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DENVER — Every time Jacque Pearson tried to devise a plan to move her 81-year-old dad, who has Alzheimer’s, from his home in Boise, Idaho, to hers in Denver, she felt stuck. Then, two weeks ago, she had a breakthrough. It happened at an AARP-sponsored session in which Pearson created a “CareMap” — a hand-drawn picture showing all the people she cares for as well as the people surrounding those individuals and her own sources of support. On one side of the paper, Pearson sketched out her...

A Pew report shows that nearly a third of white Americans under the age of 30 have “cold” feelings for the police. Recent court rulings and decisions made by the Trump administration this year might help explain why. Less than a year into the post-Obama milieu, yet another major police shooting trial—the Jason Stockley case in St. Louis —produced a widely denounced verdict that reminds us how difficult it is to hold police officers accountable when they murder African Americans. Then-St.

Early last year, two suicidal patients showed up at a hospital emergency room in Pierre, S.D., seeking help. Although the incidents happened weeks apart, both patients ended up in an unexpected place: jail. Across the country, and especially in rural areas, people in the middle of a mental health crisis are locked in a cell when a hospital bed or transportation to a hospital isn’t immediately available. The patients are transported from the ER like inmates, handcuffed in the back of police...

Inequality in the United States has become a household concept, if for no other reason than Sen. Bernie Sanders centering his presidential run around fixing it. There’s plenty of visible evidence of it, but author Chuck Collins wants Americans to take a closer look at other aspects of inequality too, particularly wealth disparity, the power imbalance it creates, and how the rules of the economy have been changed to benefit those asset owners at the expense of everybody else. Collins is a...

There exists a seemingly infinite stream of self-help articles that advise parents on how to raise kids with grit—children who persevere in the face of challenges. The offered wisdom ranges from the generically obvious (Praise the process! Use positive words!) to the bizarrely specific (Create an obstacle course!). But perhaps the simplest way of instilling persistence in your kids is to persist yourself—and let them see you doing it. According to a new study by Julia Leonard , Yuna Lee, and...

Davis, CA Mayor (and ACN member), Robb Davis writes about attending a recent trauma-informed law enforcement forum. I participated in a fascinating forum about “trauma-informed law enforcement” and before it began I wondered whose trauma we would be discussing: victims of crime, police, or other community members? It turns out the conversation was about all three, and I left wondering if trauma-based analysis might, perhaps, point to a way out of the mutual fear, and the attendant hostility...

Review: The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others. By Tali Sharot. Henry Holt. 231 pages. 978-1627792653 Facts alone don’t change people’s minds or behavior. Emotions do. That’s the basic takeaway from cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot’s highly accessible exploration of why and how we succeed, or fail, in our quest to influence, persuade, or alter the opinions and actions of others. Understand how the brain works, she argues in The Influential Mind:...

I t’s the age old question (pun intended), and one that has given rise to an anti-ageing industry that is estimated to grow to $216.52 billion by 2021: how can we, mere mortals that we are, live longer? According to recent studies, the answer could well lie in Japan. The Japanese top the global table for life expectancy: on average, they can expect to live for 83.7 years (the UK comes 20th, with an average of 81.2 years). And this week, they hit another milestone, as it was revealed that the...

Yosimar Reyes, a poet and artist, reflects on the guidance the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas has given him. Well before Jose Antonio Vargas became a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and filmmaker, he was told he couldn’t get an internship at The Seattle Times because he was an undocumented immigrant. At the time he feared that his immigration status would threaten both his ability to build a career in journalism as well as his ability to stay in the United States.

Tonier Cain spoke at the Benchmarks' Partnering for Excellence conference last month in North Carolina. If you don't know her name you might recognize her as the woman featured in the Healing Neen documentary ( which is must see). I am just starting to recover from her speech. Seriously. It was hard to stand after she spoke. When I did, I went right to a yoga mat in the self-care calm room for a while. I took off my high heels and curled up in a ball for a bit. I'm still digesting her words.

September is Recovery Month. With more than a quarter of those participating in the ACE study detailing addiction in the family, and addiction commonly co-occuring with numerous additional ACEs, it is important to raise the awareness in the general community about the impact of parental addiction, and how family recovery can be celebrated during this important month. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration ) and many agencies, treatment centers and organizations...

Until recently, health care professionals and educators would look at an unruly or seemingly unteachable child as the problem, said Dr. Heather C. Forkey. “We would’ve asked the question, ‘what’s wrong with them?’” said Dr. Forkey, chief of the Division of Child Protection at UMass Memorial Medical Center. “It turns out, we were asking the wrong question.” The right question, which she said has a lead to a “revolution” in pediatric care and education, is not what’s wrong with those kids, but...