Blog

When Kid Cudi announced via social media last week he was checking himself into rehab for depression and suicidal thoughts , many people responded on Facebook and Twitter in support of his heart-wrenching post . His message opened up an important conversation online to discuss mental health, race and masculinity, through the use of the hashtag #YouGoodMan . It’s a deeper push within the black community to continue dialogue about self-care and wellbeing . Many people who weighed in thought...

Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in the country, but introducing organizational and individual interventions can help minimize the negative effects of teacher stress. The Issue This research brief examines causes of teacher stress, its effects on teachers, schools, and students, and strategies for reducing its impact. Key Findings Forty-six percent of teachers report high daily stress, which compromises their health, sleep, quality of life, and teaching performance. When...

Loaves & Fishes’ school for homeless children has asked Sacramento County to increase the number of emergency shelter beds for families, citing a spike in the number of children sleeping on Sacramento streets. Mustard Seed School Director Casey Knittel said of the 40 families whose children enrolled in the school in September, 19 were camping in a car or tent. With days getting cooler, rainy weather expected this weekend, Knittel said those children need to be inside at night. Burke said...

Preschools around the United States and in California are deeply segregated, a new report from Penn State finds. Around the country, white children are overwhelmingly going to preschool with only other white children, and more than half of all black and Latino children under five attend preschool where 90 percent of the students are children of color. That's also the case in California, one of two states with the lowest enrollment of white children in public preschool programs. In fact, a...

Brandi Azure could feel the love fade from her family on days her parents drank. What happened on one of those joyless days left a deep scar on her memory, ever-present among a constellation of scars from a childhood spent in poverty with parents stuck in the haze of addiction. It was a Saturday gathering at her uncle's house in West Fargo where the adults were boozing. An argument erupted, and her uncle started choking her aunt. Brandi's dad, seeing his sister being attacked, grabbed a...

Joint Post: Gail Kennedy & Christine "Cissy" White We were talking about the Parenting with ACEs (this group as well as the process of parenting with ACEs). We got animated, excited and went on and on and on (as we often do when we get to talking!) We decided to write a joint blog post to tell you about our conversation and ask you to weigh in on what you want. Read on our attempt at a combined post: Gail's voice - I called to ask if Cissy thought there was need for a place on the...

"And I told them, I told them that they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. And I told them that they should disregard anyone who demeans or devalues them and that they should make their voices heard in the world." This is the part of Michelle Obama's speech that killed me. How do you disregard your own father or family members if it is they who devalue you? If a sexual predator is a parent or coach or neighbor how does a child disregard them? I didn't. I couldn't. So I did...

[Some cute kids from UrbanPromise All Camp Day 2016...none of whom are Josiah!] I was just going to breeze in and out of CamdenForward School, our elementary grades at UrbanPromise, to fax something and grab my paycheck. Then the plan was to bury myself again in my mile long to-do list, the weight of which was interrupting my sleep with increasing frequency. But the fax machine is in the main office…and the main office has a picture window…and as I pressed buttons I heard, “Oh there’s Mrs.

Scientists, politicians, clinicians, police officers and medical workers agree on one thing: The U.S. mental health system needs a big fix. Too few people get the help they need for mental ailments and emotional turmoil that can destroy livelihoods and lives. A report in the October JAMA Internal Medicine, for instance, concludes that more than 70 percent of U.S. adults who experience depression don’t receive treatment for it. Much attention focuses on developing better psychiatric...

While questions over security and personal well-being have emerged in the wake of the Chemnitz explosives suspect Jafer Albakr's death, figures show that prisoner suicides happen far too often. In Germany, the phenomenon has witnessed a decline over the past 15 years, with 117 in 2000 dropping to 50 in 2013, reported a study by the country's suicide prevention program. However, Germany's suicide rate in prison remains higher than Europe's average, comprising 41 percent of all deaths in...

State officials, advocates and researchers are urging federal officials to tread carefully as they consider changes to how states demonstrate they are protecting juveniles in custody. They say that if the rules become too strict, cash-strapped states that find themselves out of compliance could abandon the federal program designed to help juveniles entirely. “This would inevitably lead to wider variances between and within states in terms of the efficacy, equity and efficiency of juvenile...

Responding to the overwhelming demand of funders in the Delaware Valley to better understand the impacts of trauma on our region and how they can apply trauma informed practices to their own work, Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey partnered to produce this hands-on resource that will help funders : Understand the science behind trauma, adverse childhood experiences,...