What would we do if we could see every psychological wound ever inflicted as a physical bruise? We would see a lot of black and blue people walking around! We might also be more careful of each other, understanding the degree of suffering we each have endured.
At the confluence of the Gunnison and Colorado rivers, the town of Grand Junction, Colo., sits in a bowl of a valley ringed by tall mountains, desert mesas and red rock cliffs. For local residents like Victoria Mendoza, sometimes the setting makes her and others feel isolated. "I know we can't really fix this because it's nature," says Mendoza. "I feel like people in our valley feel like there's only life inside of Grand Junction." Mendoza, 17, has battled with depression. It runs in her...
Community health workers—trusted laypeople from local communities who help high-risk patients to address social issues like food and housing insecurity—can help reduce hospital stays by 65 percent and double the rate of patient satisfaction with primary care, according to new study results published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study, conducted by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, focused on chronically-ill low-income patients and U.S.
This is the fourth in a series of posts that explore the myths and realities of America’s urban-rural divide. This week we focus on trends in wages and salaries across urban and rural places. For an overview of the series and the data and methodology we use, see the first post in this series. Wages are a key indicator of the productivity and affluence of cities and regions. There is no doubt that wage and salary levels, as well as their growth, have been widely uneven across American...
Click here for the details of the trauma provisions included in the opioid legislation as reported in ACEs Connection. President Trump signed The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (H.R. 6 or previously titled the Opioid Crisis Response Act) today (October 24).
I just wanted the ACEs Connection community to be aware of a new bible study on ACEs. This will officially be released on 11/15 but is available now at a pre-order price. The video link below explains more about the study. https://cope24.com/faith-based-church-initiative/ If you have any questions please let me know.
President & CEO Sis Wenger will address the plight of children living with addiction - an adverse childhood experience (ACE) often accompanied by additional ACEs - in their families, and its impact on their ability to be successful in school. A walk through the toolkit will be included. Register for the webinar here>> NACoA, in collaboration with Addiction Policy Leadership Action Network (APLAN), is proud to announce Addiction Policy Forum's release of Children Impacted by...
I was thrilled to engage in a beautiful conversation with ACEs Connection member, Julie Brand – founder and executive director of A WISE Retreat program for women. Julie is an addiction specialist, domestic violence counselor, youth educator, and trauma-warrior with a personal ACEs score of 9+. Please join us as we discuss Julie’s heart-felt mission to provide a space for holistic healing for her clients.
People who practice meditation often hail it as a fix for anything from anxiety to physical pain. Indeed, some studies suggest that it may improve our sense of well-being. Now, new research finds that one type of meditation — transcendental meditation — can relieve stress and boost emotional intelligence. The practice of meditation does appear to bring many benefits, and recent studies have supported this idea. For instance, meditators are less likely to experience cognitive decline , and...
A generation ago, depression was viewed as an unwanted guest: a gloomy presence that might appear in the wake of a loss or a grave disappointment and was slow to find the door. The people it haunted could acknowledge the poor company — I’ve been a little depressed since my father died — without worrying that they had become chronically ill. Today, the condition has been recast in the medical literature as a darker, more permanent figure, a monster in the basement poised to overtake the...
The Social Security system is in trouble. It’s not just a future problem; America’s retirement insurance program is in trouble now. The federal government will start dipping into its Social Security savings account this year to help pay retirement benefits to millions of Americans. In 2018, the federal government expects to receive about $2 billion less in payroll taxes and investment income than it will need to pay workers through the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program. If...
Earlier this year, policy changes leading to migrant family separations rocked the country, leading to surprise and outrage. How could the United States, founded as a pillar of freedom, even consider a policy that rips children from their families? However, Native history reminds us that family separation is not new to American soil , nor is our government a stranger to it. In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed by Congress in order to formally end the policy of removing...
Until Larry Krasner entered the race for District Attorney of Philadelphia last year, he had never prosecuted a case. He began his career as a public defender, and spent three decades as a defense attorney. In the legal world, there is an image, however cartoonish, of prosecutors as conservative and unsparing, and of defense attorneys as righteous and perpetually outraged. Krasner, who had a long ponytail until he was forty, seemed to fit the mold. As he and his colleagues engaged in daily...
On October 13, a group of hundreds of people gathered together to flee their impoverished home country of Honduras in a caravan headed toward the United States, seeking a better life for themselves and their families. That caravan quickly swelled to approximately 7,000 Central American immigrants as it passed north through Guatemala. As of today, most of these men, women, and children have just entered Mexico, yet they remain more than a thousand miles south of the U.S. border. President...
The Trump administration is stepping up aid for infants and mothers caught in the opioid epidemic, promising to help states cope with some of the worst collateral damage of the drug crisis, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday. Azar said HHS would partner with states to offer a range of services to mothers with substance-use disorders and the skyrocketing number of newborns dependent on drugs. Those infants, who suffer from a condition known as neonatal abstinence...