issue, and a treatable illness. While it may not seem to matter what you call it when you or a loved one is hurting, it is important to understand how these conditions are different. When untreated, depression can raise the risk that more harmful behaviors will become established.