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Last weekend, I spent Saturday afternoon in Center City with a friend I hadn't seen in years, went for two long runs in Haddon Heights Park, and savored a Thai meal in Voorhees on Sunday with another good friend. I also attended three 12-step meetings, without which none of those other activities would have been possible — because I'd have died long ago. I'd be a casualty like the seven individuals who fatally overdosed last weekend in Philly's Kensington neighborhood, where dozens of...

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PRESENTERS The Community Resilience Initiative is pleased to present the 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Fourth Annual Conference at the Red Lion Hotel and Conference Center in Pasco, WA. We invite professionals from various fields and organizations throughout the country to submit a presenter application on the topics related to healthy, resilient development in the face of chronic, toxic stress in urban and rural settings, inclusive of diversity and equity for particularly...

Imagine a 13-year-old in a sexual relationship with a 20-something friend of the family. The adult occasionally trades small sums of money for oral sex. The child grows up to be a promiscuous adult, particularly when it comes to oral sex. Unfortunately, this scenario is not difficult to imagine. But it’s worth considering the typical "script" that structures what comes to mind when you consider this scenario. What gender do you imagine the teenager to be? What gender the adult? And what...

Fiserv Forum already has a couple of concerts under its belt, and before long, it begins its primary purpose, hosting the Milwaukee Bucks. On Wednesday night, however, the new arena gets an unexpected use: It hosts an ambitious conference on the topic of healing, with well over a thousand participants expected to hear how to address the epidemic of psychological trauma that increasingly is seen as the root cause for a host of social ills — unemployment, mental illness, aggression, addiction,...

Religion and nature can both lead to awe, and turning to one or the other is a common coping strategy for the stress that might accompany an upcoming presentation, exam or performance. But an awe-inspiring experience can have negative consequences as well as benefits, according to a novel University at Buffalo-led study that uses cardiovascular responses to stress to take a broad look at awe and the critical role perspective plays when considering the effects of encountering awe. "We found...

Sharing a resource to support school/educator efforts. Not an educator? Share with one. https://mytraumainformedschool.com/aceing-your-parent-student-teacher-conference/

Ivan has an ACEs score of 8 and he's failing in most of his classes, described as "a lazy student who won't do the work." In fact, he lives with a troubled family struggling with mental health challenges. We adults must acknowledge the contradiction between the espoused views that all students deserve the chance to study hard and succeed, and the reality that so many students are traumatized by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), diminishing their capacity to achieve in school. Students...

Is there a link between differences in IQ test performance and the activity of certain genes? Researchers from Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin have shown that modifications in the structure of a specific gene have a negative impact on individual test performance. This suggests that environmentally-induced epigenetic changes to our genetic material have a greater impact on intelligence than previously thought. Results from this study have been published in Translational Psychiatry.

Disaster relief is most commonly thought of as providing food, water, and shelter to those affected by calamitous events beyond their control. But as communities in places like Texas and Puerto Rico are learning, disaster relief that only alleviates physical wants is not enough to put their communities back on their feet. After first responders have done their jobs to secure personal safety, an emotional recovery has to begin as well. [For more on this story by Rayne Ellis, go to...

Within three days of starting high school this year, my ninth-grader could not get into bed before 11 p.m. or wake up by 6 a.m. He complained he couldn't fall asleep but felt foggy during the school day and had to reread lessons a few times at night to finish his homework. And forget morning activities on the weekends — he was in bed. We're not the only family struggling to get restful shut-eye. "What parents are sharing with us is that the 'normal life' of a typical American high schooler...

The Trump administration argues that imposing work requirements for Medicaid is an incentive that can help lift people out of poverty . But a test program in Arkansas shows how hard it is merely to inform people about new incentives, let alone get them to act. In the first month that it was possible for people to lose coverage for failing to comply, more than 4,300 people were kicked out of the program for the rest of the year. Thousands more are on track to lose health benefits in the...

The low-slung apartment buildings that line the streets of Houston, Fort Worth, and other Lone Star cities are some of the cheapest affordable housing projects to build anywhere. Two-story jobbers in Texas cost a whole lot less to build with housing tax credits than affordable mid-rises in California or New England. Where land prices are higher, it’s more expensive to build affordable housing. These are a few of the not-exactly-earth-shattering conclusions of a long-awaited report on the Low...