March 2016

Following last year’s seminar on adverse childhood experience (ACE), with expert Robert Anda, Hanna Boys Center has planned an extensive collaboration with an expert in the field of trauma and healing. Robert Macy will lead five workshops with topics on youth violence, relationship-building, and healing in the family and community. “What we’re really talking about is the impact of adversity and trauma, and what you do about it. What are some strategies to get kids to make better decisions?”...

A new study has found that people with Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment have larger gray matter volume in key areas of the brain responsible for memory and cognition if their exercise-associated calorie burn was high. A growing number of studies indicate physical activity can help protect the brain from cognitive decline, said investigator James T. Becker, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. But typically people are more...

Social scientists have long pointed to economic inequality as a prognosis for lowered social mobility, given the rate that students from low-income communities drop out of high school. But until now, researchers have been unable to establish the mechanisms that drive that correlation. A new paper presented by the Brookings Institute Thursday ties income inequality to reduced rates of upward mobility using empirical data, specifically examining the role of students’ perception of their...

Moriah Barrett, then 14, woke up to burns on her body one night along with physical evidence that she had been raped. She had been invited to a party the night before by someone she considered a friend. She eventually came to realize that she had almost been looped into a human trafficking scheme. This event, among many other traumatic events, affected Moriah mentally, physically and emotionally. [For more of this story, written by Xin Li and Phillomina Wong, go to ...

We live in a loud and distracting world, where silence is increasingly difficult to come by -- and that may be negatively affecting our health. In fact, a 2011 World Health Organization report called noise pollution a "modern plague," concluding that "there is overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population." As our internal and external environments become louder and louder, more people are beginning to seek out silence, whether...

This is a song for every Middle School, High School & College student to listen to...maybe every day. Click on attachment...no virus. Please share thru your world... John Trayser

Addictions emerging from adverse life experiences can kill us in so many ways. Residents of Integrity House, substance abuse treatment program in Newark, New Jersey, gave me a standing ovation when I read this poem aloud. I always knew "Desperate Love" would make an excellent performance piece. Truth and art combined is such a powerful force! The poem was written in 1998, but it took until 2016 for that dream to come true. Don't give up on your vision if your goal is a worthy one. The poem's...

We are doing it again this year! It is the 3rd annual No-Spank Challenge . It is a wonderful event that you can share with your community to give support to parents. Are you are looking for ways to get your kids to behave and be responsible? Do you need support to stop spanking, swatting and yelling? We can help. Please join us for our FREE 3rd annual international peaceful parenting event, hosted by Amy Bryant with Parenting Beyond Punishment . We have some AMAZING speakers, writers,...

Aid agencies say there is a desperate need to train more mental health professionals in Iraq to treat the survivors of Islamic State kidnappings and attacks. In 2014, Islamic State militants entered 17-year-old Nihad Barakat's Yazidi village in northern Iraq. They killed the men and kidnapped 28 members of her family. Speaking at a news conference in London Wednesday, Nihad described what happened next. "The worst torture happened to us in Mosul, she says. The girls were raped, they were all...

Pediatricians are being urged to screen for poverty during office visits. To better understand what this means in practice, NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to Dr. Barbara Ricks. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Here is a grim fact. One in 5 children in the United States today lives below the federal poverty line. The influential American Academy of Pediatrics has found, not so surprisingly, that children living in poverty are more susceptible to a whole range of illnesses - obesity, diabetes, asthma, toxic...

Serekalem Alemu is crocheting a basket. Wearing a gray fleece jacket and a long gray skirt speckled with blue flowers, Alemu sits on a sofa on the second floor of a former warehouse in the industrial section of Tel Aviv. A damp Mediterranean winter breeze blows in through the open window. Traffic whizzes by on the boulevard below. With her thick, black hair held back in a ponytail, the 28-year-old winds long, narrow strips of teal-colored fabric into a ball, which will eventually become a...

As Elizabeth Prewitt reported earlier , in December 12 U.S. Senators sent a letter to DHHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell asking that she direct the agencies in DHHS serving Native Americans to plan and implement a comprehensive integrated trauma-informed strategy. In February, Secretary Burwell responded positively to the Senators, informing them that she has directed the Administrator of the Administration on Native Americans (ANA) to take the lead in developing such a strategy and plan. She...