ACEs studies usually focus on the bigger, more tangible adverse experiences in a child’s life. However, there are a number of minor stressors that may not be really traumatic for kids not going through significant ACEs, are nevertheless devastating to a child already going through trauma.
In most district attorney elections, the campaign playbook is clear: Win over the local cops and talk tough on crime. But in California this year, the strategy is being turned on its head. Wealthy donors are spending millions of dollars to back would-be prosecutors who want to reduce incarceration, crack down on police misconduct and revamp a bail system they contend unfairly imprisons poor people before trial. [For more on this story by PAIGE ST. JOHN and ABBIE VANSICKLE, go to...
Many Democrats believed that a years-long bipartisan push to overhaul the federal criminal-justice system died with the election of Donald Trump. The president had proudly anointed himself the “law-and-order candidate” in 2016 and appointed as his attorney general Jeff Sessions, the Senate’s leading conservative critic of reducing mandatory-minimum sentences, improving federal prison conditions, and easing the transition back into society for those incarcerated. But Trump is now backing a...
Sometimes 11-year-old B. comes home from school in tears. Maybe she was taunted about her weight that day, called "ugly." Or her so-called friends blocked her on their phones. Some nights she is too anxious to sleep alone and climbs into her mother's bed. It's just the two of them at home, ever since her father was deported back to West Africa when she was a toddler. B.'s mood has improved lately, though, thanks to a new set of skills she is learning at school. (We're using only first...
Many proposals for addressing school segregation seem pretty small, especially when compared to the scale and severity of the problem. Without the power of a court-ordered desegregation mandate, progress can feel extremely far off, if not altogether impossible. Some even believe—understandably though mistakenly —that no meaningful steps can be taken to integrate schools unless housing segregation is resolved. But a new theory from Thomas Scott-Railton, a recent graduate of Yale Law School,...
Every year, Gallup ranks U.S. cities for well-being, based on how residents feel about living in their communities, and their health, finances, social ties and sense of purpose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, places like Naples, Fla., and Boulder, Col., tend to top the list, while Southern and Midwestern towns including Canton, Ohio, and Fort Smith, Ark., often come in last. But what hard data underpin the differences between these communities? A study published Wednesday takes a step toward...
Dr. Bruce Perry uses humor to punctuate and bring relief to what is otherwise the most serious subject matter: how trauma interrupts human development. “I don’t mean to sound ungracious, but I hate the term ‘trauma-informed care,” Perry said, in his opening remarks for the Southern Texas Trauma-Informed Care Conference, which was held this month in downtown San Antonio. The audience tittered, briefly thrown off balance by his candor. They laughed harder later on as the man who was recently...
As in many post-industrial cities, Newark has experienced dramatic challenges since the second half of the 20 th century. A confluence of factors has resulted in the current landscape in which one third of the city lives in poverty, 72 percent of children are born into single female-headed households, and high rates of community and interpersonal violence burden residents. In 2008, Newark faced a health crisis created by the abrupt closures of two of its five hospitals. In response, the New...
On Tuesday, May 22, 2018, the U.S. Senate passed SR346 supporting trauma informed care. The Resolution was co-sponsored by Senator Johnson and Senator Heitkamp.
Nearly half of children nationwide experience at least one traumatic event before they reach age 17. That’s according to a recently released report examining trauma among children from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, compiled from government data. That statistic doesn’t surprise DeJernet Farder, who teaches first grade at Morton School of Excellence in East Garfield Park. [For more on this story by Alison Bowen, go to...
A Wisconsin pediatrician is recommending closer attention be paid to what appears to be the slightest injuries on very small children. The issue is part of a statewide discussion on childhood trauma and its lasting effects. Dr. Angela Rabbitt is an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She spends one day a week at a Children's Hospital of Wisconsin clinic in Elkhorn that helps abused and neglected kids. Rabbitt says more attention needs to be paid to what's known as...
I found one solitary page of a book I began to write in 2001. I was still using a word processor then, but the single page clearly reflects the damage caused when a mother-daughter attachment has not occurred.
Stumbled upon an old journal entry of mine....it was written after my 3rd sexual assault, age 27 Sometimes I feel that being a Woman must be similar to being a piece of the earth. Not so much in a spiritual or moral sense, but metaphorically so. It is understandable that so many ancient cultures should refer to an "entity" or force of nature described as "Mother Earth". We, Woman, begin our existence fresh and pliable, fertile and necessary; with time, exposure to elements compacts and...
" Published in the June 2018 issue of the Economics of Education Review, the researchers found that this increased student-teacher familiarity led to higher test scores, albeit a small increase, after controlling for students’ prior academic achievement and teacher differences. The benefits of getting the same teacher twice in a row were largest for minority students. And when a large share of classmates had the same teacher as before, even kids who were new to the class posted higher than...
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