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In recognition of National Foster Care Month, the KIDS COUNT Data Center is highlighting key child welfare data on the site. In 2015, nearly 112,000 kids were in foster care waiting to be adopted. For these children, we know that: Twenty-four percent lived in California or Texas. Twenty-eight percent had been waiting at least three years to be adopted. Kids in Illinois had the longest road to adoption, with nearly one in three waiting at least five years. In 2015, about 53,500 kids in...

Very young children rely on parents and caregivers to help them understand our world, and to provide them with the experiences and information that help their brains grow. This is true whether a child is learning how to read and write, or how to get along with others and manage their feelings. When parents and caregivers respond to their children’s needs from birth with sensitivity and nurturing, they strengthen children’s early learning and provide a strong foundation for better health and...

Mental health affects all, regardless of gender, culture, and socio-economic status. Despite the universal nature, many are unable to get the care they need because of a shortage of providers and the stigma surrounding the diagnoses. May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to erase this stigma and educate the public of all ages on the warning signs of mental illness. This month is even more meaningful for immigrants from around the world as our nation’s increasingly harsh...

Few early education programs are prepared to help children recover from traumatic experiences, such as abuse and neglect, that can have long-term effects, according to a recent report . The National Center for Children in Poverty , a national public policy organization that advocates for children in poverty and low-income families, released the report titled, “Helping Young Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: Policies and Strategies for Early Care and Education.” It describes the impact of...

As many as 9 out of 10 black parents and 57 percent of Latino parents nationwide believe that schools in their communities are underfunded compared to those in white communities. They also believe that racism is the second biggest obstacle for their children to receive a high-quality education, according to the second annual New Education Majority Poll . Black and Latino parents also believe that academic rigor and high expectations should be a priority for their children’s education. Nearly...

When Heather Kiausas was seven weeks pregnant, one of her third graders punched her in the stomach. Ms. Kiausas, an elementary school teacher with seven years of experience teaching in Philadelphia public schools, had up until then handled the child’s behavior issues – on that day, refusing to complete his work, getting out of his seat, and distracting classmates – by following school protocol: first talking with the student, then recess detention, then calls home, and eventually pink slips...

This document is designed as a guide for organizations working to become trauma informed. It is not limited to any particular system or type of organization so addresses the issues from a broad perspective. An organization’s Human Resources (HR) structure may vary in its formality and breadth of responsibility therefore concepts outlined in this document may need to be adapted to match the needs of an organization/agency/business. [Read the pdf at ...

Rocsana Enriquez started thinking about yoga again when she was pregnant. She was 19 and in an abusive relationship. When she was younger, Rocsana, whom I interviewed as part of my research, had taken part in a yoga program in a San Francisco Bay Area juvenile hall run by The Art of Yoga Project . She began using the skills she learned on the mat to slow herself down when she got angry and to pause before reacting. She remembered the breathing techniques and poses that made her feel better...

The next online chat event in the 2017 series is fast approaching. Date: Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 (10 AM PST / 1 PM EST) Topic: Parenting, PTSD & ACEs. Guests: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Brandt are parents, writers, advocates and trauma survivors. Together, they edited the forthcoming Parenting with PTSD anthology and created an online community for parents recovering from childhood abuse. They educate mental health, human service and other professionals about the challenges and lived...

San Francisco — The sun was preternaturally bright the day Clare Senchyna’s 26 year-old son Camilo, her only child, was shot and killed in a random act of violence in San Francisco. On that morning two years ago, Ms. Senchyna drew the orange curtains in her bedroom, pulled up her blankets and stayed in bed for much of the next several months. It seemed to her an appropriate response to the end of the world. Her son, an emergency medical technician, had been out celebrating the completion of...

Why does President Trump behave in the dangerous and seemingly self-destructive ways he does? Three decades ago, I spent nearly a year hanging around Trump to write his first book , “ The Art of the Deal ,” and got to know him very well. I spent hundreds of hours listening to him, watching him in action and interviewing him about his life. To me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past two weeks —...

The country’s first countywide digital early learning program can trace its roots back 26 years, to the day Barbara Nemko, now the Napa County, California, superintendent of schools, was listening to her young nephew have a conversation with an adult. “At that moment, it occurred to me he was going to go to kindergarten with kids who didn’t speak English,” she tells The 74. “That disparity was daunting, but it was more of an observation that gnawed at me.” Two decades later, Nemko was able...