January 2018

We speak with Yance Ford, who on Tuesday became the first trans director to be nominated for an Academy Award. His film “Strong Island” is up for best documentary. Ford, who is African-American, chronicles what happened to his own family after his brother, William Ford Jr., was shot dead by a white mechanic in Long Island, New York, in 1992. The killer was questioned by police but never charged. “My brother’s case, 25 years ago, simply affirms what we are seeing now,” Ford says. “It doesn’t...

The Trauma-informed School movement is at a critical stage where student discipline policies must reflect the educational neuroscience and trauma-informed practices being implemented in our schools. Otherwise, you haven't made it yet to the trauma-informed stage. Use this link as a litmus test: https://medium.com/@drjimwalters/trauma-informed-student-codes-of-conduct-e1ecbb18cb6f I welcome others to share their work in this area.

The Center for Youth Wellness (CYW) has launched its new National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) member website ( nppcaces.org ). The website supports CYW’s efforts to grow a national, co-designed peer group of pediatric-serving medical practitioners interested in ACES screening and in expanding knowledge, building capacity, accessing resources and shaping the field of ACEs research and trauma-informed care. NPPC’s goal is to support pediatric medical providers in making ACEs...

There's been quite a bit of research linking financial insecurity to poor health outcomes. The connection is, on its face, an obvious one, as a depleted checking account can cause stress, which can manifest in our bodies and minds. A new study by researchers at Boston Medical Center furthers that unfortunate connection: It finds housing instability, including chronically late rent payment, can affect the mental and physical health of family members of all ages. "People talk a lot about...

Volusia County, Florida — This was one of the last places in the South to end segregation, a land today of gun enthusiasts and NASCAR, where Jews are still cautioned not to draw attention by hanging mezuzahs on their doors, and local history books say little, or nothing, about African-American life here. The most notable change in the county’s demographics in the generations since Jim Crow is that black sharecroppers who used to tend white-owned farms have been replaced by thousands of...

(Or, to be exact, Dorchester. To be more precise, the Savin Hill neighborhood of Dorchester. To be extra-precise, the houses on this particular street are mostly owned by white, blue-collar retirees. In Boston, this is identity, and it shifts block by block. Here, this stuff matters.) …. I n a city that incessantly agonizes over its racism, a city with a busing history of infamy, a city with public/private schools that show stark racial divides, here’s a fact that may surprise you: The most...

For years, staff at St. Catherine’s Center for Children, a service and treatment center for at-risk children and families in Albany, New York, would call the police to help with situations that escalated out of their control: a teenager in residential treatment wielding a chair as a weapon, or a child who’d bolted from a foster home and might be in danger. But this time, the police were coming to them.

As a freshman on the Michigan State University softball team, Tiffany Thomas Lopez went to Larry Nassar, the school sports therapist, for back pain. Nassar’s “ special treatment ”—a technique he’s used on many of his patients, including U.S. Olympic gymnasts—involved him inserting his fingers into her vagina. Thomas Lopez thought something seemed off. But when she reported the behavior to Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, an MSU athletic trainer, she said Teachnor-Hauk told her not to worry: This was...

Having just earned a teaching degree from Pennsylvania’s Millersville University, Rian Reed set out in 2011 to find a position working with special-needs students. Born and raised in a suburb outside of Philadelphia, she had built an enviable academic record, earning induction into the National Honor Society in high school and speaking at her university commencement. She sought to use her leadership skills and creativity in a classroom in her own community. So Reed, a biracial woman who...

Tucked into the new tax law is a provision that offers companies a tax credit if they provide paid family and medical leave for lower-wage workers. Many people support a national strategy for paid parental and family leave, especially for workers who are not in management and are less likely to get that benefit on the job. But consultants, scholars and consumer advocates alike say the new tax credit will encourage few companies to take the plunge. The tax credit, proposed by Sen. Deb Fischer...

As they worked on assembling a new report on American poverty, a consortium of researchers fanned out across the U.S. to talk to people living in pockets of concentrated need—from rural Maine and the Lummi Nation of the Pacific Northwest to major cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Detroit. One of these site visits took the team to a neighborhood in San Jose, California, where Mexican immigrants struggle with tech-boom-fueled housing costs: Think $600 a month for a couch to sleep...

One of the prevailing views on the disparities between whites and blacks in terms of medical care and mortality is that people of color suffer from worse health outcomes solely due to a lack of financial resources. It is true that low education and socioeconomic status are often associated with worse health outcomes, and the correlation is quite high. Additionally, people of color are substantially more likely to reside in areas with low economic opportunity, and are also significantly more...