Intent on finding a safe place to spend the day, the elderly woman trudged into the public library, burdened with several bags of precious possessions. She was immediately greeted by the sight of a library worker thrusting out a hand and snapping, “No, you can’t bring those things in here.” “She said she felt like she was being struck,” explains Caroline Sharkey. A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) on the faculty of the University of Georgia’s School of Social Work in Athens, Sharkey...

A child’s early years are a time of exceptional growth, and ones that can be profoundly affected by traumatic experiences. Research has firmly disproven the idea that infants and toddlers are “too young” to be affected by such experiences, leading to an increased awareness of the need for trauma-informed services for children. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs have the potential to play a central role in identifying and addressing the effects of trauma, with lifelong...

With a grant from King County’s Best Starts for Kids, Vashon Youth & Family Services plans to help Vashon become a “trauma informed community” in an effort to improve the overall health and resilience of islanders. “With this program, we see a unique opportunity to create a culture shift,” Roderick McClain, VYFS’ grantwriter, said. “The ultimate goal is for individuals and organizations to be better equipped and organized to deal with those experiencing the effects of trauma.” The roots...

In the past few weeks, we tragically lost two Parkland mass shooting survivors—Sidney Aiello and Calvin Desir—to suicide . Around the same time, Jeremy Richman , whose daughter was killed in the Newtown mass shooting, died by suicide too. These heart-wrenching losses have prompted public discussion about connections between suicide and trauma . What is PTSD ? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) defines trauma as exposure to actual or threatened...

California’s new surgeon general made Sacramento the first stop on her statewide listening tour, and after Tuesday’s event, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris told The Bee that capital residents are powerfully grappling with the long-term impact childhood trauma has on their families and neighborhoods. Burke Harris said many of the 100 Sacramento-area residents she met with asked her to find ways to bring training, resources and support to families, educators, nonprofits and other community-based...

When Taylor Lytle began fainting every morning when she stood up, she had to make a decision: Should she seek medical care or should she save her hard-earned wages to buy soap, shampoo, deodorant and feminine hygiene products? People across the United States struggle with similar concerns. But Lytle shouldn’t have had to make that decision. That’s because in a country without universal or even a nationalized health care system , one group of people has a constitutionally guaranteed right to...

The village of Taholah on the Quinault Indian Nation is just a stone’s throw from a pebbled stretch of beach pocked with the tiny holes of razor clams. The town is wedged between Washington state’s rocky Pacific coastline and a hillside of towering cedar and Douglas fir evergreens. It’s been the home of the Quinault peoples for 12,000 years. And for the last 50-odd years, the home of tribal member Larry Ralston. Back in 2008, when Ralston first learned climate change would cause sea levels...

The mouth of the Klamath River – the spiritual heart of Yurok country – can be hard to find. Surrounded by mountains, cloaked in coastal redwoods, and emptying into the Pacific Ocean, the river is often obscured in fog. Only the salmon and the Roosevelt elk seem to have no trouble finding the Klamath. Winter is the rainy season, but this morning is different. An early February storm has fought through the salty air and blanketed the famous towering conifers and steep, winding roads with a...

I t would be hard to dispute that the War on Drugs, instigated by President Nixon in 1971, has deliberately targeted lower-income communities and communities of color. Nixon’s own counsel and domestic affairs advisor, John Ehrlichman, confessed in 1994 that the War on Drugs was designed as an assault on “the antiwar left and black people.” Ever since, we have been able to see the crippling impact of this sinister and deceptive strategy on these communities. We can see it simply by visiting...

When Christopher Gonzalez first entered John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, he noticed that students generally kept to themselves and their own cliques. “It was like a line you didn’t cross,” said Gonzalez, now a senior. The climate began to change more than a year ago: More greetings are exchanged in hallways. Virtually no one sits alone at lunchtime. Students from various cross sections of the school — gamers, artists, dancers, jocks and others — gather together in a small grassy...

Asking Democratic presidential candidates about reparations for slavery seems to have become standard, ahead of 2020. And it has left many candidates scrambling to respond. But the debate around whether or not -- and how -- to fund reparations for black Americans goes far beyond being a political talking point. For Maxine Crump , a descendant of enslaved people, the goal is clear: Crump is a descendant of slaves sold by Georgetown University in 1838, and President and CEO of Dialogue on Race...

WYTHEVILLE, Va. — It was cold and snowing, but John Johnson had an appointment to keep. He wasn’t going to let the weather stop him, or the worsening cough he’d been ignoring the past week. He put on his black fedora and drove across town to see a friend. “John, come on in,” she said, and after they settled at her dining room table, she handed him a piece of paper with the names of 12 people, all of them long dead. He squinted at them through his glasses. It had been three weeks since...

A Nashville lawyer hopes to wipe clean some arrest records for 128,000 Tennesseans. The lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, who has worked on multiple cases regarding incarceration and re-entry, has filed a class-action motion in county court to have the case files destroyed for hundreds of thousands of arrests and charges that never resulted in a conviction. Many of those who could benefit from the process, called expungement, do not even know it. "A lot of the people who are affected by this already...

VAUGHAN, Miss. — When Antroine Anderson started kindergarten in this close-knit rural town last August, he knew just three words by sight. He mistook H for G, confused L and I and identified M as F. Accustomed to being called AJ by his family, Antroine didn’t recognize his name in print. His mother, Janice Barton, felt ashamed when she learned some of his peers were already writing their names — until she learned many others weren’t prepared for kindergarten either. In Antroine’s school...

WASHINGTON — It was 1993, and a South Dakota jury was debating whether to sentence a gay man to death. Life in prison, one juror said, would be no punishment at all. Allowing the defendant, Charles Rhines, to spend his days surrounded by men would, the juror reasoned, be a kind of reward. “If he’s gay, we’d be sending him where he wants to go,” the juror said, according to a 2016 sworn statement from Frances Cersosimo, who also served on the jury. She did not name the juror. Another juror,...

BALTIMORE — The latest disaster in Baltimore’s deadly and worsening opioid epidemic was a small one: The addiction treatment van, now 13 years old, wouldn’t start. The white GMC truck, open four mornings a week and parked outside the city jail, is an attempt to close a gap in the city’s struggling addiction treatment system. But as the breakdown showed, even the attempts to plug holes in the system sometimes themselves have holes. With the van out of service, doctors and nurses took to their...

Dennis Mitchell owns a small ground-floor barbershop in the heart of Harlem, where he presides over rows of gleaming salon chairs, cutting fades and shaves and earning the nickname Denny Moe. For years, one of the regular customers sitting in front of Moe's mirrors has been Dr. Joseph Ravenell , an associate professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine at New York University's School of Medicine. Barbershops have been havens for Ravenell since he was a kid, when he...

In an excerpt published in Next City from her book BIASED: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do , Stanford social psychologist (and MacArthur Fellow ) Jennifer Eberhardt delves into the impact of implicit bias in perpetuating segregation and racial discrimination. More than half of whites, Eberhardt explains, say they would not move to an area that is more than 30 percent black, because they “believe that the housing stock would not be well maintained and...

So many of us consume ourselves with self-help, myself included. Literally as recently as last month, I still prided myself on reading 50 books a year “less than 10% of which were fiction.” And even as I swore off “bullshit business books” I kept pounding self-improvement ones, repackaged in ways that won’t embarrass you on the subway (not that I ride on) or the airplane (which I often do); re-marketing the same messages but wrapping it up as “biographies.” They know what you doing with...

Lately, more light has been shed on the risks Black women face during pregnancy and childbirth. While this is good, another struggle remains largely hidden for Black woman—becoming pregnant. While infertility affects roughly 12 percent of the population , Black women are twice as likely to experience challenges achieving or sustaining a pregnancy—and less likely to seek assistance. According to Juli Fraga, a psychologist who specializes in women’s health, including pregnancy-related...

For far too long, discriminatory laws and policies have prevented people from living healthy lives. Everyone deserves good jobs and schools, healthy food, safe neighborhoods, quality health care, and affordable housing. But some folks are excluded from accessing these basic needs because of unfair policies that create barriers to health in underserved communities. Changing existing laws and policies is the most effective method for undoing the harms of discriminatory policies and advancing...

When groups that lobby for federal prison reform found there was no money in the budget this year for the First Step Act, many gave Congress and the White House a pass. They focused instead on next year’s funding for the new law, which includes more prison education and job-training programs. But on Monday, their good faith was put to the test as President Trump released his budget priorities for 2020. Only $14 million was explicitly listed to finance the act’s programs. It’s unclear if...

Research suggests that about half of the county’s children experience at least one traumatic event before the age of 17. These adverse childhood experiences — known as ACES — include experiencing or witnessing violence; living in poverty; or having a parent go to jail. Even as school districts across the country become more aware of how these traumas can affect learning, there’s been little concrete policy on the state or federal level for how schools should prepare. [For more on this story...

Preschool is already too late, if you ask Ian Rowe. The head of Public Prep charter schools in New York City believes that, when it comes to setting students up for academic success, the key is starting earlier. Much, much earlier. That’s why the network has teamed up with a pair of nonprofits to start getting children ready for school when they’re just toddlers — a full two years before even enrolling in pre-K. The unique partnership sends trained mentors to meet with families in their own...

This year, the United States will celebrate 29 years of civil-rights progress under the Americans With Disabilities Act. And yet the more than 56 million Americans with physical, sensory, mental, cognitive, or intellectual disabilities — as well as those living with a chronic illness — continue to experience deep and persistent inequality. According to the U.S. Census and the Labor Department, people with disabilities are half as likely to have a bachelor’s degree and twice as likely to be...

New research has found evidence that children and adolescents with higher levels of anxiety may be at a greater risk of developing alcohol problems. Many studies have investigated the relationship between anxiety and alcohol use, but the evidence has been unclear, say researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K.. Some studies found higher anxiety is linked to greater alcohol use, while others found anxiety is linked to lower alcohol use, or there was no association. For their study,...

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution does not guarantee a “painless death” for condemned murderers, deciding that a Missouri inmate may be executed by a lethal injection despite a rare, severe condition that could cause him to suffocate. By a 5-4 vote, the court rejected Russell Bucklew’s claim it would be cruel and unusual punishment to inject him because it could trigger a hemorrhage and choking. He maintained the state must seek out another method of execution, such as...

T he Asian women were easy targets. They were a group the robbers predicted would not resist: middle-aged, frail, unfamiliar with English, and — crucially — unable to identify the black teenagers who snatched the purses from their arms. It was 2014, and I had just begun analyzing data on racial disparities in policing with the Oakland Police Department when this story made its rounds. This is part of my work at Stanford University, where I study the psychology of racial bias. The police...

A few years ago, Amy Lopes, a veteran fifth-grade teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, learned that teachers at her school could try a mindfulness and yoga training along with their students. Her immediate reaction: “What a bunch of baloney!” “I said, ‘OK, I’ll try it, but it’s not going to work,’ ” recalled Lopes, who teaches at the William D’Abate Elementary School. “But, within a couple weeks, I just let go and became a learner along with my students, and my whole world has changed.” That...

A group of students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado have started a gun violence prevention campaign. Called #MyLastShot, the student-led campaign calls for citizens to put a sticker on their ID or cellphone that asks for photos of their body to publicized in the event they are victims of gun violence. The sticker reads: "In the event that I die from gun violence, please publicize the photo of my death." Nearly 20 years after the deadly shooting at the school that took the...

Childhood trauma is a widespread issue. According to Child Trends, nearly half of children in the United States and in Pennsylvania have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE, which often leads to traumatic stress. Research is clear that traumatic stress in children can negatively impact cognitive, academic and behavioral outcomes. Yet schools are not equipped to address these problems. A recent ACLU report notes that 90 percent of U.S. public schools do not meet the...

Nearly one-third of Oklahoma children have had multiple adverse childhood experiences, an audience of advocates for children was told Thursday evening. The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, in conjunction with the Tulsa World and Tulsa Lawyers for Children, showcased the film “ Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope” on Thursday evening at the Circle Cinema. The film was a lead-in to the topic of adverse child experiences, also known as ACEs, and an hour-long...

ELONG ELONG, Australia — In a community of only about 100 people, Louise Hennessy says, neighbors need to look out for each other. Whenever someone goes quiet for too long, she picks up the phone to check that everything is all right. In recent months, more often than not, the answer has been no. “The stress of not knowing when it’s going to rain creates a lot of anxiety,” Hennessy said. More than two years of extreme drought has hit tiny Elong Elong — about 225 miles from Sydney — and other...

When you’re a people pleaser, setting boundaries can feel painful. We worry we’ll hurt someone’s feelings. We fear we’ll fracture the relationship. We think saying no is rude or cruel or not compassionate—and we see ourselves as the opposite of these things. And we simply don’t have much practice with setting boundaries. And so, it’s so much easier to simply not set them. It’s so much easier to stay quiet. But it’s certainly not healthier. Many view boundaries as walls. But, according to...

I t is unacceptable and a national disgrace that there have been at least 35 suicides of Indigenous people this year – in just 12 weeks – and three were children only 12 years old. The Kimberley region – where my mob are from – has the highest rate of suicide in the country. If the Kimberley was a country it would have the worst suicide rate in the world. A recent inquest investigated 13 deaths which occurred in the Kimberley region in less than four years, including five children aged...

Some states have made great strides in reforming their juvenile justice systems, moving away from incarceration to community-based alternatives. For more information on Community-Based Alternatives, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Community-Based Alternatives But how do states and local agencies fund the range of community services that many advocates believe are needed? In Fort Worth, Texas, a closed youth facility became a new source of funds, said Samantha Harvell, principal policy associate at...

The amendment is brief—a mere 52 words—and its core sentiment appears utterly innocuous: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." But the Equal Rights Amendment has been anything but anodyne since its original defeat in the late 1970s. Today's reignited movement has much in common with the earlier fight—including the vehement and powerful opposition of the religious right. Amid the Women's March and #MeToo...

Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Rockefeller Foundation may be axing its Resilient Cities program, started only in 2013. The program is designed to help cities address the effects of climate change including by establishing response systems that are well thought through even in the face of incidents which are virtually unprecedented. According to Bloomberg, the effort may be closed as soon as this summer. While the article sardonically bore the label “climate changed,” Bloomberg’s...

With historic demographic shifts in Congress this year, there is even more momentum to address broken policies that can improve the lives of families across our nation. The Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation Community (Family Prosperity) is bringing policy, practice, philanthropy, research, and private sector leaders together to capitalize on the energy and opportunities materializing at the local, state, and national levels to improve family-supportive policies. Family Prosperity is...

“I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood,” says NICHQ Project Specialist, Avery Desrosiers, MPH. “As a result, I didn’t feel the color of my skin until I was almost 20 years old. I didn’t understand what my whiteness meant.” Desrosiers spent several months in Cape Town, South Africa where she studied the strategies used during Apartheid to oppress Black South Africans systematically, and the lasting impact that had on communities. She recalls the stark contrast of mansions...

I was talking with an acquaintance about childhood in today’s world, compared to a typical childhood of a couple of generations ago. We both came to the conclusion that things were a lot easier back then or, at least it seemed that way. Keep in mind that this conclusion came from two guys who entered the world during the Eisenhower administration, for what that’s worth. Them the subject of “ACE”s came up. I was not really familiar with the acronym, which stands for “adverse childhood...