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State education leaders said Wednesday they are still working to revise a proposed mental health policy for public schools and said it will likely be edited several more times before the State Board of Education votes on it. The first draft of the policy sparked outcry from charter schools and school boards last month. They objected to some of the guidelines, calling them well-meaning but too burdensome and expensive to implement. The original draft policy said all public schools should...

W hen a woman or girl is admitted to a mental health unit, her expectation should be of a caring, supportive environment where she can get the treatment she needs to get better. Unfortunately, we now know from Agenda’s latest research on restraint that many are instead in an environment where physical force has become shockingly routine. Agenda is an alliance of more than 70 organisations campaigning on behalf of women and girls at risk. We decided to ask for data about the use of restraint...

The average human being is living longer than ever before. Nearly every country on the planet has seen an increase in life expectancy since the beginning of the 21st century. But though we are living longer, not all of us are living healthier. Health Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE), or healthy life expectancy, is a metric used by the World Health Organization to measure the number of years a person can expect to live in good health, taking social and economic factors into account alongside...

Rep. Kimberly Dudik, D-Missoula, discussed a package of criminal justice reform bills that Gov. Steve Bullock signed into law yesterday. (Photo: Thom Bridge) ______________________________ Recently, ChildWise Institute had worked hard with bi-partisan legislative leaders on a Bill to promote a pilot project based on the science of ACEs, toxic stress, and resilience . Unfortunately, it was tabled (read: failed). ChildWise has been working with legislators for 6 years now (3 legislative...

DeVone Boggan could teach a class on the art of making a statement. In 2010, he invited a group of the most dangerous gun offenders in Richmond, a Bay Area city of about 100,000 residents, to a conference room at City Hall. At each seat was a name card starting with “Mr.” and an information folder labeled “Operation Peacemaker.” Wearing a suit and his signature fedora, Boggan began the meeting by apologizing on behalf of the city for not reaching out to the men sooner. Peace in Richmond, he...

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, who departs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation this April after nearly 14 years as president and CEO, will join the University of Pennsylvania as the institution’s nineteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor, effective January 1, 2018. Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price announced the appointment today. A world-renowned expert in health policy and geriatric medicine, Lavizzo-Mourey has served the Foundation since 2003 and, for 15...

When children are removed from home, parents feel a level of grief and stress that can hardly be explained. Then they often face more stress, with things like losing a job because of mandated services, losing housing and juggling multiple services. When our bodies feel too much pressure and threat, stress can put us in an “act now, think later” mentality that makes it even harder to do what’s needed. Stress can also make it harder to learn and plan. These reactions can affect parents’ cases.

This past Valentine’s Day, Brook addressed the insidious role hate plays in health, arguing in a JAMA article that medical professionals should play a larger role in combatting intolerance. Brook, who is also a Distinguished Chair in Health Care Services at the RAND Corporation, believes medical professionals have a responsibility to reduce intolerance, along with the necessary widespread respect to make a real difference. “ It is time to expand the WHO’s definition of health to include...

Think of a dull, gray space in your city that people walk through each day, but generally detest. What would it take to turn it into a genuinely appealing place where people actually want to hang out? Maybe not as much as you’d think. That’s what designers in Canberra, Australia, learned when they decided to spruce up an imposing concrete plaza to make it more attractive to locals. Their interventions weren’t huge, expensive, or particularly novel: Color is the most noticeable addition they...

There's stress and then there's toxic stress — that feeling of being chronically overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed. Catherine Monk, Ph.D. studies the effect this kind of stress has on babies before they're born. She sat down with KPCC's early childhood reporter Devin Browne to explain more. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STRESS AND TOXIC STRESS? IS IT JUST A MATTER OF DEGREE? It’s degree, but it’s also what’s contributing to the stress. We all have stress about getting an assignment done for...

For everyone, there are times when a dark cloud just seems to be following you around. You may not even even know why. While we don’t mean to minimize the value of medication for those who experience this on a daily basis, UCLA neuroscientist Alex Korb , author of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time , has some insights that might just get you back on the sunny side. It’s all got to do with neuroscience. [For more of this...