January 2019

T here are few things in life that are certain when you become a parent — infants teach us the true value of a whisper; guilt, panic, and worrying automatically go into overdrive every day for the rest of your life; and we have never wanted the world to be a better place as much as we do as parents. However, as a mother of two black males, numbers 2 and 3 on the list of parental certainties have a distinct meaning for me, my life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for my children. In...

The bipartisan team that rallied House support for last year’s federal sentencing changes is drafting new legislation to clean up the existing criminal records of nonviolent drug offenders, a centerpiece of their efforts to pass further reforms. Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) are discussing how to potentially expunge the records of people who were convicted of drug crimes before minimum sentencing requirements were reduced and to restore their eligibility to...

The government shutdown has hit the one-month mark, and subsidized housing programs are reeling. Between December and January, the contracts of 1,150 Section 8 units expired , putting in jeopardy the housing of tens of thousands of people enrolled in the project-based rental assistance subsidy program (over half of whom are elderly or disabled ). Another 500 contracts are set to expire if the shutdown continues into February. As administered through the Department of Housing and Urban...

NEW ORLEANS —“Diversity” was top of mind when Angel Carter was applying to schools. Raised in an African-American enclave in Atlanta, she said, “I would have loved to go to an HBCU,” the acronym for historically black colleges and universities. But college should stretch you, she felt, so Carter chose Tulane, where the student body is 75 percent white. “I hadn’t had many interactions with white people,” said Carter, now a senior majoring in anthropology and cell biology. “I wanted to work on...

Last week saw some good news about cancer from the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) annual checkup report —a 25-year decline in cancer rates and a 27 percent drop in the overall cancer death rates in the United States. That’s approximately 2.6 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2016. Early detection and optimal treatment get credit from the ACS, along with reductions in smoking rates, for declines in lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. “The decline in cancer mortality...

How do you ask patients about current and past trauma? And how do you respond to their disclosures? Those are two key questions that members of a national collaborative who are among the early adopters of trauma-informed care practices have answered in a recent article in the journal Women’s Health Issues. Dr. Edward Machtinger To Dr. Edward Machtinger, the lead author of the paper entitled, “ From treatment to Healing: Inquiry and response to recent and past trauma in adult health care” ,...

It started with the internet. Every time she was online, it seemed like Bénédicte Kinkolo was served up another story about some successful person doing something great: running a business, winning awards, making millions of dollars. Kinkolo, then a second-year student at King’s College in London, ate it up. She knew she wanted to be this kind of successful, though she wasn’t yet sure at what. Maybe emulating the people she read about — their habits, their routines, what they thought about...

Most of us have or will experience trauma at some point in our lives. Whether it comes in the form of a personal upheaval – such as a serious injury or illness, victimhood at the hands of another, job loss, or the loss of a loved one – or through witnessing a traumatic event experienced by others, trauma is likely to have a profound and lasting effect on us. By now, we are all familiar with the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD ), but there is something else that can occur...

When then-President Barack Obama stood before a friendly and enthusiastic crowd at Macomb Community College, near Detroit, 10 years ago this year, the goals he set out were — as the president himself said — historic. Within a decade, he said on that day in 2009, community colleges like Macomb would collectively boost their number of graduates by five million. That would help return the United States to first in the world in the proportion of its population with the credentials needed to...

In communities across the nation, complex care management teams are deploying “non-traditional” health care workers — including individuals with lived experience or skills that transcend the traditional bounds of health care — to better connect with high-risk patients. The New Faces of the Complex Care Workforce series showcases how these workers are helping in innovative ways to address the needs of adult Medicaid beneficiaries with complex health and social needs. In the second profile of...

One reason people with Childhood PTSD so often have a hard time in relationships is "DWD" -- Dating While Dysregulated. In this video a talk casual sex and how it can SEEM like it's going to help us get re-regulated, but in the long term, it doesn't always go that way. Toward the end of the video, I talk a little about an approach that worked for me and many others, called Structured Dating. It's the cornerstone of what I teach in my upcoming video-based course, Dating and Relationships for...

Safe families produce successful students and thriving communities. Unfortunately, across our towns and cities, family households are not places where all children are safe. Instead, children endure adverse childhood experiences—or ACEs. There are ten ACEs that include physical and emotional neglect; physical, emotional and sexual abuse; and living in households where adults misuse substances, have mental health challenges, are violent to partners, parents are separated, or a family member...