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Moriah Barrett, then 14, woke up to burns on her body one night along with physical evidence that she had been raped. She had been invited to a party the night before by someone she considered a friend. She eventually came to realize that she had almost been looped into a human trafficking scheme. This event, among many other traumatic events, affected Moriah mentally, physically and emotionally. [For more of this story, written by Xin Li and Phillomina Wong, go to ...

We live in a loud and distracting world, where silence is increasingly difficult to come by -- and that may be negatively affecting our health. In fact, a 2011 World Health Organization report called noise pollution a "modern plague," concluding that "there is overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population." As our internal and external environments become louder and louder, more people are beginning to seek out silence, whether...

This is a song for every Middle School, High School & College student to listen to...maybe every day. Click on attachment...no virus. Please share thru your world... John Trayser

Addictions emerging from adverse life experiences can kill us in so many ways. Residents of Integrity House, substance abuse treatment program in Newark, New Jersey, gave me a standing ovation when I read this poem aloud. I always knew "Desperate Love" would make an excellent performance piece. Truth and art combined is such a powerful force! The poem was written in 1998, but it took until 2016 for that dream to come true. Don't give up on your vision if your goal is a worthy one. The poem's...

We are doing it again this year! It is the 3rd annual No-Spank Challenge . It is a wonderful event that you can share with your community to give support to parents. Are you are looking for ways to get your kids to behave and be responsible? Do you need support to stop spanking, swatting and yelling? We can help. Please join us for our FREE 3rd annual international peaceful parenting event, hosted by Amy Bryant with Parenting Beyond Punishment . We have some AMAZING speakers, writers,...

Aid agencies say there is a desperate need to train more mental health professionals in Iraq to treat the survivors of Islamic State kidnappings and attacks. In 2014, Islamic State militants entered 17-year-old Nihad Barakat's Yazidi village in northern Iraq. They killed the men and kidnapped 28 members of her family. Speaking at a news conference in London Wednesday, Nihad described what happened next. "The worst torture happened to us in Mosul, she says. The girls were raped, they were all...

Pediatricians are being urged to screen for poverty during office visits. To better understand what this means in practice, NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to Dr. Barbara Ricks. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Here is a grim fact. One in 5 children in the United States today lives below the federal poverty line. The influential American Academy of Pediatrics has found, not so surprisingly, that children living in poverty are more susceptible to a whole range of illnesses - obesity, diabetes, asthma, toxic...

Serekalem Alemu is crocheting a basket. Wearing a gray fleece jacket and a long gray skirt speckled with blue flowers, Alemu sits on a sofa on the second floor of a former warehouse in the industrial section of Tel Aviv. A damp Mediterranean winter breeze blows in through the open window. Traffic whizzes by on the boulevard below. With her thick, black hair held back in a ponytail, the 28-year-old winds long, narrow strips of teal-colored fabric into a ball, which will eventually become a...

As Elizabeth Prewitt reported earlier , in December 12 U.S. Senators sent a letter to DHHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell asking that she direct the agencies in DHHS serving Native Americans to plan and implement a comprehensive integrated trauma-informed strategy. In February, Secretary Burwell responded positively to the Senators, informing them that she has directed the Administrator of the Administration on Native Americans (ANA) to take the lead in developing such a strategy and plan. She...

I recently joined the San Diego County Behavioral Health CADRE XVI group. In my first training there was an exercise where three groups (Primarily Alcohol and other Drug, Mental Health, and Child and Family Services….a mix of licensed clinicians, AOD counselors, and para professionals) were asked to list the types of services each system of care provided. I was so pleasantly surprised that each group independently listed “Trauma Informed”. What progress San Diego Behavioral Health has made...

Black and white Americans have dramatically different views on whether all children have equal access to the same opportunities. While 77 percent of whites surveyed in an Atlantic Media/Pearson Opportunity Poll released this week think children of color in their neighborhood have access to the same opportunities as white children, just 41 percent of African Americans agree. More than 70 percent of Latinos and Asians polled agree with the statement, making the figure from black respondents...

When city government leaders in San Antonio decided to fund a prekindergarten program using sales tax revenues, they made a case that doing so was an economic imperative as a growing city, that investing in the future workforce was about the city’s future prosperity, and that remaining attractive to companies and workers meant having a more educated population. Other compelling factors were the city’s increasing Hispanic population, its high poverty index, urban sprawl, and an underfunded...