July 2020

This world-renowned game designer has the tools you need to regain confidence in times of chaos, visualize your future and create positive change. verizon.com, July 1, 2020 -- Climate change, a global pandemic, racial injustice … in the face of a society in turmoil, how can we as individuals take better control of our lives and the future? The answer might be found in video games. Jane McGonigal, Ph.D. and world-renowned game designer, knows the benefits of video games from personal...

By Jason Fagone, Megan Cassidy, and Alexei Koseff, San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2020 Gov. Gavin Newsom will release approximately 8,000 people incarcerated inside California’s prison system by August, in a move that comes amid devastating coronavirus outbreaks at several facilities and pressure from lawmakers and advocates. The releases, which were announced just before noon Friday, will come on a rolling basis, and they’ll include both people who were scheduled to be freed soon as well...

https://www.change.org/properdiagnosismeanspropertreatment The DSM is a diagnostic manual controlled by the APA (American Psychological Association) that is made side by side with the ICD (also a diagnostic manual, controlled by WHO {World Health Organization}). Different parts of the world use different manuals, some use both. The ICD will begin it's 11th edition as of 2022 and will include C-PTSD as a diagnosis! C-PTSD has never been an official diagnosis before this. The DSM-5 has refused...

By Jamie Bussel, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, July 9, 2020 For tens of millions of children in the United States, school isn’t just a place to learn, but a place where they can depend on receiving healthy meals. In March 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than 31 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and more than 17 million participated in the School Breakfast Program (SBP) ; the vast majority of children receiving these...

By Ed Yong, The Atlantic, July 7, 2020 S askia popescu’s phone buzzes throughout the night, waking her up. It had already buzzed 99 times before I interviewed her at 9:15 a.m. ET last Monday. It buzzed three times during the first 15 minutes of our call. Whenever a COVID-19 case is confirmed at her hospital system, Popescu gets an email, and her phone buzzes. She cannot silence it. An epidemiologist at the University of Arizona, Popescu works to prepare hospitals for outbreaks of emerging...

By David Sirota, Too Much Information, July 8, 2020 Sometimes if you look closely enough, you can see government officials not just making bad or negligent decisions -- but actually acting like comic-book villains. Three recent moves by Trump Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia make it seem as if the agency is intent on being Legion of Doom that funnels workers’ retirement savings to Wall Street billionaires and fossil fuel conglomerates. First came Scalia’s announcement about private equity. He...

The COVID-19 crisis has affected the entire globe, with people dying in record numbers from the virus. Essential workers, which includes all first responders, nurses, doctors, nursing aides, and others who must go to work, are on the front lines. This article will examine various methods that first responders can utilize to help decrease stress in their working lives.

Photo credit Unsplash.com/🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič (The article below is an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kid s. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.) As a child, I lived in dread that something would set my mother off and she’d fly into a violent rage, unleashing a torrent of physical abuse. There never was any reason for the abuse. There didn’t have to be. Something would invariably infuriate my mother. I...

What is Emotional Abuse? The emotional abuse of children involves words, behaviors, and the actions of people who care for them that have mental negative impacts on the child. Also called psychological abuse , this type of maltreatment of children can lead to a wide range of problems that echo well into adulthood. Emotional abuse can impair a child's emotional development or self-esteem. Examples of behaviors by caregivers that can be emotional abuse are: Regularly criticizing the child...

By Derecka Purnell, The Atlantic, July 6, 2020 We called 911 for almost everything except snitching. Nosebleeds, gunshot wounds, asthma attacks, allergic reactions. Police accompanied the paramedics. Our neighborhood made us sick. A Praxair industrial gas-storage facility was at one end of my block. A junkyard with exposed military airplane and helicopter parts was at the other. The fish-seasoning plant in our backyard did not smell as bad as the yeast from the Budweiser factory nearby. Car...

By Frederick J. Riley, USA Today, July 8, 2020 A few months ago, before the whole world changed, I moved from Cincinnati to accept a new position with the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. I was excited about my new role with Weave: The Social Fabric Project . A few weeks into the job, the world came to a halt because of COVID-19. Suddenly, I found myself leading a new team from behind a Zoom screen, alone, in an unfamiliar city, anxiously tracking the health of my family and friends. As...

By Alisa Chang and Jonaki Mehta, National Public Radio, July 7, 2020 In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The decision is often framed as a landmark decision that transformed education for Black students, allowing them equal access to integrated classrooms. But more than six decades later, segregation in American schools is still very much a reality, says Rebecca Sibilia, founder of EdBuild , a nonprofit that...