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The map essentially tells two stories: the rise of mass incarceration and the collapse of America's public mental health system. From the 1970s through the 2000s, America began locking up a lot more people as part of the country's broader shift to tough-on-crime laws to deal with skyrocketing crime. At the same time, the country pulled back and defunded its public mental health system. This wasn't, at the time, totally malicious — the system during the '60s and '70s was plagued with abuse...

Depression prompts people to make about 8 million doctors' appointments a year, and more than half are with primary care physicians. A study suggests those doctors often fall short in treating depression because of insurance issues, time constraints and other factors. More often than not, primary care doctors fail to teach patients how to manage their care and don't follow up to see how they're doing, according to the study , which was published Monday inHealth Affairs. Those are considered...

Please join us for our free webinar titled "The News About Childhood Trauma: Findings and Implications", which is brought to you by Defending Childhood in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Futures Without Violence. Date: Wednesday, March 16th, 2016 Time: 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Eastern Standard Time / 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Central Standard Time / 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Mountain Standard Time / 11:00 am - 12:30 pm Pacific Standard Time / 10:00 am - 11:30 am...

The past is the default song that plays inside of us until we get a new song playing instead.

When Sue LaFlash worked for the Wisconsin State Department of Health, she looked for research that explained what caused individuals to be violent, leading them on a path to sexual or physical assault. LaFlash ran across an Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) conducted in the 1990s by Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda. Kids who suffer from abuse or trauma often grow up to be abusers or troubled in some way. “The more I got into exploring it, the more I realized this is so...

Kristi Daugherty has come a long way, from a social worker in the field to a rising star as Emergence Health Network’s CEO, and she has brought El Paso’s non-profit mental health authority a long way, too. With a bachelor’s degree in social work from NMSU, she began her career in Alamogordo as a child protective services worker for children who were taken from their families. It was a tough job that gave her the chance to see how undiagnosed and untreated mental illness afflicted the lives...

Nearly seven months ago, the U.S. Department of Justice implemented a small procedural shift in the way it releases federal inmates who are tagged for deportation. Now, when those inmates have warrants out in any state or locality, federal immigration authorities have the first right to detain them and immediately begin deportation proceedings, even before the state or local matter is adjudicated. It’s a very specific, very technical shift, but it does result in some material changes to the...

Inner city kids can’t escape it. Days after the crossfire death of young King Carter in Northwest Miami-Dade sparked marches and outrage, two 15-year-olds debated how police and emergency crews had handled another recent random killing. This one, a man shot while riding his bike near a corner store, went largely unnoticed outside their own Liberty City neighborhood. But it stuck in the mind of Anthony Sutton, who wondered why police didn’t cover the shirtless corpse. His friend Kiandra...

You might be surprised to find out that these beautiful dishes didn't come from a fancy restaurant or even a special at-home dinner. They're just a couple of typical meals from one of the country's most innovative soup kitchens. The restaurant-style Kansas City Community Kitchen is a completely new way to feed those in need. [For more of this story, by Morgan Shoaff, go to http://www.upworthy.com/a-soup-kitchen-disguised-as-a-restaurant-is-making-a-big-difference-in-kansas-city]

A meaningful pre-kindergarten experience is increasingly seen as a critical part of a child’s education, and parents are expected to play a much more significant role. In this city, like many around the country, poorer families must first overcome powerful hurdles to be more present in their children’s education. That’s why Pre-K for San Antonio was designed to support and engage parents and extended families in ways that bolster their pre-schoolers’ chances to excel. [For more of this...

Charlotte, North Carolina, wants to change its status as one of the worst places in the United States for poor children to have a shot at getting ahead as adults. If the city succeeds, its efforts may offer a roadmap for other major metro areas gripped by barriers such as concentrated poverty and school segregation. [For more of this story, written by Emily Deruy and Janie Boschma, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/poor-children-rarely-escape-poverty-here/472002/]

Resilience , a documentary that looks at the birth of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and how it spawned a movement across the world, will be coming to your personal screen in April, says Lynn Waymer, KPJR Film’s community engagement strategist. The production team is working out the details to make the documentary, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival to sold-out houses, available to ACEsConnection.com members on Sunday, April 10, at 6 pm PT/ 9 pm...