Blog

To our collaborators, partners and cheerleaders --- It has been an incredible year! I truly believe with people like you and your teams, the future for our nation's children and families looks brighter than ever! Yes, it’s a very long road, and hard, hard work. But we cannot allow the enormity of what needs to be done to distract us from doing it. We cannot allow naysayers to discourage us. We cannot allow those people with closed minds or resistant to change to devalue our work.

One side pits winners and losers against each other in a race for the American Dream, while the other wonders what might be possible if we work together to form communities, build schools and create a culture of mutual respect. Since the beginning, two narratives have warred for the soul of America. One is the “We’re Number One” America, in which the American Dream is a competition with few winners and others who bask in their reflected glory. This is the America of land...

The Prevention Institute put together this quick review of the recently-passed and signed Federal spending plan: Last week, Congress passed and the President signed a $1.1 trillion spending plan that funds the federal government through September 2016. This follows the enactment of a two-year bipartisan budget deal , which established overall spending levels and partially lifted sequestration through fiscal year 2017. The 2000-page spending bill packs several wins for community...

WASHINGTON – Should we fight the “war on poverty” all over again? Well, yes. That’s the recommendation of a group of liberal and conservative poverty scholars, who spent months discussing and arguing to see if they could find common ground. They did. Their new report – “Opportunity, Responsibility and Security” – lays out a plausible strategy for confronting poverty. The study was co-sponsored by the left-leaning Brookings Institution and the...

Drawn in by the headline, " This superintendent has figured out how to make school work for poor kids ", I could hardly believe what I was reading. I am not entirely sure how easily replicable the funding strategy is, but it would certainly be worth the effort to bring Superintendent Anderson’s approach to national scale. I am so impressed by this model. It represents an enactment of what recent (and historical, really) research has indicated : that mental health issues, including the...

The following press release—with new links to a video and audio recording of a statement by Senator Heitkamp (D-ND)—about the need for federal support to reduce trauma in children was the subject of a post by Dan Press on the Native Americans group on ACEs Connection . Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Independent Senator Angus King of Maine joined Senator Heitkamp and nine other Democrats in sending a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia...

Anyone who has taken the Risking Connection training knows that a key element is that the path to healing is through a RICH relationship- one that includes Respect, Information, Connection and Hope. This is such a central point that the publisher, Sidran, has copywrite protected the concept independently. In our training we ask participants to share ways in which they are currently demonstrating RICH with the clients, and also with each other in their team. Because, amazingly, it turns out...

A new policy in New Zealand will allow people in relationships to find out from the police if their partner has a history of violence, the New Zealand Herald reports . The policy, announced this week by the country's Justice and Police Ministers, is a creative attempt by government officials to combat the nation's record levels of domestic violence—the highest in the developed world. A similar program in the United Kingdom has seen some early success; Clare's Law was rolled out across...

Fiscal conservatives might tell you that inequality is an inevitable and salutary side effect of the free enterprise system. In the U.S., after all, income inequality tends to be the most pronounced in highly innovative economies such as New York or the Silicon Valley. As a counterpoint, liberals might point to the many Scandinavian nations that are among the wealthiest, happiest, most productive, and most equal places on earth. Who’s right? A recent study from Shigehiro Oishi at the...

We all need support, no matter who we are.  As a pediatrician, CEO and a mom, I am constantly juggling priorities, schedules and child care.  Some days are just plain hard and I’ve learned that the only way to get through the tough days and weeks is to practice self care.  Self care is about how we can be our best selves in order to be of support to those around us. For children to lead healthier lives, they need a healthy adult who can act as an emotional buffer to...

What I’ve learned from being my brother’s health advocate in a system filled with more stigma than compassion. Until three months ago, I knew almost nothing about the three-pound organ and its crucial role as garbage disposal (eliminating toxins) and refrigerator (storing and releasing vitamins). But once I stepped in as my brother’s health advocate, I became an expert in how it functions and what happens when it fails. I first noticed it with my chiropractor, a widower in...