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Fifteen years ago, when our son began experiencing early signs of psychosis, options for help were scarce. In order for him to receive treatment of any kind, he had to be considered a danger to himself or others. He reached that threshold when he was 18, and how did the mental health system respond? The police arrived, handcuffed him and transported him to our state’s psychiatric hospital. During a hearing at the hospital, he was involuntarily committed. He lost his right to participate in...

There's new evidence that excessive screen time early in life can change the circuits in a growing brain. Scientists disagree, though, about whether those changes are helpful, or just cause problems. Both views emerged during the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego this week. The debate centered on a study of young mice exposed to six hours daily of a sound and light show reminiscent of a video game. The mice showed "dramatic changes everywhere in the brain," said Jan-Marino...

For Freida Lockaby, an unemployed 56-year-old woman who lives with her dog in an aging mobile home in Manchester, Ky., one of America's poorest places, the Affordable Care Act was life altering. The law allowed Kentucky to expand Medicaid in 2014 and made Lockaby – along with 440,000 other low-income state residents – newly eligible for free health care under the state-federal insurance program. Enrollment gave Lockaby her first insurance in 11 years. "It's been a godsend to me," said the...

(Note: This is an excerpt from an article just published in PTSD Journal . The online version of the magazine is available for free. This article is on page 15. When it comes to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, most agree that the higher the “dose” of trauma, the greater the likelihood of getting PTSD. For this reason, studies of veterans focus on the amount of combat trauma. Rarely do studies consider the “dose” of predeployment trauma experienced at home. This is a mistake. Consider the...

Our understanding of brain development and the impact of adversity and chronic stress in childhood are changing how we understand risk and how we think about solutions. Thanks to a decade-old study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC, scientists now know that chronic stress, also known as toxic stress, caused by traumatic experiences during childhood such as child maltreatment or neglect, parental substance abuse, or sexual abuse have a direct link with an increased risk for chronic...

Milwaukee is a vibrant city with a rich history, but it is no secret — especially lately — that we also face many challenges, such as violence, poverty and unemployment. The root causes of these social problems are complex and open to debate, but there is growing recognition that childhood trauma is one piece of the puzzle. Research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect and domestic violence undermine healthy brain development and increase a child’s risk...

On any given night in Minnesota, as many people as the population of Sartell are without a home. A report last week from Wilder Research estimates 15,000 people are homeless in Minnesota on any given night and about 40,000 people were homeless at some point in 2015. That's down 9 percent since the group's last study in 2012 and the first drop in a decade, said Michelle Decker Gerrard, co-director of the Minnesota Homeless Study and Wilder senior research manager. Though encouraging,...

In suburban schools across Monroe County, veteran educators are increasingly sounding the same refrain: It didn't used to be this way. Children, they say, weren't coming to school with such overpowering anxiety about their math test, their Instagram account or their after-school activities. They weren't as likely to be hungry or homeless or struggling with addiction in their family. They weren't traumatized — not like this. "Kids coming to us today look a little different from five or 10...

On his current European tour, President Barack Obama has been making the affirmative case for democracy  — a pretty magnanimous gesture given that his own party was just voted out of office. But under what conditions do citizens of a nation lose faith in this form of government, and perhaps become tempted to try something else? Timely new research provides a clear answer: high levels of income inequality. “Income inequality drives the gap in satisfaction with democracy between electoral...

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump famously promised to deport all of America’s approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants. While Trump has since dialed back his rhetoric, the president-elect promised in a recent interview to immediately deport the two to three million immigrants with criminal records before he would “make a determination” about everyone else. Trump has also, of course, promised to dramatically improve the American economy. But can that latter promise can...

On a single night in January 2016, more than half a million people across the U.S. were homeless. That number is large (549,928 people) but it has declined substantially since 2010, when the Obama administration introduced Opening Doors , the nation’s first strategic federal plan to solve homelessness. The plan appears to be working. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just released its 2016 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, which breaks down the results of a...

I am James Encinas, an activist, teacher and author of a forthcoming book about healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences: Wheeling to Healing: Broken Heart on a Bicycle . Having experienced domestic abuse as a child, I am working with Futures Without Violence on an important call to action: PLEASE ADD YOUR VOICE… The wound is the place where the Light enters you. ~ Rumi May Rumi’s insight bring you to join a conversation through the power of radio sponsored by Futures Without Violence on...