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I t would be hard to dispute that the War on Drugs, instigated by President Nixon in 1971, has deliberately targeted lower-income communities and communities of color. Nixon’s own counsel and domestic affairs advisor, John Ehrlichman, confessed in 1994 that the War on Drugs was designed as an assault on “the antiwar left and black people.” Ever since, we have been able to see the crippling impact of this sinister and deceptive strategy on these communities. We can see it simply by visiting...

When Christopher Gonzalez first entered John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, he noticed that students generally kept to themselves and their own cliques. “It was like a line you didn’t cross,” said Gonzalez, now a senior. The climate began to change more than a year ago: More greetings are exchanged in hallways. Virtually no one sits alone at lunchtime. Students from various cross sections of the school — gamers, artists, dancers, jocks and others — gather together in a small grassy...

Asking Democratic presidential candidates about reparations for slavery seems to have become standard, ahead of 2020. And it has left many candidates scrambling to respond. But the debate around whether or not -- and how -- to fund reparations for black Americans goes far beyond being a political talking point. For Maxine Crump , a descendant of enslaved people, the goal is clear: Crump is a descendant of slaves sold by Georgetown University in 1838, and President and CEO of Dialogue on Race...

Healthy Spaces Webinar Series (Two 1-Hour Webinars) Communicating About ACEs with Patients and Families presented by: Leena Singh, DrPH, MPH - Director of the NPPC Karissa Luckett, RN, MSW - NPPC Pilot Site Coach April 17, 2019 9:00-10:00 AM (PT) 12:00-1:00 PM (ET) Learner Outcome: The learner will be able to identify two evidence based tools and/or strategies to utilize in the pediatric healthcare setting to improve child care when addressing health concerned among children &...

Anger is natural when we visit past experiences of abuse and neglect during childhood! We are encouraged in some modes of healing to "feel our feelings" and vent the anger. And it's true, anger is a step up from self-hatred and depression. But when we amp up the anger, is it genuinely relieving our emotional wounds or is it making them worse? In this video I talk about the role of anger in recovery -- when it's healthy, and when it can become traumatizing (and hurtful to others) in its own...

LGBTQ youth are most vulnerable to the school to prison pipeline, which is a very severe ACE (Snapp et al, 2015.) To combat this problem, I wrote a clinical manual for educators and mental health clinicians. The book addresses the need for sensitive engagement with, and advocacy of, LGBTQ+ youth. LGBTQ+ Youth: A Guided Workbook to Support Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was released in June 2018, endorsed by Jenny Finney Boylan, and #1 NEW RELEASE on Amazon in Teen and Young Adult...

WYTHEVILLE, Va. — It was cold and snowing, but John Johnson had an appointment to keep. He wasn’t going to let the weather stop him, or the worsening cough he’d been ignoring the past week. He put on his black fedora and drove across town to see a friend. “John, come on in,” she said, and after they settled at her dining room table, she handed him a piece of paper with the names of 12 people, all of them long dead. He squinted at them through his glasses. It had been three weeks since...

A Nashville lawyer hopes to wipe clean some arrest records for 128,000 Tennesseans. The lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, who has worked on multiple cases regarding incarceration and re-entry, has filed a class-action motion in county court to have the case files destroyed for hundreds of thousands of arrests and charges that never resulted in a conviction. Many of those who could benefit from the process, called expungement, do not even know it. "A lot of the people who are affected by this already...

VAUGHAN, Miss. — When Antroine Anderson started kindergarten in this close-knit rural town last August, he knew just three words by sight. He mistook H for G, confused L and I and identified M as F. Accustomed to being called AJ by his family, Antroine didn’t recognize his name in print. His mother, Janice Barton, felt ashamed when she learned some of his peers were already writing their names — until she learned many others weren’t prepared for kindergarten either. In Antroine’s school...

ACEs, Adversity's Impact Adverse childhood events lead to high out-of-pocket medical costs in adulthood 'Change the environment', reduce kids exposure to trauma , says California's Surgeon General at university hospitals 'We've lost so many': Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland shooting survivors struggle with suicide, guilt CDC announces adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) research and evaluation fellowship opportunity How childhood trauma results in depression and unhappiness in adulthood...

Photo by James Encinas Raising yellow “Visions & Commitments” cards, 550 attendees at yesterday’s Creating a Resilient Community: From Trauma to Healing Conference pledged their enthusiastic support to create a more resilient Central Florida. The standing-room-only crowd heard Dr. Vincent Felitti deliver a morning keynote address detailing the findings of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) . He also shared moving testimonials of people who are...

Listen to my recent podcast interview with an intuitive healer, where I discuss how Kabbalah can guide us in healing all areas of our life by understanding our true destiny and establishing us in balance and harmony, to experience the universe as a loving support system. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oeJeRmqLUc