March 2016

Kathryn EvansMadden remembers the day she understood the power of systems to shape people’s daily lives. She was still in graduate school, working as an intern in a social service center that served poor and homeless children and their families. One of the mothers had taken out a “payday loan” to finance a utility bill; months later, she was still paying more than $200 a month on that loan, stuck in a cycle of renewal and exorbitant interest rates. “She was constantly worried about how she...

Older adults who exercise regularly could buy an extra decade of good brain functioning, a new study suggests. The study found that seniors who got moderate to intense exercise retained more of their mental skills over the next five years, versus older adults who got light exercise or none at all. On average, those less-active seniors showed an extra 10 years of "brain aging," the researchers said. The findings do not prove that exercise itself slows brain aging, cautioned senior researcher...

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told doctors they should really, really think twice before prescribing opioids for chronic pain. And now the doctors are telling us that meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy often work better than pain meds and other medical treatments for chronic back pain. It's the latest in a series of studies saying that low-tech interventions like exercise , posture training , physical therapy and just the passage of time work better than...

Editor’s Note: Portraits of Resilience is a photography and narrative series by Prof. Daniel Jackson. Each installment consists of a portrait and a story, told in the subject’s own words, of how they found resilience and meaning in their life. I am an immigrant from Mexico. My mom raised me and my two siblings all by herself. My dad stayed in Mexico. My mom struggled a lot; she never learned English. Halfway through third grade, I was placed in an English-only class, and by fourth grade, I...

Seung-Hui Cho, Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger: In the wake of mass shootings, we often blame mental illness rather than lax gun control for making those tragedies possible. A Washington Post survey of 1,001 Americans found that 63 percent cited problems in identifying and treating people with mental-health issues as the primary cause of mass shootings in this country, while just 23 percent cited gun control laws. Years of research shows that the purported link between mental illness...

Late last night, I Googled “bulimia.” A very good friend called me extremely upset and told me he heard his daughter throwing up after dinner. He is worried but doesn’t know what to do. She is 12 years old. I don’t know much about this topic, but I knew enough to search for “bulimia.” But then I thought to myself, “If you grow up living with domestic violence, what would you search? What if you’re 12 years old? What would you look up?” What happens when you don’t know what to search? [For...

The digital world is changing around us at a dizzying pace; parents want guidance, and pediatricians want to answer their questions with helpful and scientifically valid advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on children and media is probably best known for two recommendations: to discourage any screen time for children under 2, and to limit screen time to two hours a day for older children. As new technologies have transformed many aspects of daily life, new questions have...

I know that the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) is active on this website, but I haven't seen a posting about this phenomenal reporting series, #FightforourGirls. The goal of the series is to highlight how traumatized girls of color are not having their needs met, and instead are receiving carceral interventions where mental health treatment is needed. It was this image (above) from the facebook post that caught my eye- the concept of "camouflaged trauma" is so powerful! The 8...

Leandra Phommavongsay began his speech to the dozen or so teenagers gathered in the back of a Clayton County courtroom by recounting his recent travels. He had been to California, and before that to Florida and to Texas, all places he hadn’t ever expected to go when he was growing up in small-town Georgia, south of Atlanta. “I just came from San Francisco. I’m not sure you’ve ever seen San Francisco. But San Francisco is beautiful,” he said. He had once been like them, Phommavongsay, now 21,...

In the last few years, we have taken a big leap in understanding and supporting maternal mental health and family well-being. But when it comes to supporting new fathers, we remain in the Dark Ages. Support for the changes and challenges new fathers face is largely absent from discussions of perinatal and postpartum health. For many men, this means the entry into fatherhood is confusing, painful, and stressful. In fact, some estimates reveal that more than 25 percent of new fathers...

Researchers are starting to answer some important questions about our brains: how the roughly three pound organ develops quickly in our early years but keeps renewing itself as we age; how the frontal lobe impacts higher-order thinking; how poverty can limit the wiring of the brain. This knowledge helps us understand the importance of early-childhood influences. It helps us understand why humans act so creatively. It even helps us understand some of the academic gaps between boys and girls.

This article describes the award by the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Bush Foundation of 24 fellowships to individuals in North and South Dakota, Minnesota and 23 Native nations to develop leadership skills. Some of the awardees are doing work trauma-specific work such as Susan Marie Beaulieu who is teaching ACEs in Native American communities. Others are using the arts, drumming and other culturally-grounded approaches to heal communities. One is a state legislator (not seeking re-election),...