Without knowing about 'coherent narrative' and its role in processing trauma memory, I finally wrote "Last Chance at Normal" - the true story of my descent into the underworld of Los Angeles, journeying among drug lords and gang members as...
A pediatrician writes about the ACEs in the impoverished community in which he works. It's spring, and once again I find myself sitting on my back porch gazing at the disparities on the two sides of our modest backyard. On the sunny side, a dozen...
A hospital initiative in Los Angeles seeks to provide early intervention for toxic stress. An innovative program run by Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles is trying to head off mental health issues in older children by improving their home lives...
Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons This op-ed looks at how schools use abusive restraint and seclusion techniques for managing difficult children and suggests a move towards Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. “The test of the...
New research complicates our understanding of the relationship between emotions and weight gain (a relationship critical to our understanding of ACEs .) Antidepressants are the most-prescribed drugs in the U.S. for people between the...
Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons This new research may help us better understand the effects that parents stress and ACEs may have on their children. Women who take antidepressants during pregnancy may be unknowingly predisposing their infants to...
On Fox News last week, contributor Jesse Watters made some wildly ignorant and dismissive comments about men, boys and sexual assault. While discussing a statutory rape case involving a 46-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy, Watters said, “It...
Native American veterans battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder find relief and healing through an alternative treatment called the Sweat Lodge ceremony offered at the Spokane Veterans Administration Hospital. In the Arizona desert, wounded warriors...
Past research has established that child abuse can lead to alterations in brain structure. But the team involved in this latest study, including Joaquim Radua, a researcher at FIDMAG Sisters Hospitallers Foundation for Research and Teaching in Spain,...
[Gov. Rick Scott stands withDept. of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Waters, left. Karl Etters photo] Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday signed a bill rewriting laws that govern the state Department of Juvenile Justice, reinforcing an emphasis on prevention, intervention and the rehabilitation of youthful offenders. The measure (HB 7055) formalizes the department’s strategy of shifting funds to prevention programs, with the aim of keeping kids out of the juvenile system in the first place.
http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/2014/06/17/exploring-culture-health-building-resilience-undo-effects-childhood-trauma/ ^ an innovative way of tackling childhood trauma, mental health and education. “ Head Start-Trauma Smart is a model for...
[Photo: Jeff Roberson/AP] Barbershops are a traditional gathering place for African-American men — a place to talk politics, sports and gossip. Now, some doctors in Los Angeles are hoping to make the barbershop a place for combating high blood pressure among black men. Death rates from hypertension are three times higher in African-American men than white men of the same age, says Dr. Ronald Victor, the director of Cedars-Sinai Center for Hypertension in Los Angeles. "Hypertension is...
[Photo: Taylor Glascock, NYTimes] Lena and Robert Serpico knew something was not right before their son was in kindergarten. They had taken him and his younger brother in as foster children from a mother who used drugs, and they later adopted both. The older boy, whose name is not being published at the Serpicos’ request, was restless and impulsive from the beginning and got his first diagnosis at age 4: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He began taking Ritalin in elementary...
[Photo: Better Block Project] “We had all these rules that stripped away beauty,” said [Jason] Roberts [who lives in Oak Cliff, a part of Dallas generally known for its crime]. It was Dallas, after all — charm was downright subversive. He thought about going to the city government. “But in our community we had rendering fatigue. I got fired up to go to City Hall and see if I could take part in reshaping my community. But there are so many processes, so...
ACEsConnection member Jonathan Purtle, research director at the Drexel Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice, did an overview of ACEsConnection member Roy Wade's recent research for Philly.com' The Public Health column. Dr. Roy Wade...