Blog

When I first started out in the poverty and self-sufficiency field almost 30 years ago, I helped facilitate a focus group in Philadelphia at a transitional work/homeless women’s shelter. Today, one woman still stands out. She had several children, but each had been removed from her care and her parental rights terminated. Although she was only in her 30s, she looked much older. During the focus group, she shared how she had finally turned a corner — was working and ready to find her own...

Anyone who works with adolescents knows what recent science has confirmed: Teenagers just don’t think like adults. In fact, researchers have known for awhile now that the teenage brain is wired differently; it remains under construction during adolescence and won’t develop completely until a person’s early 20s. That explains a lot about the often-bewildering actions of tweens and teens as they seek out novelty and test limits, often without regard to risk. The American College of...

Battered senseless, choked into unconsciousness over and over again, bones broken repeatedly, American mother, Holly Collins, received no justice, no protection, in Minnesota. She lost custody of the two children she was trying so hard to protect from their father’s rages and beatings. When Collins believed that her children might not survive another week — or another day — she fled and received political asylum in Holland. A powerful documentary exists about her case. Collins was the first...

One of my children is spinning in a circle, creating a narrative about a princess as she twirls. The other is building a rocket ship out of a discarded box, attaching propellers made of cardboard and jumping in and out of her makeshift launcher. It is a snow day, and I’ve decided to let them design their own activities as I clean up and prepare a meal. My toddler becomes the spinning princess, imagining her character’s feelings and reactions. What seems like a simple story involves...

Protests focused on entrenched racism rocked campuses around the country this year. Many top colleges enroll small numbers of black students, and the four-year college graduation rate for black students is half that of whites. In response, many admissions officers have been scouring the country—and the globe—to attract “qualified” black and brown students, striving to meet diversity targets while avoiding students they consider “at risk” of dropping out. But a growing group of colleges and...

A national poll commissioned by the Youth First Initiative and conducted by GBA Strategies in January 2016 shows that a majority of Americans, especially young people, believe that youth prisons should be closed and replaced with rehabilitation and prevention programs. The poll, which also shows support for reform across the political spectrum, was conducted January 19-24, 2016 among 1000 adults in 50 states. You can review the poll memo here . The poll results show: The vast majority of...

Antidepressants don’t work for everyone, and having a history of abuse during childhood may signal a low likelihood that the drugs will improve an adult’s symptoms of major depression, a recent study suggests. While there are few reliable predictors of which people will respond to specific antidepressants, lots of previous research links a history of trauma early in life with how well people tend to do on these drugs, researchers note in the journal Translational Psychiatry. "The presence of...

The first part of Tennessee Jane Watson's audio story, Silent Evidence, was posted today. From her website, SilentEvidenceProject.com : Sometimes silence protects us. Sometimes silence does us harm. The story of one young woman as she faces her abuser, the criminal justice system and most of all, herself. Three other episodes will be available via podcast, one a week for the next three weeks. It's worth a listen.

From the CDC’s Injury Prevention & Control, Division of Violence Prevention: "Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are essential to prevent child abuse and neglect and to assure all children reach their full potential. The Essentials for Childhood Framework proposes strategies communities can consider to promote relationships and environments that help children grow up to be healthy and productive citizens so that they, in turn, can build stronger and safer families and...

Anyone who still needs motivation to move more may find it in a new study showing that, in addition to its other health benefits, exercise appears to substantially reduce the risk of developing 13 different varieties of cancer. That is far more types than scientists previously thought might be impacted by exercise. The comprehensive study also suggests that the potential cancer-fighting benefits of exercise seem to hold true even if someone is overweight. The idea that exercise might change...

When it comes to sexual assault of students, some say private secondary schools are still being a little too private about how they handle misconduct. A recent Boston Globe investigation found hundreds of students were allegedly abused by teachers and staff at scores of New England prep schools since the 1950s. Many of the perpetrators were quietly let go, and then moved on to re-offend at other schools. To many who've been through private boarding schools, the stories of sexual abuse comes...

Single mothers, untenured professors, young reporters and on-call doctors might have a thin silver lining for their hurried days and response for the people who insist on slowing down: All that hustling may translate into superior brain power as you get older, as a study finds that the busiest people perform best on cognitive tests. Sara Festini, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Dallas, and her adviser, Denise Park, published the study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience...