Tagged With "Health Federation of Philadelphia"
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Commentary: A fresh start for former foster-care youths [philly.com]
This piece is a wonderful commentary showcasing a solution story out of Philadelphia where a coffee shop is creating a sense of community, job-skills, and life-skills for young adults formerly placed in foster care. The Monkey and the Elephant is a shining example of doing right by foster alumni, and bringing hope to ending intergenerational cycles of trauma and adversity. Sherreiff McCrae was 5 years old when he was placed in the care of a neighbor. Not long after, the Department of Human...
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Commentary: Is President Trump Causing Toxic Stress? [www.scattergoodethics.org]
A researcher and psychologist from Philadelphia pose the question, is President Trump causing toxic stress? The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the public.” And with that Jon Stewart, former host of the Daily Show and comic genius, touched on an overlooked but very serious public health question. Is Donald Trump, with his daily Twitter harangues, impulsive and outrageous executive orders, and all around nastiness harming the health of individuals? Have people become more...
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Community Health Worker Peer (CHWP) Training Academy
The Drexel University Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice | Healing Hurt People - In partnership with the Drexel University Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships, Philadelphia Works and The Behavioral Health Training and Education Network presents: Community Health Worker Peer (CHWP) Training Academy Do you know what it is like to be impacted by violence in your neighborhood? Do you want to help people heal from their injuries? We invite you to learn more about becoming a...
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Community Health Worker Peer Training/Certified Peer Specialist Training Academy
Training Opportunity Do you know what it is like to be impacted by violence in your neighborhood? Do you want to use your experiences to help other people heal from their injuries? We invite you to learn more about becoming a Community Health Worker Peer/Certified Peer Specialist! The Drexel University Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice is currently seeking applicants for our 9-week Community Health Worker Peer (CHWP)/Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) Training Academy . This program,...
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Community Voices: Creating a Just, Healthy and Resilient World
Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) is a vibrant learning collaborative of fourteen sites actively engaged in building the movement for a just, healthy and resilient world. Using the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and resiliency as their organizing framework, these communities have built strong cross-sector networks to help heal and prevent early childhood adversity. From October 2016 through May 2017, we were privileged to travel to all fourteen MARC...
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Could we have a revolution in Philadelphia Schools?
School District of Philadelphia staff - teachers, counselors and administrators - have been filling every available opening in the Institute for Family Professionals' trauma trainings that are offered to the school district and others through funding from United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. Rebecca Pepper Sinkler- former editor of The New York Times Book Review and editor of SafeKidsStories shares the perspective of staff who attended in "Could We Have a...
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Creating Community-Driven Messages that “Catch On” in Philadelphia
How do you create a story so powerful that no matter who is spreading the message, it moves through communities, almost like a virus? This very question is the focus of an upcoming project in Philadelphia. After the Atlantic Health...
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Death, rapes, and broken bones at Philly's only residential treatment center for troubled youth [Philly.com]
Shortly after David Hess died in a struggle with staffers at Wordsworth last fall, the state shuttered the West Philadelphia facility , decrying it as “an immediate and serious danger” to the children who lived there. The death of Hess, 17 – ruled a homicide – was yet another violent chapter in a hidden history of abuse at the city’s only residential treatment center for troubled young people. In the last decade, at least 49 sex crimes have been reported at Wordsworth, including 12 rapes and...
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Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health & Trauma Conference
Thomas Jefferson University's newly formed Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health has generated its first-ever newsletter . If you're interested in trauma-informed training and education , or if you simply want to stay abreast of the work of some great clinicians, researchers, advocates and aspiring professionals, please have a look. The Community and Trauma Counseling program currently has Art Therapy options and is launching two new specializations and certificates this summer: (1)...
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Developing a Trauma-Informed Public Policy Guide
On November 13, 2014 the ACEs Connection community managers held a casual ACEs Meet-Up to discuss with interested individuals: “ How do we build a trauma-informed city? “ The group of participants had a discussion around starting in...
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District finds that creating more trauma-informed schools requires a change of culture [thenotebook.org]
“The world of thinking about trauma, the importance of school climate and social-emotional learning is 20, 30, 40 years behind the world of instruction." Joanna Schwartz, a 2nd-grade teacher at Eliza B. Kirkbride Elementary School, was about to take a scheduled break and desperately needed a place to have peace and quiet. But the only place she could find was a broom closet. A few years earlier, in another school, Schwartz said teachers were baffled by a 3rd grader who continually fell...
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Documentary about Trauma and Resilience in Philadelphia Schools wins Award [thenotebook.org]
Glen's Village , the Notebook's 30-minute documentary film and multimedia reporting project on childhood trauma and Philadelphia's public school system, was named a finalist for an Education Writer's Association award for education reporting in the single-topic news or feature category for small newsrooms. The film, directed by journalists Dorian Geiger and Paul Jablow , follows the journey of Glen Casey , a resilient young Philadelphian who overcame violence, drugs, and family turmoil as a...
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Dr. Lee Pachter & Dr. Tina Cheng of Philadelphia ACE Taskforce Comment on Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases in JAMA
Dr. Lee Pachter from the Department of Pediatrics, St Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Dr. Tina Cheng from the Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, are both members...
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Penn trauma surgeons: Racial disparity 'profound' in Philly gun violence [www.phillyvoice.com]
A group of surgeons and epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine are calling for more research on firearm injuries and the establishment of a national database to track them, citing racial disparity among Philadelphia victims as the "elephant in the room" of gun violence. Trauma surgeons partnered with colleagues at the Penn Injury Science Center to build on previous research about patterns of gun violence in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Their research,...
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Philadelphia, a City Stalked by Overdoses, Fights Back [nytimes.com]
Christina Garcés, a medical student at Temple University in Philadelphia, spends some of her time in the places where heroin users congregate. She’s one of a group of nurses, doctors and medical students who offer the users basic medical care, socks and the overdose-reversal drug naloxone; drive them to the hospital; and connect them to drug treatment and other resources. On Feb. 11 she was about to go home from one such encampment, near the Emerald Street Bridge, when a man in his 50s...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force 2019 Highlights
It has been a busy and productive year for the Philadelphia ACE Task Force culminating in a big win for our Policy work group. Last week, on December 10, 2019, the Philadelphia City Council approved Resolution No. 19098900 , "Calling upon the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to recognize Secondary Traumatic Stress as a workplace hazard, recommend steps to address mental health injury as a psychological hazard in the workplace as they do with physical injury, and create a...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACE Messaging Work Group met on Tuesday, February 14, 2017. The three messaging groups, Youth, Older Adults, and Parents of Young Children reported in on their progress and current projected timeline for completion by end of June 2017, and provided feedback and questions to each other for each messaging theme. All groups have met within the last two weeks. The Work Group explored challenges that arose around the “what” that we are connecting people to through the messages, and how much...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group, an ad hoc group of ACE Task Force Members and Community Partners, convened on Tuesday, May 10 th at Friends Center. This meeting served as first re-convening of this group since work that had been done in 2015 around developing messages about ACEs, trauma, and resilience that “catch-on”. The group began by discussing some of this former work and reviewing some guiding principles as they move to narrow messages and test them with focus groups throughout Philadelphia.
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group, a subcommittee of the Community Education Workgroup, met on Tuesday, June 14 th at Friends Center in Philadelphia. The group began with an overview of some of the work to date, including an update of the survey that was administered prior to May’s meeting. There were four new respondents who responded very similarly to other group members. The group moved forward to discuss their agreed upon target audiences, including older adults, youth, and parents of young...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group met on Tuesday, July 12 th at Friends Center in Philadelphia. The team reviewed the work from their previous meetings, discussing the target audiences and major themes that will be used to tailor the messages they plan to create. One group member presented an activity for the group called a Messaging Box, which was developed by a communications firm, Spitfire Strategies . The Message Box includes four quadrants: The Value Message: The message must tap into the target...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group, a subgroup of the Community Education Workgroup, met on August 9 th to further discuss their project to develop messages about ACEs and resilience. They reviewed the work from their previous meeting, during which they broke into small groups based on target audience focus and developed Message Boxes, an activity developed by Spitfire Strategies . The youth message group discussed the need to validate the adaptive behaviors that youth present when they have...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group met on Tuesday, October 12 th to discuss their project on their messaging work with three different target audiences. The group began with some light housekeeping – agreeing to keep the space and meeting location and deciding to cancel their November 8 th meeting so that everyone in the group has the opportunity to get out to vote. Several members of the group have been engaged in an online course through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement which focuses on...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group (AMG) met on Tuesday, December 13 th to discuss small group the work that had been done in November in lieu of a larger group meeting. The group began with a history and overview of the work, revisiting the discussion of particular target audiences: youth, parents of young children, and older adults. Each small group then updated the larger AMG about their work. The group focused on youth reported back about the event that took place at UrbanPromise in which a group...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group met on Tuesday, January 10 th , 2017. The group began with a discussion of the work that was done through a Justice Department Project, Changing Minds . The group liked their messaging materials and discussed how they could pull from their work moving forward. The group agreed that our target audiences were different than this campaign’s and therefore decided that while this resource can inform the work of the ACEs Messaging Group, it will continue to develop new...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force ACEs Messaging Group Meeting
The ACEs Messaging Group met on Tuesday, April 11 th . Representatives from each of the three subgroups focusing on messaging to youth, older adults, and parents of young children were in attendance. The group began with a review of the Philadelphia Block Captains Rally where members from the Older Adults and Parents of Young Children Messaging Groups presented their messaging work. Members interviewed roughly 80 block captains about several messaging options and reported that the block...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Co-Hosts Screening of CAREgivers Film for Philadelphia City Council
In partnership with Councilwoman Helen Gym, Councilman Al Taubenberger, and documentary filmmakers Vic Compher and Rodney Whittenberg, the Philadelphia ACE Task Force co-hosted a screening of Portraits of Professional Caregivers: Their Passion. Their Pain. and briefing about Secondary Traumatic Stress for Philadelphia City Council on Friday, April 21 st . Councilmembers, their staffers, and other community leaders attended the screening and briefing. The audience was struck by the depiction...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Community Education Work Group Meeting
The Community Education Work Group met on Tuesday, January 19th at the CityLife Neighborhood Clinic in Philadelphia, PA. Representatives from the CityLife Neighborhood Clinics gave the group an overview of the work that they do, explaining that they often see the impact that ACEs have throughout the life course in the seniors they serve. Group members were interested in potential opportunities to develop intergenerational programming. The majority of the meeting was spent reviewing and...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Community Education Work Group Meeting
The Community Education Work Group met on Thursday, February 18th at the Health Federation of Philadelphia. The group began with a review of the work they had done in 2015 to convene Philadelphia ACE Task Force professional members with community members to learn more about trauma and messaging. The group then discussed directions for the ACEs Messaging Group (AMG) project, funded by the First Hospital Foundation , giving consideration to target locations for messaging and focus groups, the...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Full Body Meeting
The Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) met on Tuesday, February 16th. The group began with brief introductions and members expressed excitement for the meeting. The PATF staff and leadership then provided updates about recent accomplishments including new funding from the First Hospital Foundation to develop and disseminate messages about ACEs, trauma, and resilience; the success of the premiere Philadelphia ACE Film Festival, which featured the premiere of Paper Tigers and a screening of...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Full Body Meeting
The Philadelphia ACE Task Force held their full body meeting on September 26 th , 2016. The meeting began with a brief community meeting – the group was generally energized and excited. Philadelphia ACE Task Force Staff did a report out on the launch of the website: philadelphiaACEs.org on August 15 th . In a little over a month, the website had over 700 views from all over the US and from outside the country. The website had been visited every day since the launch and many spent a good deal...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force members educate Baltimore funders about trauma-informed practice
On Monday, March 27th my fellow Philadelphia ACE Task Force member, Suzanne O'Connor, and I visited the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers to educate them about using a trauma-informed approach in their grantmaking. It was a phenomenal opportunity to speak with dedicated and passionate advocates for trauma-informed care in a neighboring city. We hope that this will open the door for our two cities to share best practices and lessons learned about the growing trauma-informed movement!
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Members speak at conference in Southwest Philadelphia [phillytrib.com]
Rebecca Bryan of the Wellness Center at Urban Promise in Camden, New Jersey and Mike O'Bryan, a teaching artist who combines music, science, and psychology into programs aimed at helping youths...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Practical Interventions Work Group Meeting
The Practical Interventions Work Group met on Thursday, February 25th, 2016 at the Center for the Urban Child at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Following the December meeting in which the decision was made to organize a Philadelphia treatment resource guide by individual ACEs, Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) staff attempted to develop tools to collect referral data from PATF members. The group reviewed the referral materials including the excel document that had been created to...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Practical Interventions Work Group Meeting
The Practical Interventions workgroup of the Philadelphia ACE Task Force met on Thursday, May 5 th at Friends Center in Philadelphia. The group discussed the survey that was developed to capture data from the Philadelphia ACE Task Force membership related to regional agencies/organizations that provide services to youth and adults who have experienced trauma. There was a lively discussion about final edits to the survey, which will be made in the coming weeks. Group members then suggested...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Work Group Meeting
The Workforce Development Work Group met on Wednesday, January 20 th at Friends Center in Philadelphia, PA. The group began with updates of recent work, including work that had been done in 2015, which was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This work was focused on encouraging graduate level programs incorporate ACE-related information into their curricula. The work resulted in local and national environmental scans as well as a training in trauma-informed care for Temple...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Work Group Meeting
The Workforce Development Work Group met on Wednesday, March 16 th , 2016 at the United Way Building in Philadelphia. The group began with a reflection about the last full Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) meeting and were excited about future opportunities for impactful work throughout the city and region. Following this discussion, the group discussed some current projects of the Work Group, including the development of focus groups with teachers in the School District of Philadelphia and...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Work Group Meeting
The Workforce Development Workgroup of the Philadelphia ACE Task Force met on Wednesday, May 18 th at the United Way. There were several members in the room who were either new or who have not been able to attend meeting recently so the group caught up on current work. The group began with an update from the subcommittee that is working to develop focus groups with teachers and administrators in from the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) to better understand how they are using...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Work Group Meeting
The Workforce Development Workgroup met on Wednesday, June 15 th at the Unite Way building. The group began with an overview of the focus group project with the School District of Philadelphia and an update for next steps. The subcommittee focused on this work is aiming to begin these focus groups in July, pending approval from the School District and University of Pennsylvania. The group then moved on to discuss the planning of an event focused on integrating information about ACEs, trauma,...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Workgroup Meeting
The Workforce Development Workgroup met on Wednesday, September 21 st . The group had not met in several months so they used their time to update each other on their ongoing projects. They began with a review of the training database that was developed for the Philadelphia ACE Task Force website . This database holds information about regional trainings and is searchable by target audience, available credits, and whether or not the training is offered for free. Members asked how to highlight...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Workgroup Meeting
The Workforce Development Workgroup met on Wednesday, October 19 th . The group began with an update on the work that is being done with the School District of Philadelphia to conduct focus groups with teachers to better understand the facilitators and barriers to implementing trauma-informed tools in the classroom. It is the goal of the subcommittee working on this project to have IRB approval by December of this year so that recruitment for focus groups can begin in January 2017 and the...
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Philadelphia ACE Task Force Workforce Development Workgroup Meeting
The Workforce Development Workgroup met on November 16 th , 2016. The meeting began with introductions and a summary of the ACE Task Force and the history of the work-to-date for this workgroup. There were several new members and guests at this meeting. Workgroup leaders then provided an overview of work that had been done in the past month, including a updates on the work with the School District of Philadelphia and reflection from the ACEs in Higher Education event. Members reported that...
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Philadelphia ACEs Connection Meet-Up
What is a Meet-up? A local get-together to converse on ACEs and Trauma Informed practices and events around Philadelphia. Meet-ups are informal and are either a round-table forum, panel discussion or a guest speaker Location :...
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Philadelphia ACEs Virtual Connection Meet-Up: "Education"
On Tuesday, August 19 th , 2014, the first day of my Advanced Level Field Placement as an M.S.W. Student at Temple University, I participated in the second Philadelphia ACEs Virtual Connection Group “Meet-Up” at the Friends Center...
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Philadelphia App Links Youth to Resources and Services [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
For youth exiting the foster care system, finding a way to access supports and services can be hard. There are many organizations and agencies that offer service to transition-age youth, but knowing where to look for resources like crisis mental health services, computer access, mentoring opportunities and food banks can be a struggle. Many youth are facing unstable and stressful living situations, barriers that make locating help nearby a challenge. In Philadelphia, advocates hope that a...
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PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL, EDUCATION COMMITTEE Hearing on Standardized Testing NOTES
"We won’t have a successful education paradigm, or even accurately interpret academic success, while ignoring trauma’s overwhelming presence." ...
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Philadelphia City Council, Education Committee. Standardized testing hearing: testimony VIDEO
"We won’t have a successful education paradigm, or even accurately interpret academic success, while ignoring trauma’s overwhelming presence." Philadelphia City Council, Education Committee. Standardized testing...
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Philadelphia devotes $4.4 million to 'holistic' anti-violence programs [witf.org]
(Philadelphia) -- Mayor Jim Kenney announced on Thursday that the city would dedicate more than $4 million to "interrupting" violence on neighborhood streets. Flanked by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, members of City Council and anti-violence advocates, Kenny introduced a set of new programs that will focus on gun violence as a public health problem. He said the city would seek to promote a more data-driven and "holistic" approach to stanching the city's rising homicide rate.
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Philadelphia just won $1 million to create a trauma-informed Hub for Juvenile Justice Services [generocity.org]
On Tuesday, the City of Philadelphia was awarded a $1 million grant to create a 24/7 trauma-informed facility that will be an entry point into the criminal justice system for children who are arrested. The city was one of five winners out of 35 finalists in the yearlong Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge . The location and an official timeline for the opening of the facility — named the Hub for Juvenile Justice Services — are still being determined, said Julie Wertheimer, the...
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Philadelphia named Finalist for RWJF's Culture of Health Prize
Princeton, N.J .—The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced the 16 communities that have been chosen as finalists for the fourth annual RWJF Culture of Health Prize. The Prize honors communities that place a high priority on health and bring partners together to drive local change. Selected from nearly 200 applicants, the following 16 finalist communities are one step closer to the coveted national Prize: 24:1 Community Region, Missouri Clayton County, Georgia Columbia Gorge Region,...
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Philadelphia needs to respond to black people's trauma from police shootings | Editorial [philly.com]
Last Tuesday, a police officer in a Pittsburgh suburb shot and killed 17-year-old Antwon Rose . The black teenager was unarmed and cell phone footage footage shows that he was fleeing the police officer when he was shot. The devastating effects of this incident will ripple far beyond Allegheny County and according to a new study, it will be felt widely. In the study , researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, and Harvard examined the mental health effect on black...