April 2017

America has an enduring homelessness problem, with incredible human and economic costs . When they’re acknowledged , homeless people are routinely shunned and criminalized, and often considered less than human . But even folks who want to help often find it hard to wrap their heads around the complex issue. That’s where Gretchen Keillor’s new data projec t comes in. Keillor, an urban planner at the design firm Sasaki , wants to break the issue of homelessness down into simple, digestible...

Mass incarceration overall hurts the health of Americans, leading to worse outcomes for the families and communities of men in prison. The inmates themselves are at a very large risk of self-harm and violence immediately after their release. But a recent review of the impacts of incarceration on health published Thursday in The Lancet hints at a surprising upshot: Getting out of jail can be miserable, but going to jail can temporarily protect health—at least for some men. For children and...

Depending on who you’re talking to, the story of America’s founding may be told very differently. Some liberals might describe a nation animated by secular Enlightenment values, where freedom from religion is just as important as freedom of religion. And some conservatives might point to the country’s so-called Judeo-Christian heritage, with the Bible as its foundational text. Both of these stories are wrong, according to Phil Gorski, a professor of sociology and religious studies at Yale.

The launch of Pre-K for All led to improved health outcomes for low-income children. That’s according to researchers at New York University who analyzed Medicaid data for New York City children who were eligible to enroll in free pre-K versus those who just missed the cutoff because of their age. In a report released this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, using data from 2013 through 2016, researchers found that the children eligible for pre-K were more likely than their...

A new study finds that adults with post-traumatic stress disorder are much more likely to experience sleep disorders, gastrointestinal problems, cardiovascular diseases, and numerous other health conditions. As such, researchers say that post-traumatic stress disorder should be considered a systemic disorder, as opposed to just a psychological condition. [For more of this story, written by Honor Whiteman, go to http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316698.php]

This module marks a big transition in this video series...Chemical and surgical interventions, or the presence of them in our early life strongly and effectively take us out of our bodies and beings.  We will delve into the signature patterns of these interventions in our autonomic nervous systems. This module shows ways to help us stay in our bodies, in present time, and how to support others to do this.

PSAs designed to help grow awareness of the impacts of developmental or 'childhood' trauma. All the narratives are about real kids (with pseudonyms) who are trauma-impacted. These are not "combined" or imaginary narratives, nor caricatures.

Dear ACEs Connection Community - Until recently, I was the Chief Learning Officer at a national non-profit organization called Community Solutions . Last summer, I co-facilitated a group of community stakeholders, all of whom were committed to the act of creating a 'community response model that would mitigate the effect of childhood exposure to domestic violence'. The work was place-based, focused on Brownsville, Brooklyn. During the course of our facilitation, the group determined a need...

“Several psychiatric disorders have been associated with an increased risk of violent crime (eg, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder). However, not all phenotypes within and between psychiatric disorders may be associated with an increased risk of violence,” Hanna Sahlin , MSc, of Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and colleagues wrote. “Because self-harm occurs in the context of many different psychiatric disorders, it could be used as a...

Abstract “Trauma-informed practice” is an increasingly prevalent approach in the delivery of therapeutic services, social and human services, and now legal practice. Put simply, the hallmarks of trauma-informed practice are when the practitioner puts the realities of the client’s trauma experiences at the forefront in engaging with the client, and adjusts the practice approach informed by the individual client’s trauma experience. Trauma-informed practice also encompasses the practitioner...

This summer marks nearly three years not only since the deaths of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, but also since a major transformation began in the American criminal justice system. Police departments are increasingly implementing training regimens to combat racial bias and requiring officers to wear body cameras, with some 95 committing to do so in the future in January of 2016; district attorneys are increasingly prosecuting police officers...

Creating a supportive environment is helping reduce student behavior issues in Arizona schools and empowering students to pause before they respond instead of reacting to adverse events. Just before spring break, a second-grader was crying while waiting outside the office at Holiday Park Elementary School and the boy beside him urged him to take a few deep breaths, said Rebecca Leimkuehler, principal of the school in Cartwright Elementary School District in Phoenix. “After several minutes, I...