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Around 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. Most of us think of pain as something that arises after a physical injury, accident or damage from an illness or its treatment. But researchers are learning that, in some people, there can be another source of chronic pain. [For more on this story, written by NPR, go to: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/10/727682322/can-you-reshape-your-brains-response-to-pain ]

D r. Robert Zarr steps into the patient room and sees a teenage girl. Lately, the 17-year-old has been experiencing repeated panic attacks, giving her so much chest pain that she had to be rushed to the emergency room each time. She's looking for answers from Dr. Zarr. Instead, it's Zarr who asks a question. "Do you have a way to spend time outside?" he says. [For more on this story, written by Inlander, go to: https://www.inlander.com/spokane/back-to-our-roots/Content?oid=17700774 ]

Zoning rules dictate more than just how we can use and build on land. They also shape our communities and our lives. Land use laws determine where we can find housing, schools, and parks—and who has access to them. Policymakers initially created zoning codes to protect public health —for example, to stop residents from getting sick from living too close to factories. But from the start, zoning has separated more than just land uses. It has also separated people. [For more on this story,...

A few weeks ago I was at a big kickoff event for a new county-wide project to address what our communities feel are the biggest concerns we face. It definitely had its moments and I was all eyes and ears ready to absorb new info and be inspired by the power of coming together for a purpose. One of the last things that I heard that morning was to show the promise of next steps – the speaker said that basically in order to do anything meaningful – you, of course, need a building which – good...

By Andrea L. Lowe, The Chronicle of Social Change, June 10, 2019. Several years ago , my sister and I watched my 2-year-old nephew’s behavior change dramatically. He started wetting the bed, throwing temper tantrums and getting frustrated so quickly. In any other child, it might have been normal “terrible twos,” but in him we knew something was definitely wrong. At the time, my sister and her husband were getting divorced. Ultimately, we found out that my nephew thought it was his fault,...

Assistant teacher D'onna Hartman, reads to Frederick Frenious, left, and Gus Saunders at the Creative Kids Learning Center, a school that focuses on pre-kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds, in Seattle. (Elaine Thompson / AP) By Kevin Sherin and Karen Willis | My Word Columnists |The Orlando Sentinel May 23, 2019 Florida’s 2019 legislators missed an opportunity to put our children first in the priorities of our state. And the first priority should include early childhood nurturing, bonding,...

Saturday Night Live veteran Darrell Hammond will be joining the live Twitter Town Hall i mmediately following the virtual screening of Cracked Up! T he documentary film details the long term effects of childhood trauma, told through Darrell’s personal journey in discovering adverse childhood experiences at the root of his lifelong battle with self-harm, addiction, and misdiagnosis. Please join us for this unique chance to hear directly from Darrell Hammond, joined by the film’s director,...

I will always remember the day that, as a student teacher, I watched as a student entered my second-grade room covered in blood. After quickly establishing that he was not injured, we learned that the blood was that of his brother who had been shot the night before. No parents were around that night, so this second grader became the sole caregiver of his bleeding brother. My student would never be the same. We didn’t care about grades or test scores. We just knew that this moment would...

Please join this June 6 webinar on Florida’s early childhood courts (aka “safe babies courts”) hosted by the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health and co-sponsored by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice and ACEs Connection. Background: Every six minutes in the U.S., an infant, toddler or child under the age of 3 is removed from their homes for alleged abuse and neglect and placed in state custody through the child welfare system (Zero to Three).

Hansi Lo Wang, NPR, June 4, 2019. Challenges threatening the upcoming 2020 census could risk more than 4 million people to be missing from next year's national head count, according to new projections by the Urban Institute . The nonpartisan think tank found that the danger of an inaccurate census could hit some of the country's most difficult-to-count populations the hardest. Based on the Urban Institute's analysis, the 2020 census could lead to the worst undercount of black and Latinx...

There's a fantastic five-part series, Whole People , done by PBS, " spotlighting the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) through personal and community stories. It explores the long-term costs to personal well-being and our society. While much work needs to be done, there are many innovative developments to prevent and treat ACES. We all play a role in becoming a whole people." It's amazing. The five topics covered are as follows: Childhood Trauma Healing Communities A New...

This year marks the 20th anniversary of publication in this journal of the first of many articles on the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) research by Drs. Felitti, Anda, and colleagues. As we celebrate the impact of this seminal research, it is also imperative to assess critically its serious limitations: an unrepresentative study population and narrow operationalization of childhood adversity lead to undercounting adverse experiences and misrepresenting their social distribution.