Blog

If a child grows up with addiction, that is probably not the only risk factor in the home. ACEs or adverse childhood experiences tend to cluster; once a home environment is disordered, the risk of witnessing or experiencing emotional, physical, or sexual abuse actually rises dramatically (Anda, et al., 2006). Addiction, with an emphasis as today’s public health emergency, is very much a part of the political and public discourse. Unfortunately however, the needs of the children hurt by...

Most Americans’ greatest asset is their home. According to the Economic Policy Institute, housing equity makes up two-thirds of wealth for typical American households , and most wealth for black families is held in their primary residence . But because of segregation and structural racism, owning a home has not provided the same value and pathway for wealth creation for black Americans as it has for white Americans. Barriers to buying a home contribute to a wide homeownership gap between...

Our drinking often hurts the people we care about. If we acknowledge it soon enough, these relationships are probably salvageable. It’s very rare that someone in recovery looks back at their time spent drinking and can say there were no red flags indicating that they had a problem or were headed down a slippery slope. The truth is that when these red flags present themselves, you may prefer to look the other way or make excuses. Acknowledging such red flags may mean finally admitting you...

A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT recently freed a man who had been incarcerated nearly seven years awaiting trial. Although the court labeled Joseph Tigano III’s pretrial incarceration “egregiously oppressive,” it suggested there was no one factor to blame. “Years of subtle neglects,” the court wrote, “resulted in a flagrant violation of Tigano's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.” Tigano’s case fits a familiar narrative of clogged courts and bureaucratic indifference. There is, however,...

No group is as linked to poverty in the American mind as single mothers. For decades, politicians, journalists and scholars have scrutinized the reasons poor couples fail to use contraception, have children out of wedlock and do not marry. When the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution formed a bipartisan panel of prominent poverty scholars to write a “Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty” in 2015, its first recommendation was to “promote a new cultural norm surrounding...

Mindfulness is all the rage right now and companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Nike, and Goldman Sachs are all jumping on board. Mindfulness, the practice of focusing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment, has many noted benefits including decreased stress, lower blood pressure and heart rate, increased awareness, and higher brain functioning. Thanks to recent advances in the field of neuroscience, we now have new insights into how this ancient Eastern practice...

We’ve come a long way from Negro History Week to Black History Month and yet too often the celebrations that are planned in predominantly white spaces are nothing short of lackluster, rarely bringing a modern-day context to the celebration or acknowledgement that Black history is a continually evolving living history in which we all play a role. Part of the problem is that for non-Black people, too often there is a sense of being a passive celebrator. Yet, in this current climate there is...

TUCKED QUIETLY INTO the most recent congressional measure to keep the government open was the most sweeping and ambitious piece of child welfare legislation passed in at least a decade. It’s an attempt to reshape the entrenched foster care system as a raging opioid epidemic swells the population of children in need. The measure overcame the opposition of group homes, which pocket thousands of dollars per month for each child warehoused in their custody. The Family First Prevention Services...

KPJR Films announces the long-awaited PAPER TIGERS & RESILIENCE bundle package. Now you can get both films to use together or separately at a discounted price. During February, we are offering a 20% discount off both films or a single film! You can get them in time to host a screening in April for National Child Abuse Prevention Month. PAPER TIGERS and RESILIENCE are proven, innovative media tools used to build awareness and provide additional education about ACEs and shows the impact of...

Reporter Tennessee Watson says she was sexually abused by her gymnastics coach when she was a kid in the 1980s. More than 25 years later, when she learned he still was coaching children, she called the police. Her inside account of the painful process of seeking justice in her own case exposes discrepancies in prosecutors’ responses to reports of child sexual abuse and spotlights a lack of accountability. In this hour of Reveal, we meet Tennessee, who decides to confront the man she says...

In 2015, I set out to study the unlikeliest of Olympic pipelines: Norwich, Vt., a small town that has placed at least one of its own on almost every United States Winter Olympics team since 1984. In all, Norwich, with its population of roughly 3,000, has produced 11 Olympians — including two Summer Games participants — who have come home with three medals, including one gold. What started out as a sports book evolved into what is essentially a parenting guide as I came to realize that...

Excerpts from the University of California Merced Study The ACE Overcomers Program offers considerable promise to address the gap in intervention programs for reducing the detrimental psychological, social, and health consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACES). The ACE Overcomers program builds... with concrete steps aimed at remediating the effects of a stressful childhood. Participants learn the skills of self-awareness, self-efficacy, moral control, self-reflection,...