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It was the first day of classes at an elementary school in Florida. In just a few moments, my first group of 4th graders would walk into my classroom. Feeling both excited and nervous, I knew I was ready to launch this new chapter in life as a teacher. As I welcomed my students, all 28 of them, I thought about how I would be the great teacher, the one who would inspire and challenge them. But the first hour passed, and hours turned into days and then weeks, and my idealistic vision of the...

Reader Emotionally Exhausted writes, I need advice on moving forward after a toxic and controlling relationship. While I know that the recent break up was in my best interest, reasoning that things are for the better outside of the relationship doesn’t seem to be mending the hurt. I met my now ex-boyfriend about a year ago and there was instant chemistry. He was clever and funny and we enjoyed many of the same activities. We are of similar ages and had similar backgrounds. He was emotionally...

Of the many surprising statistics about America’s money bail system, this one may be the most astounding: More than 60 percent of people in America’s overcrowded jails are there because they can’t afford to pay their bail amount . That works out to roughly 450,000 Americans in jail daily, and how long they stay there can vary with waiting times for trials potentially lasting months (or sometimes, years ). The American money-bail system, which has been around since 1789 , has ripple effect.

In response to the bell ringing that kids these days aren’t resilient the way their parents were growing up in the Wild West of the seventies and eighties suburban American neighborhoods and schools: I call bullshit. We weren’t that resilient. Those of us growing up in the seventies and eighties were not tilling Victory gardens and whittling useful things out of sticks that we found on the ground. I know. I was there. I can only speak to my own experience, and trigger warning, I’m not prone...

A new approach being championed by the state of Wisconsin is being blamed by a union official for breakdowns in security at Wisconsin’s two juvenile prisons that are now the targets of criminal and civil rights investigations . Beginning in 2012, staff at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls were trained in and began using trauma-informed care principles. A 2014 report by the Division of Juvenile Corrections summarizing use of the approach credits it with a...

Believe it or not, both the public and policy-makers often get their ideas from the media. When those ideas are formed about something as serious and impactful as posttraumatic stress disorder, it’s important for the media to tell the story in the right way. With that in mind, Drexel researchers examined how the country’s most influential paper, the New York Times, portrayed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the year it was first added to the American Psychiatric Association’s...

Looking for ways to save money and improve care, Medicare officials are returning to an old-fashioned idea: house calls. But the experiment, called Independence at Home , is more than a nostalgic throwback to the way medicine was practiced decades ago when the doctor arrived at the patient’s door carrying a big black bag. Done right and paid right, house calls could prove to be a better way of treating very sick, elderly patients while they can still live at home. “House calls go back to the...

Bullying, and worse emotional abuse, burns and scars kids, but we don't protect them. Why?

“The ones who tell the stories shape and rule the world.” Hopi Wisdom The power of stories has fascinated me for many years; telling stories, hearing stories, being read stories, all of it! A few weeks ago, I attended M’ellen Kennedy’s daylong workshop “The Sacred Art of Storytelling.” M’ellen is a Unitarian Universalist minister who is known for “preaching from the heart.” That means she speaks without a script and also teaches other ministers how to do the same. What she really does is...

The Supreme Court ruled today that Timothy Foster, a black man, sentenced to death row in 1987 by an all-white jury, deserves a re-trial. Justices say prosecutors in the trial abused their so-called peremptory challenges, the limited number of potential jurors who lawyers may dismiss from jury duty without stating a reason. According to a landmark ruling from 1986, the state may not use peremptory strikes to exclude potential jurors based on race. Yet prosecutors selecting the jury for...

In the span of just a few months, Katie went from honor roll to F’s on her report card. She remembers that time as she walks through the playground at her old elementary school in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She’s watching wistfully as kids dart in and out of the swing set and monkey bars. This place brings back a lot of bad memories. “I used to stand over there against the brick wall and just see everybody else have fun. I was jealous seeing everyone else on the playground," she says.

ORD. 2016-130 AKA “THE 2016 ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE SUMMIT ORDINANCE” To authorize the Chief Administrative Officer to accept funds in the amount of $10,000 from the United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg and to appropriate the increase to the Fiscal Year 2015-2016 Special Fund Budget by increasing estimated revenues and the amount appropriated to the Department of Social Services by $10,000 for the purpose of providing funding for the 2016 Adverse...