Blog

When I told people I was going to my 40th high school reunion, I might as well have said I was jumping off a cliff. Almost across the board, the reaction was shock, though the reasons varied. Granted, I hadn’t been in touch with my classmates, so some degree of surprise was legitimate. But my friends and family also projected their own reasons: high school had been the “worst time of their lives”; that they had never “fit in”; they didn’t want to open their adult lives to judgment. But I’m a...

Last week, The Atlantic reported that the city of Los Angeles is on the verge of implementing a “Ban the Box” initiative that would bar some private employers from asking job applicants about their criminal histories. In the face of growing awareness of criminal justice issues, a number of city and states have passed similar laws in the last few years. (The state of California already has a law on the books that forbids government employers from asking applicants about any criminal history...

Former foster children are almost twice as likely to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as U.S. war veterans, according to a study released Wednesday by the Harvard Medical School (HMS), the University of Michigan and Casey Family Programs. This important article by Candice N. Plotkin helps challenge the cultural image that those with PTSD are mainly men traumatized by combat. It was shared on Facebook today. What surprised me though - beyond the headline - is that the article...

“This doesn’t look like any detention I ever seen!” Marcus says about the ring of chairs I’ve set up for our school’s daily in-school detention. I welcome him to the group and ask him to take a seat. “Welcome,” I say, “I am so happy that I get to work with you today. Today we will be discussing some topics, but really it’s an opportunity to practice our personal and social skills — skills that help us become successful in life!” As a restorative justice (RJ) facilitator at a high school in...

When you’ve been hurt, betrayed , or disappointed by someone you care about, it’s hard to imagine giving that person another chance. Yet, forgiveness is a value that we’re taught that is basic to human relationships. Giving up on people because they’ve let you down, whether it’s your favorite sports team , a political figure, or your best friend, seems antithetical to that value. Even though we’re taught to forgive and then give someone an opportunity to make up for past wrongs, not everyone...

A federal judge ruled that the Boston School Committee had deliberately segregated the city’s public schools by race. To remedy this constitutional violation, the judge ordered about 18,000 black and white students to take buses to schools outside of their neighborhoods. The backlash to this plan was swift: White parents threw bricks and stones as the buses arrived and refused to let their children board. The violent riots that later occurred led some reporters to describe the city as “ a...

We’re all well aware that education leads to better jobs and higher income. Just as important, research also links education to reduced risk of illness, increased vitality, longevity and academic success that extends to future generations . That’s why the situation for schools in Lawrence, Mass., was particularly concerning back in 2010. At the time, more than one out of every four Lawrence kids dropped out of high school . This led the Massachusetts Department of Education to put Lawrence’s...

What does it take for Americans to lead healthier lives? Seems like a simple question, but it takes research to get answers we can act on. Research is how we will discover what happens to resident and community health when a low-income community in Seattle —pocked with aging infrastructure and troubled, publicly subsidized housing—is transformed into one that sports mixed-income housing, new parks and services that support well-being. It’s a way we can measure the value of litigation aimed...

The U.S. coal industry is in rapid decline, a shift marked not only by the bankruptcy of many mine operators in coal-rich Appalachia but also by a legacy of potential environmental and social disasters. As mines close, states, the federal government and taxpayers are left wondering about the costs of cleaning up the abandoned land , especially at mountaintop removal sites, the most destructive type of mining. As coal companies go bankrupt, this has left states concerned taxpayers may have to...

Racial discrimination is a well-documented, widespread problem in our country. The Black Lives Matter movement has recently been shining a necessary light on the growing number of police shootings involving innocent victims, but we have many miles to go before reaching a place of total equality. Unfortunately, people of color also have less access to health care, employment, and education, according to previous research . And now, a new study published in the American Journal of Public...

When longtime former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed suit July 6 for sexual harassment against the network’s former boss, Roger Ailes, the public response was less than kind. There were expressed disbelief and rebuttals that she was fabricating her story in retaliation for being fired. Many asked: If it was so bad, why didn’t she come forward earlier? As a trauma psychologist, I know her behavior was consistent with many women who experience various forms of sexual assault. Many women...

The diverse coalition of delegates who attended the Democratic National Convention last week may not have realized they were visiting one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. But even as a child growing up in a gentrifying, white enclave of West Philadelphia, Jonathan Tannen knew that people with his skin color rarely crossed 49th Street. It was the invisible line that separated his neighborhood from majority-black areas in the 1980s. Two decades later, Tannen would spend six years at...