March 2023

Seventeen - 15 minute or less presentations about ACEs screening and related topics were addressed at an AVA Preconference in San Diego this January. These represent a diversity of perspectives and practices in applying this new knowledge to healthcare, human services, and education. Audrey Stillerman, MD presents the American College of Preventive Medicine's recent position statement against universal screening and Edward Machtinger, MD discusses the arguments that have been raised about...

Children being processed by the U.S. Border Patrol in Roma, Texas, last year. In the past two years alone, 250,000 minors have come into the United States without their parents.Credit...Kirsten Luce for The New York Times By Hannah Dreier, The New York Times, February 27, 2023 The Biden administration on Monday announced a wide crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the United States, including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work.

California state Sen. Dave Cortese (D), introduced Senate Bill 9, which aims to prevent homelessness among foster youth aging out of the system at age 21. Provided photo. By Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, February 22, 2023 California lawmakers will soon weigh legislation that would extend the nation’s largest foster care system by five years for some youth, making it the first state in the nation to offer housing, financial and caseworker support to young adults through age 26. It’s the...

Environmental justice advocate Sharon Lavigne, founder of the group Rise St. James, inside St. James Catholic Church in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Lavigne is a lifelong member of the church. Credit: James Bruggers By James Bruggers, Inside Climate News, February 20, 2023 The brown brick Roman Catholic church that sits here near the Mississippi River, next to dozens of large oil storage tanks, rose in 1930 amid the sugar cane fields of a former plantation. Twenty-two years later, Sharon...

The EPA has ordered Norfolk Southern to pay for the cleanup of its train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio. Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images By Umair Irfan, Vox, February 25, 2023 Many residents of East Palestine, Ohio, have warily returned to their homes after a Norfolk Southern train derailed and spilled more than 100,000 gallons of dangerous chemicals into the air and water earlier this month. The towering smoke cloud from the burning vinyl chloride has...

By Lori Teresa Yearwood, Photo Illustration: Jackie Guzman/Slate, Slate, February 20, 2023 About a year before her death, Denise Lerma began taking the steps she thought would save her life. First, she quit shooting heroin into her veins. Then she walked as far away from a lifetime of homelessness as her traumatized body and psyche could take her. On her last day living in Lincoln Park, in Los Angeles, Lerma handed Louis, a friend living in the encampment, a pink balloon. It was her way of...