April 2017

How can it be that a seemingly depressed person, one who shows clinical symptoms, doesn’t respond to antidepressants or psychotherapy? Perhaps because the root of his anguish is something else.

Child Parent Institute is offering FREE parenting workshops during the month of April as part of their Prevent Child Abuse campaign! Workshops are available in Spanish & English Parenting Workshops at CPI During the month of April CPI offers FREE workshops to parents - our workshops are developed on a strong child development foundation, supporting the belief that each child and parent brings unique needs and temperament to family life. Although many classes are held at the Parent...

California’s high school graduation rate increased to 83.2 percent for the class of 2016, with gains for nearly all ethnic groups though gaps persist, according to statistics released Tuesday. The overall rise of 0.9 percent above the previous year marked the 7th consecutive annual increase in graduation tallies and is significant progress from the 74.7 percent in 2010 when this form of measurement began, the California Department of Education reported. In what officials described as another...

The Issue In 2014, 26 states (including the District of Columbia) expanded Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level—or a yearly income of about $16,000/$22,000 for a family of one/two. Researchers estimated the impact of the ACA Medicaid expansion on uninsured rates of poor, childless adult citizens, by age, gender, race, income, education, and health. Key Findings The uninsured rate of poor, childless adults decreased by 47.1 percent between 2013 and 2015 under the...

Hard childhoods seem to not only rob children of material joys, but also of brain power. Children who grow up poor tend to score worse on tests of memory, processing speed, language, and attention. And they are 40 percent more likely to have a learning disability than their better-off peers. Busier and less-educated parents utter millions fewer words to their babies, creating a gap in verbal ability by the time the children are 3. Factors like hunger, unsafe housing, and parental instability...

When Yoselin Ocasio was hired two years ago as the climate manager at Lewis Elkin Elementary School in Kensington, she says, “I felt that with 15 years in social work, I was ready.” But once on the job, Ocasio said, she realized that she wasn’t. “It’s been very, very challenging. The walkie-talkie doesn’t stop.” The neighborhood is plagued with substance abuse, neglect, and violence, she says, “and the kids come to school with that.” [For more of this story, written by Paul Jablow, go to ...

Over the past several months, data has shown rising mortality rates among a surprising population - middle-age, largely rural white people. But many who study public health say focusing solely on that data ignores the historic disparities in other areas, such as the extraordinarily high maternal mortality rate among African-American women. That particular area is of interest to journalist Rita Henley Jensen . Jensen is the founder of The Jane Crow Project , which is exploring the causes for...

One year of healthcare spending can buy 15 iPhones. Or, it can buy over 3,000 gallons of milk. Or, if you want to look at it in relative terms, U.S. healthcare spending, which in 2015 hit nearly $10,000 for every person in the country, was 29% higher than the next most expensive country, Luxembourg. No matter how you size it up, what the U.S. spends each year on healthcare is a lot of money. That’s why there’s near-universal agreement that, no matter what happens in Washington over the next...

Audio for the following speaker's breakout sessions now available HERE. The Conference at Multnomah University attracted over 300 attendees and was an excellent example of exploring trauma in a multi-disciplinary way within a Christian context. In addition to the speakers listed below, there are downloadable audio links available for the Religion, Gender, and Sexuality panel discussion and the Trauma in a First Nations context presentation. It is my hope that other Seminaries and Bible...

And then there was one. New York State legislators voted Sunday night to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18, capping a contentious budget fight and giving supporters of the measure victory after years of frustration. The vote leaves North Carolina as the only state which still prosecutes 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, although that may change later this month. Juvenile Justice and mental health experts, backed by extensive research showing that trying minors as adults causes...

“We treat people’s solutions as problems.” Vincent Felitti MD, eminent author of the original ACE’s (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study, often makes this point when discussing how we focus on eliminating people’s desperate means of coping, without recognizing their adaptive functions. When addressing substance abuse (the most common method of tolerating overwhelming fear and pain) do we commit the same error of attempting to control the “solution” while largely ignoring the underlying core...

National Pediatric Practice Community on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and the Center for Youth Wellness team invite you to attend the launch of the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) . NPPC is a network of medical providers focused on integrating ACEs screening and a toxic stress framework into pediatric medical practice. We will be kicking off the NPPC with an informational webinar on Monday, May 8th, 2017 at 12 noon (PST) . Webinar...