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Connecticut’s governor has launched a new attempt at a groundbreaking juvenile justice reform effort this year, pushing to raise the age at which most young offenders go before an adult court to 21. Gov. Dannel Malloy proposed the same plan in 2016, only to see it stall in the state legislature. But if he succeeds this year, Connecticut would be the first to raise the age beyond 18 for all but the most serious offenses, such as murder, assault with a firearm and rape. [For more of this...

Shortly after the end of his inaugural parade, President Donald Trump issued his first executive order: instructions for the federal government to dismantle the Affordable Care Act “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The executive order is a powerful political statement about the health care law, one that directs agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” any taxes or penalties they possibly can. The order doesn’t give Trump any new powers, but does suggest that he...

While logging some bright spots in improving some of the factors that negatively impact the healthy development of Memphis and Shelby County’s children, the overall picture is fairly gloomy. That is the disappointing picture painted in the “Kids Count, The State of the Child in Tennessee 2015” report released Wednesday by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report includes county-by-county data on the well-being of...

The 4 th annual Resilience Summit will be held October 16-18 in Chicago, Illinois. Stay up to date with conference news by visiting the 2017 RESILIENCE SUMMIT WEBSITE .

My 30s would roll into my 40s before I realized my anorexia and bulimia were the symptoms of, the soothers for my deeper, unresolved issues. In fact, it wasn't until 2003 when one of my loved ones entered a residential treatment program for alcoholism that my "true" recovery began. I say “true” recovery because back in the day (early 1980s) there was no ACE Study, nor an understanding that ACEs are often rooted in secondhand drinking. About my soothers... After dropping to 95 pounds on my...

Since late 2013, Foundation for Healthy Generations has focused on providing leadership, support, and education around the bundle of trauma and toxic stress related sciences we call N.E.A.R. (Neuroscience, Epigenetics, Adverse Childhood Experiences [ACEs], and Resilience) to advance our mission to create enduring health equity. Healthy Gen is seeking a champion authority and influencer with deep expertise in bridging prevention sciences with multi-generational and community context and an...

The most important thing I didn’t learn in medical school is about adverse childhood experiences, also known as ACEs. To be sure, if I had understood them then the way I do now, I would have been a better and more compassionate physician. Importantly, I would have avoided lots of mistakes. What kind of mistakes, you ask? I was pretty much a failure taking care of smokers, drinkers, drug addicts, and morbidly obese people. People who were chronically depressed or in chronic pain were not...

In a 2013 study, when low- and moderate-income families with children between the ages of 17 and 30 came to H&R Block to have their taxes done, a portion of the families were also offered the chance to have someone sit with them, on the spot, to fill out their application for federal student financial aid. Importantly, they weren’t just told or shown how to do it: The advisor actually guided them through completion of the form. With this single interaction, often lasting less than 10...

Childhood trauma isn’t like an old t-shirt. It’s not something that can be tossed aside or outgrown. A woman who grew up with her father’s substance abuse, her mother’s incarceration, and the resulting physical and emotional neglect is 12 times more likely to attempt suicide. She’s at three times the risk for heart disease and cancer. If she’s also ever suffered emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, her life expectancy will be 20 years shorter. Doctors can measure a patient’s ACE (Adverse...

Sarah Long doesn’t like to dwell on her childhood memories. They are fraught with secrets and traumas. Her abusers were family members who convinced Long never to share their secrets, she said, and who abused her physically, sexually and emotionally, beginning when she was a young child. The Wisconsin Rapids woman grew up believing the abuse was normal and her feelings of shame, discomfort and anxiety were wrong. For years, she held this abuse tight, never daring to tell her parents. [For...

There’s no way for a person living in the world to truly do no harm. Take the environment. Even if you only eat vegetables that you grow in your own garden and only travel to places you can bike or walk to, if you still use electricity, or throw away garbage, you’re still somewhat contributing to the forces behind climate change. And yet, people are still enticed by paths that promise purity. This is the diet that will keep your body “clean” and “toxin-free.” (Whatever is meant by “toxins.”)...

There’s a paradox at the core of Trumpism: Many of Donald Trump’s supporters place great trust in a man who regularly tells them to trust no one: not the “dishonest” media, not the “corrupt” politicians, not the “phony” experts, not his many “crooked” enemies. No one, that is, except Donald J. Trump himself. “Believe me,” Trump likes to say. But the paradox starts to make sense when you consider the findings of a report released this week by the communications marketing firm Edelman. For 17...