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Tony McGuire- a member of Community Resilience Initiative in Walla Walla Washington, and an instructor for Walla Walla Community College at the Washington State Penitentiary- had divided his Building Maintenance class into random groups where white supremacists may be working on the same team as Native Americans. This choice was intentional; “there’s no affiliation on a job site, so you don’t get that here,” Tony told his students. Yet not long after the start of such teamwork, tools began...

People often ask me why I wrote # ChildhoodDisrupted . As a science journalist specializing in the intersection of neurobiology, immunology and emotion, I’d spent 20 years writing about the immune system and the human brain. When I came across the CDC’s # ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study), it struck me like a lightning bolt. I realized that after 20 years of writing about how we become ill and how we heal, I had been missing a huge piece of what can cause disease. Chronic...

Note: I spotted this article published as part of Longreads, an excellent site that publishes long form journalism, and thought I'd share it with this community. The young people who experienced the Parkland shooting are turning their grief and terror into powerful activism, and for that we're all grateful. That said, they need and deserve - as all survivors do - help with their post traumatic stress, now and for years to come. 'm also concerned about how the need to tell and retell their...

Adverse Childhood research has been around for a while but recently it has moved front and center in the conversation on childhood trauma. Thanks to people like Dr. Robert Anda co-principal investigator of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) research and Oprah Winfrey, adverse childhood experiences as a direct cause of developmental and health problems later in life, are getting the attention that they deserve. As someone who works with relational trauma, I deal with the effects of these...

We wrote last week about a sweeping new study of income inequality in the United States, and how it varies by race and gender. The data, including virtually all Americans now in their late 30s, showed how different the prospects of black boys are from those of white boys. Even when black and white boys grow up near each other, in households with similar incomes, black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America. We heard from hundreds of readers, who wanted to know more about a...

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have catalyzed a social movement demanding an end to gun violence. While their leadership and moral authority have undoubtedly taken the movement to another level, youth-led activism against gun violence is not, in fact, new. In Florida in 2013, for example, members of Power U and Dream Defenders took over the state capitol to protest the “stand your ground” laws that allowed Trayvon Martin’s killer to go free, an event that helped give...

Since 2009, more than half of the states have taken steps to slow or eliminate prison growth and control ballooning correctional costs. This reversal of more than 30 years of sustained growth occurred in the middle of a historic decline in crime rates, creating an impressive narrative of more public safety with fewer people in prison. Some states have chosen to invest a portion of the savings from these reforms into programs or services that further contribute to public safety. Typically,...

Working for the U.S. Army, Secret Service, Los Angeles Police Department, FBI and the National Guard, Jake Clark has not led a typical life. Topping his resume now: founder of Save A Warrior , a nonprofit headquartered in Ohio and California that connects and empowers active duty military, returning veterans and first responders who are experiencing post-traumatic stress (PTS). Clark’s efforts with Save a Warrior recently earned him the 2018 Rare Life Award, Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight...

When you talk to author and activist adrienne maree brown, you feel everything is going to be all right. You’re inspired by her hope, belief, and commitment just enough to muster your own. This must have to do with the way she sees possibility for change absolutely everywhere, which came about through her many roles. Brown is also a poet, social justice facilitator, science fiction scholar who is co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, and a doula. It’s...

In our minds, old age is often associated with a variety of ills, from aches and pains to forgetting where you put the keys. But research consistently finds that older adults tend to experience more positive emotion than their younger counterparts. Why might this be? A first-of-its-kind study explored this “well-being paradox” and found that we also tend to become more mindful as we age, which might explain why we feel better. [For more on this story by JENN DIRECTOR KNUDSEN, go to...

It stands to reason that parents who physically or emotionally abuse their children do them lasting damage, among other things by undermining their ability to trust others and accurately read their emotions. But what about the children of parents who experience simple, everyday conflict? New research published in the current issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships shows that the emotional processing of these children, too, can be affected -- potentially making them...

by Fred Dodsworth We’ll call him Kenyatta, that wasn’t his name but you get the picture It was second grade in America the land of testing and more testing and the test he was being tested for was one of those tests by which little boys and little girls are divided into those who do and those who don’t, those who advance and those who retreat, those who end up in the Ivy and those who end up in the weeds This little one was just as smart as any child of seven or eight might be if he had...