February 2019

CHICAGO – AS BEST AS HE can recall, the first time Daniel James used heroin was in 2009 or 2010, when he was in his late 30s. It was shortly after he'd been released from prison for the second or third time, resettling not far from West Garfield Park, the hardscrabble neighborhood where he grew up. A high school dropout scraping by as a part-time forklift operator, James was partial to smoking pot or sniffing cocaine in his free time, hoping to numb a lifetime of pain. He'd been sexually...

On April 27, 2017, Jack Talaska, a lawyer for the poor in Lafayette, La., had 194 felony cases. 113 clients had been formally charged. The rest are not pictured. High-level felonies carry sentences of 10 years or more and should each get 70 hours of legal attention, according to a workload study. [For more on this story by RICHARD A. OPPEL JR. and JUGAL K. PATEL, go to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/31/us/public-defender-case-loads.html ]

WASHINGTON – Incidents of sexual assault at U.S. military academies spiked nearly 50 percent in the past school year despite years of focus on the problem and declarations of zero tolerance, according to results of a survey by the Pentagon. The number of students reporting unwanted sexual contact totaled 747 in the 2017-18 academic year, compared with 507 in 2015-16, according to anonymous surveys of cadets and midshipmen. Unwanted sexual contact ranges from groping to rape. "We’re...

In recent years, a small but growing number of neuroscientists, lawyers, and policy-makers have highlighted the dangers of solitary confinement and are campaigning to minimize use of the practice and, eventually, abolish it completely. The conditions of solitary confinement vary, but typically involve locking prisoners up in a small, windowless cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, with little or no human interaction or other forms of stimulation, often for extended periods of time. A general...

In late September, I travelled to Indian Township, Maine, the largest of three Passamaquoddy reservations, for the tribe’s annual ceremonial-days festival. That far northeast, the state is all water-edged hills and long stretches of humanless, single-lane roads, and it was in full autumnal splendor. Outside the reservation’s tribal office, in a field that was steps away from a shimmering lake, a few hundred Passamaquoddy people gathered to celebrate in pan-Indian powwow style. Donald...

“Breastfeeding is a cultural tradition,” shares Shawn Meyer, RN, BSN, CLC, a public health nurse and member of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. “It’s ingrained in our history and the history of many other tribes across the country.” The Native American breastfeeding tradition Meyer describes, however, has been disrupted by centuries of historical trauma, an insight that helps explain why Native Americans now have one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding of all other racial and ethnic...

We were in a planning meeting in early January, reviewing the punch list of things yet to do before the launch of our series “Sick, Broke and Left Behind,” scheduled to run January 20, when I got a call that breaking news was overtaking our first story. Virginia’s Lee County was about to begin divorce proceedings from its hospital partner that had failed to deliver on a bucketful of sweet promises. We had already planned for the first story to focus on Lee County, which lost its hospital in...

The Public Health Agency of Canada broadcast a presentation in January 2019: The ACEs Wave: Cautions and Considerations. The presentation was given by two of Canada's leading experts on child maltreatment, Dr. Andrea Gonzales and Dr. Harriet MacMillan. They explore cautions and considerations regarding use of ACEs across clinical, policy and research contexts. Below are links to the audio recording and to the Power Point slides in English and French. "In recent years increasing attention has...

A 7-page fact sheet describing Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is now available. A dyadic psychotherapeutic intervention for enhancing the caregiver-child relationship and making behavior management more effective, PC-CARE combines teaching and coaching on how trauma exposure affects children’s mental health. Caregivers can be biological parents, relative caregivers, resource parents, grandparents, nannies, or anyone caring for a child. While caregivers play with the child, therapists coach...

Sharing an excerpt from a post from Annie Wright Psychotherapy. https://anniewrightpsychotherapy.com/all-the-little-fragments-understanding-complex-relational-trauma/ “There is no growth without real feeling. Children not loved for who they are do not learn how to love themselves. Their growth is an exercise in pleasing others, not in expanding through experience. As adults, they must learn to nurture their own lost child.” ― Marion Woodman Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about child abuse...

Maryland Essentials for Childhood, a statewide initiative educating policy makers and communities on the science of ACEs, developing brains, and how we can build resilience for children, families and communities in Maryland, is poised to meet with Maryland elected officials this coming Thursday, ,February 7th, 9-1 pm. We will educate legislators on the science and policies that reduce or mitigate ACEs and other childhood trauma. Key policies being considered by the General Assembly are:...

Pausing to appreciate the good things that exist in every day doesn’t mean we avoid challenges, or abandon difficulties, or neglect to plan for the future. It means we acknowledge that within the roiling of catastrophe, there is always something to celebrate. We acknowledge the celetastrophe of every day.