July 2023

Don Hamann discusses the age and condition of a felled tree in the Butte Falls Community Forest during the regular Community Forest Chat on Saturday, June 10, 2023. Credit: Amanda Loman By Grant Stringer, Inside Climate News, July 9, 2023 With a population of just 400 people, Butte Falls is a speck in an ocean of remote timberland, much of it burned. The community is tucked into a vast forest of pine and fir about 35 miles from the California border. Outside town, snow-capped Mt. McLoughlin...

Jose Catalan, who is currently incarcerated, poses for photos after his graduation ceremony at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif. on May 25, 2023. Catalan earned his bachelor’s degree in communications through the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State. JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS By Jamiles Lartey, The Marshall Project, July 8, 2023 Education has been Sheron Edwards’ escape during his more than 20 years in state and federal prison. He’s earned certifications from three...

By Alix Woolard, Photo: Radu Florin/Unsplash, The Conversation, July 5, 2023 You have probably heard of “fight or flight” responses to distressing situations. You may also be familiar with the tendency to “freeze”. But there is another defence or survival strategy a person can have: “fawn”. When our brain perceives a threat in our environment, our sympathetic nervous system takes over and a person can experience any one or combination of the four F responses. What are the four Fs? The fawn...

N'Kosi Barber manages Project Fire, a trauma recovery program for young victims of gun violence at Chicago's Firebird Community Arts. Akilah Townsend for The Trace By Justin Agrelo, The Trace, July 7, 2023 It’s a chilly Sunday afternoon in February, and N’Kosi Barber is taking great care to stay focused. “Never pick up glass,” he says, referring to pieces on the floor. Glass can be deceptive, he explains. It may look cold, but it can be several hundred degrees hot. Since 2015, Barber, a...

By Jason Pohl, Photo: from article, Greater Good Magazine, July 6, 2023 Andrew Kim’s mind raced as he entered the sprawling South African hospital. It was 2017, and Kim, at the time a Northwestern University biological anthropology graduate student, was researching how a woman’s stress while pregnant can affect the mental health of her child. It was exciting work with possible international implications, the type of big-picture research puzzle he had long dreamed of solving. His mind teemed...

My recent travels reminded me how much satisfaction can be gained by advocacy on behalf of a larger group of individuals

There has been has been a major focus on incorrectly diagnosing African Americans with Schizophrenia. This has caused several negative reactions such as, becoming dependent on the incorrect medicines that have been prescribed, unresolved mental health diagnoses, and negative well-being of the individual. This article goes on to suggest that clinicians often are from different cultures and ethnicities, and tend to develop a prejudice when seeing these African American clients. It is very well...

By Jessica Gresko, Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo, Associated Press, June 30, 2023 The Supreme Court just finished issuing its biggest decisions of the term, killing President Joe Biden’s $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts, ending affirmative action in higher education and issuing a major decision that impacts gay rights . The decisions over the past week cap off a term that began in October in which the justices also considered big issues involving voting...

Lorie Smith, a Colorado web designer, is at the center of the case, which involves whether she can refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Credit... Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times By The New York Times, The New York Times, June 30, 2023 The 6-3 decision, which turned on the court’s interpretation of the First Amendment, appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious...

A legal-affairs journalist explains the implications. Montage illustration by Niko Yaitanes/Harvard Magazine; photographs of sky and gavel by Unsplash By Lincoln Caplan, Harvard Magazine, June 30, 2023 FOR ALMOST HALF A CENTURY , race-conscious admissions have been of central importance to Harvard and other selective colleges and universities. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., LL.M. ’32, in his controlling opinion in the landmark case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978),...

Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court on Friday. The court ruled against the Biden administration’s plan for student loan forgiveness, saying officials went outside the bounds of their authority in creating it. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post) By Robert Barnes and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, The Washington Post, June 30, 2023 President Biden does not have authority to implement his roughly $400 billion program to forgive student loan debt, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, issuing another...

Join Pathways to Resilience on Wednesday, July 19 to learn how counties in California and Ohio are developing and sustaining trauma-responsive Networks of Care to prevent and address the impacts of trauma and adversity in their communities. Pathways to Resilience defines trauma-responsive Networks of Care as cross-sector collaborations that provide services and supports to help children and families prevent, address, and heal from trauma and toxic stress. They may include government...