This piece combines and updates two posts from spring 2018. During the summer, it's safe to assume children are using technology more than usual. Managing all that bleeping and buzzing activity causes anxiety in many parents. Here's a roundup of some of the latest research, combined with some of our previous reporting, to help guide your decision-making around family screen use. [For more on this story by ANYA KAMENETZ, go to...
Donn Trenner, 91, estimates that two-thirds of his friends are dead. “That’s a hard one for me,” he said. “I’ve lost a lot of people.” As baby boomers age, more and more folks will reach their 80s, 90s — and beyond . They will not only lose friends but face the daunting task of making new friends at an advanced age. [For more on this story by Bruce Horovitz, go to https://khn.org/news/feel-like-the-last-friend-standing-heres-how-to-cultivate-new-buds-as-you-age/ ]
Following an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, officials in Arizona are calling for the closure of a Phoenix office building used by a government contractor to hold immigrant children. Neighbors first saw immigrant children being ushered into the vacant Phoenix office building, which is leased by defense contractor MVM Inc., on June 4, Reveal reported Friday. Although it’s unclear how long children remained in that office, neighbors report they didn’t see...
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include stressful and potentially traumatic events associated with higher risk of long-term behavioral problems and chronic illnesses. Whether parents’ ACE counts (an index of standard ACEs) confer intergenerational risk to their children’s behavioral health is unknown. In this study, we estimate the risk of child behavioral problems as a function of parent ACE counts. METHODS: We obtained retrospective information on 9 ACEs...
“We stopped keeping statistics on the number of Native moms and babies that are lost in our region; it was just too upsetting,” said Millicent Simenson, co-founder of Mewinzha Ondaadiziike Wiigaming. In light of growing awareness of the negative impact of institutional racism on health for women of color, especially Black women , a new analysis argues the experience of Native American women closely parallels that of African American women. An emerging community-centered and culturally...
I really dislike the word addict to describe someone . I believe that people are more than just their addiction! Yes, many of my clients are trauma survivors who use (or have used) drugs and alcohol (or food or self-harming behavior) to feel less badly and they are/have been addicted to their drug of choice, but they are people in pain. More than just the word addict is needed to describe them. The truth is, if someone is using drugs or alcohol, it’s likely the best coping mechanism they’ve...
Nearly 12 years after Twitter first launched in 2006, it has become a global behemoth with 330 million monthly active users, supporting 500 million Tweets every day . Tweets are now a part of daily life, whether they are public conversations about social movements, individual commentary about current events, or political announcements from elected officials. Because advocates are increasingly leveraging social channels like Twitter to influence policy decisions, researchers at Berkeley Media...
Osmar Terra is a tall man with a deep voice and an easy laugh—one that disguises the scale of his ambition to transform Brazilian society. A federal representative for nearly two decades, he is the driving force behind the world’s biggest experiment to prove that teaching poor parents how to love and nurture their infants will dramatically influence what kind of adults they become, and give Brazil its best shot at changing its current trajectory of violence , inequality, and poverty. Terra,...
Issac J. Bailey was pulling together his memoir at a time when America was in the midst of racial upheaval. Over the past few years, alarming deaths of black people at the hands of the police spawned a boisterous national movement — Black Lives Matter — demanding systemic change. And one of the central tenets of this new era of activism requires that we respect all black lives, those of poor felons no less than those of rich entrepreneurs. It seems a fitting moment, then, for Bailey’s book,...
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula...
Cissy's note; Every time I get annoyed that more men are not leading conversations about sexual violence, sexism or are saying defensive or disparaging things about the #MeToo movement, I check myself. I ask myself how much I've been talking, sharing, learning, and challenging myself about racial bias and my own white advantage. It's never enough. Can I really expect people to be better than I am doing? Can I hope people will challenge their own assumptions, culture, experiences and...
A recording of the June 12th webinar "Measuring Trauma-Informed Care Using the ARTIC Scale" is now available at the Traumatic Stress Institute website. Registration for the June 12th webinar and the upcoming one in July both filled to capacity. We will likely offer it again in the Fall. But, it you want the information immediately, please view the recording. The Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale is a widely-used psychometrically valid measure of professional attitudes...
People addicted to prescription opioids or heroin are far more likely to have run-ins with the law than those who don't use opioids, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. The study provides the first nationwide estimate for the number of people using opioids who end up in the American criminal justice system. The results suggest a need to engage law enforcement officials and corrections systems to tackle the opioid epidemic. The connection between the criminal justice...
AUSTIN, Texas — Kerstin Taylor fought alcohol and substance abuse problems for two decades. She periodically sought help through addiction and psychiatric treatments to stay sober, but she continued to relapse. That unrelenting roller coaster, and the emotional and mental fallout, left her with little energy or resources to take charge of her overall health. Taylor, 53, has asthma and doctors told her she was at risk of developing diabetes. “I wasn’t doing anything to help myself,” she said...
In Philadelphia, not having a safe, stable place to live prevents parents whose children have been placed in foster care from regaining custody 40 percent of the time — 10 percent higher than the national average — according to a recent study by the city. That’s why Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services and Office of Homeless Services have partnered on a new program that gives priority for affordable housing to people whose kids are in the custody of child welfare. The program is aimed...