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Andrew Hsi, MD, has spent most of his medical career trying to help kids who grow up in challenging circumstances to survive – and even thrive. In the early 1990s, he founded the University of New Mexico’s FOCUS program, which supports young children who are at risk due to prematurity, low birth weight and prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol. Some also face environmental factors like family substance abuse, mental illness, family violence or unsupported teen parenting. A professor in the...

Author and reporter Maia Szalavitz, who writes about substance use and related issues recently spoke with Youth Today and JJIE about her experience and her newest book: “ Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction ,” released in April. Here’s Szalavitz’s take on addiction and its complexities, from her own experience and in her own words. [For more of this story, written by Karen Savage, go to http://jjie.org/kids-and-drugs-a-new-theory/313866/]

Toxic stress in children is a topic Montanans are beginning to hear more about. Researchers have been discovering that children raised with certain traumas -- known as Adverse Childhood Experiences -- can suffer lifelong impacts. Traumatic experiences such as neglect or emotional, physical or sexual abuse cause the child’s brain to flood with cortisol, a chemical the body releases as part of its fight-or-flight response when threatened. When the brain floods with cortisol, it affects the...

When Marc Lamont Hill, a professor and activist who wants to abolish prisons, said that to me recently, I understood where he was coming from. Intellectually, at least. America's criminal justice system, with its machinelike orientation to conviction and incarceration, has grown so many tentacles that it tends to touch the lives of the people in communities of color who are not themselves up to anything shady. The sprawl of that system, and the economy based on it, mean that anyone in those...

If pot laws were colors, a map of the U.S. map would resemble a tie-dye T-shirt. In some states, marijuana is illegal. In others, it’s legal for medical purposes. And still in others, it is even legal for recreational use. Five more states could come into that last category this fall, as voters decide whether to legalize it in California, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts and Arizona. It was only six years ago that Arizona approved marijuana for medicinal use, and that’s a stark contrast to...

Ask Kathy Kenyon about what it’s like to be a family caregiver, and she’ll give you an earful. On several occasions, doctors have treated this accomplished lawyer like she was an interloper — not the person to whom her elderly parents had entrusted health care and legal decision-making. Kenyon wasn’t told how to identify signs that her mother, who had low sodium levels, was slipping into a medical crisis. Nor was she given any advice about how to prevent those crises from occurring. When her...

Adjusting Our Lens: Ace Data Demonstrates a Case for Trauma-Informed Work with Youth (CLICK ON LINK)

Racial and economic inequalities are well documented in American housing, education, and criminal justice. But little attention has been paid to disparities in access to the country’s public parks. In America, bike trails and baseball fields are luxurious perks of many affluent neighborhoods, boosting property values and creating a sense of community. Meanwhile, in many inner cities, public parks are magnets for crime and casualties of disinvestment . With this in mind, it was probably only...

The number of Australians taking their own lives has hit a 10-year high, while dementia is tipped to overtake heart disease as the nation’s leading cause of death within five years. The number of suicide deaths climbed above 3000 in 2015 for the first time, rising more than 5% in 12 months, official figures show. Suicide was the leading cause of death for 15-44 year olds, with males three times more likely than females to take their own lives. Suicide rates were highest in the Northern...

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting, including, most recently, “ Parenting Through the Storm: Find Help, Hope, and Strength When Your Child Has Psychological Problems ” (Guilford Press). She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio. Her website is anndouglas.net and she is @anndouglas on Twitter. When I made the decision to write a book that told my family’s story, I knew I had to do so in a way that was rooted in love and respect. Yes, it...

Seven and a half hours of boredom, plus 30 minutes of terror. That’s how Dr. Michael Spierer, a Madison-based psychologist, describes the typical police officer’s shift. Eight hours of paperwork and petty crime, with the knowledge that a high-pressure and dangerous turn of events may be just around the corner. Chronic stress is inherent to the job, he says. In an effort to help officers cope, the Wisconsin Center for Healthy Minds and the Madison Police Department have teamed up for a pilot...

Urban farming has deep roots in Detroit, as I reported in a three-part series last month. Some 1,400 farms are scattered across the city’s 139 square miles. Many farmers are concerned that their land will be razed and redeveloped as the post-bankruptcy city courts new investors and businesses. But new legislation announced Monday could help urban farmers across the U.S. grow. On Monday, Debbie Stabenow, a Democratic senator from Michigan, announced the Urban Agriculture Act , which would...