I spend a lot of time talking about trauma and encouraging people who work with kids to try to see from the child's perspective. Behavior is communication telling us something is wrong. The child may not communicate it in a more acceptable way because...
The county of San Diego is putting more resources toward handling mental health-related emergency calls with 10 new teams devoted to those incidents. This fiscal year, the county is giving an extra $1.6 million to its Psychiatric Emergency...
Super-utilizers are the frequent fliers of the health care system, whose serious illnesses send them to the hospital multiple times every year and cost the system hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Figuring out how best to address these...
Research concerning the etiology and prevention of substance misuse has led to the development of preventive interventions that are theory-based and effective. One such approach, Life Skills Training (LST), targets key etiologic factors using a...
News headlines seem to be everywhere documenting the recent spike in violence in urban areas. One such headline read: "Baltimore killings soar to level unseen in 43 years." Predictably, there has been much concern expressed by local leaders....
It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from...
We all want real, lasting love, whether we are in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, or beyond. Yet too many marriages fall apart and most people don’t know why. They mistakenly believe that they have chosen the wrong...
Researchers first reported several years ago that a major longitudinal study of serious adolescent offenders showed the severity of their punishments had little effect on their recidivism rates. Digging into the data, the researchers also found...
Like most mental illness, depression is widely misunderstood by those who don't live with it. I, like tens of millions of others , live with depression. To me, one of the most challenging aspects of depression is the simple fact that most people...
As I embark on college tours with my 17-year-old son this summer, I am overwhelmed by all of the data thrown at us in our readings and by our guides—11 percent to 13 percent acceptance rates, average SAT scores in the 2000–2150...
Thanks to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, economist Thomas Piketty, and, of course, the Occupy Movement, inequality is firmly on the national agenda. While income inequality has worsened considerably over the past couple of decades, America and...
In most parts of Men's Central Jail, there is no natural light, only views of cell bars or scrums of inmates crowded in bunk beds pushed together end to end. Toilets back up because of the antiquated 50-year-old plumbing system. Many men get...
Advocacy groups have asked federal authorities to investigate solitary confinement in North Carolina prisons, citing the death of a mentally ill prisoner and separate concerns by President Barack Obama . The request comes weeks...
It's been less than a year since a domestic violence scandal erupted in the National Football League. The infamous Ray Rice video from last September and the league's mishandling of the case plunged the NFL into an unprecedented crisis. It...
President Obama's perhaps most notable statement on race came recently in Charleston, S.C. That's where he gave the eulogy for nine African-Americans killed by a white man in a church. The president has also continued to address the killings of...