Blog

Last month, the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social Emotional, and Academic Development released a long-awaited report titled “ From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope ,” offering recommendations for further integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) into schools to support the whole student. Written by key educational leaders, researchers, and policymakers, it represents a major milestone in SEL movement. “The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a...

Detroiter Kyra Sanders moved away when she graduated college in 2000. By 2004, she moved back to Detroit and bought a condo near downtown intent on becoming part of her hometown’s rebirth. Since then, she’s seen an ebb and flow in her quality of life: she pays astronomically high car insurance, saw a Whole Foods store open in her area to national celebration, and her property value tanked, but is now spiking. [For more on this story by Chastity Pratt Dawsey, go to...

As the sister of a brother lost to an opioid overdose, Trump’s claim that we need a border wall in order to keep drugs out is offensive to me on multiple levels. Fact checkers also report that his claims are not true — a border wall would not keep drugs out of our country. After the death of my brother a decade ago, I went looking for answers about drugs and addiction. Gabor Mate, a medical doctor who treated addicts in Vancouver, found that his patients had all suffered severe trauma before...

Through our signature care management program, the Camden Core Model , our care team serves people with complex health and social needs in the Camden area. Our patients often repeatedly cycle through multiple healthcare, social service, and other systems but do not see lasting benefit from those interactions. Patients enrolled in our intervention are served by an interdisciplinary care team of nurses, social workers, and community health workers. Between 2014 and 2017, patients who our care...

Question Is connection to primary care within 7 days of hospital discharge associated with reduced readmissions? Findings In this cohort study of 1531 hospital discharges among adult Medicaid patients in Camden, New Jersey, patients attending a primary care follow-up appointment as part of the 7-Day Pledge program had fewer 30- and 90-day readmissions compared with patients with less timely primary care follow-up or none. Meaning The findings suggest that facilitated connection of patients...

“Art is a powerful venue through which to have hard conversations,” said Trevor Storrs, President and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, as he was drawing the attention of the crowd at the Church of Love for the opening of Resilience After Trauma: An ACEs Mural Project last week. It was an accurate description for the nature of the project being unveiled. Steve Gordon, a renowned local artist, art instructor at UAA and creator of the project, explained that it had all started a year ago as...

“Forgotten.” In the months after Hurricane Harvey slammed the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm, that was the word I heard repeatedly from renters, homeowners and disaster case managers in small towns and rural communities. The help that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state leaders promised hadn’t arrived. They feared their communities would be left behind, overshadowed by larger cities like Houston. In some cases, their homes looked as if Harvey had just hit — not the year...

Don't worry that chores are too stressful for kids with ACEs, says trauma researcher Bob Sege, MD. “You don’t want to coddle them,” Sege said, “because the message they will get is that they are damaged goods. They need to know that the adversity they suffered is only one part of them; it’s not all of them.”

I walk through the hardware store innocently enough gathering stuff for the latest round of fix-it projects on my new home. In the background I’m grappling with life direction yet again, this latest round of doubt in my own usefulness spurred by an external catalyst that came very suddenly out of left field. Quickly I find myself tightening my chest, thoughts racing there in the middle of the familiar store full of helpful people. I pause to watch this internal show and I realize I am consumed b

In 2016, the Oregon School-Based Health Alliance (OSBHA) worked to pass a bill to pilot trauma-informed schools, and funds were allocated to support two pilot schools, Tigard High School (THS) in Tigard, OR, and Central High School (CHS) in Independence, OR. This is the third year of the pilot. OSBHA has been providing technical assistance to the two schools, and works closely with the Trauma-Informed Schools Coordinators hired to transform the schools. Alfonso Ramirez is the coordinator at...

A living wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect. IN 2014, Julio Payes was working 80 hours a week at two full-time jobs. A permanent resident from Guatemala who came to the United States on a work visa, Payes labored in Emeryville, Calif., a city of roughly 12,000 residents and almost 22,000 jobs, sandwiched between Oakland and Berkeley. He...

Research shows African-Americans are less likely to access treatment for mental illness. Cultural norms and the stigma associated with having a mental illness are partly to blame, according to Shardé Smith , assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Smith studies the role that race-related stress and trauma has on entire families, and what strategies people use to cope. She spoke recently with Side Effects Public Media...