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Five-year-old Naja Tunney’s home is filled with books. Sometimes she will pull them from a bookshelf to read during meals. At bedtime, Naja reads to her 2-year-old sister, Hannah. “We have books anywhere you sit in the living room,” said their mother, Cheryl Tunney, who curls up with her girls on an oversized green chair to read stories. Naja and Hannah are beneficiaries of Reach Out and Read, an early intervention literacy program that collaborates with medical care providers to provide...

This article is part of WCPO's Heroin Project: How Do We Respond? Perilou Goddard is a professor of psychological science at Northern Kentucky University. Our community continues to be devastated by the epidemic of heroin and other powerful opioid drugs like illicit fentanyl. Families are torn apart, young lives once full of promise end in death or disease. We search for answers, from tougher penalties for those who sell opioids illegally to expanded access to medication-assisted treatment .

By the time a low-income child enters kindergarten in America, they’re already woefully lagging their more advantaged peers — 11 months behind in math and 13 months behind in reading, according to a recent report from the Center for American Progress. (Chart: Center for American Progress) The figure at left, from the CAP report—“How Much Can High-Quality Universal Pre-K Reduce Achievement Gaps?”—illustrates the gulf between both low- and high-income children and minority and white children.

Thursday, January 28, 2016, was a cold morning in Durham, North Carolina, and Wildin David Guillén Acosta was warming up his car as he got ready for school. He went inside for his backpack, and when he returned a group of plainclothes Immigration Custom Enforcement agents appeared at his driveway . His father watched from the window as they threw the 19-year-old to the ground and arrested him. Acosta was one of five students detained by ICE that week, and one of the hundreds detained that...

I have never been a violent person, at least not instinctively. Whenever I was teased as a child—I struggled to read for much of elementary school and wore a lot of white jeans, so I was teased a lot—I’d opt for silence or a quick joke, usually at my own expense. I’d level my aggressor with my apparent disinterest or with my words, never with my fists. All of that wit and restraint dissipated, however, whenever I saw anyone making fun of my older brother Sean. A guy doesn’t forget his first...

It’s an election year, so politicos, pundits and reporters are once again trying to figure out how the white working class will vote. Many assume that they support Donald Trump, though Nate Silver argues that Trump’s backers have relatively high incomes. The white working class also isn’t quite ready for Hillary Clinton, in part because of her Wall Street ties but also because they associate her with her husband’s policies , like NAFTA, welfare reform and mandatory sentencing for drug...

A comprehensive model of building community capacity in Washington helped make dramatic reductions in rates of health issues and social problems. The Issue In the early 1990’s, Washington state set up a program to tackle issues like domestic violence, school dropouts, youth substance abuse, and others that impact families and children. These are issues that typically had been addressed separately, but the team in Washington focused on addressing them collectively. Key Findings Over 10 to 15...

Omega: How do you define trauma? Hala: Trauma is anything that overwhelms our capacity to cope and respond, and leaves us feeling helpless, hopeless, and out of control. Trauma is a continuum, and this general definition includes what we call “big T” traumas and “little t” traumas. Big T traumas are the things we typically think are traumatic, like abuse, violence, a car accident, natural disasters, war, or witnessing violence. Trauma can also be divorce, immigration, and even other...

It’s become quite popular for city leaders in the Rust Belt to talk about their efforts to attract immigrants and international talent. And the strategy makes sense: Their populations are shrinking, and immigrants are known for opening small businesses and reviving decaying urban neighborhoods. Nonprofits called Global Detroit, Global St. Louis, and Global Cleveland have popped up in response to this trend. But these efforts have also brought up an uncomfortable reality in Midwestern cities.

The most toxic parents are the parents that do not at all look toxic. To the outside world they appear as the most normal parents of all. Children of such parents do not even know that they are being poisoned. Nor does anybody else, until it is too late. Some parents are obviously abusive, either sexually or physically. In this case it is also obvious that they are toxic, and children have less trouble understanding this kind of abuse and realizing how they have been harmed by it. They can...

High-functioning anxiety looks like… Achievement. Busyness. Perfectionism. When it sneaks out, it transforms into nervous habits. Nail biting. Foot tapping. Running my fingers through my hair. If you look close enough, you can see it in answered text messages. Flakiness. Nervous laughter. The panic that flashes through my eyes when a plan changes. When anything changes. High-functioning anxiety feels like… A snake slithering up my back, clamping its jaws shut where my shoulders meet my neck.

There’s this frustration, this anxiousness, not knowing who I actually am without the medication. When I go off it now, I can’t get through simple chores, errands, tasks, anything. The biggest thing I hate about it is that I’m a drug addict. If I’m being completely honest, I’m dependent on it. There’s a lot of anger and self-loathing that comes with that. Trying to go off it is so hard. I’m afraid of being fired from my job, not being able to support myself. It’s truly terrifying. It’s not...