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Easing the deep and long-held mistrust between law enforcement and communities of color has no easy fix. But in Newark, N.J., police have embarked on an experiment that they hope will calm tensions by immersing both cops and residents in uncomfortable truths about slavery and Jim Crow, coupled with lessons on epigenetics and trauma. The Newark Police Department has mandated that each of its approximately 1,110 officers participate in three days of training alongside city residents, swapping...

In the midst of riots in 1968 after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was slain, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act . The federal legislation addressed one of the bitterest aspects of racism in the U.S.: segregated housing. It prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, and national origin when selling and renting housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, has administered the act with some success. From 1970 to 2010,...

You know that getting exercise, eating vegetables and quitting smoking are good for you. A new study shows just how good they are, in terms of the number of years they can add to your life. American women who followed five "healthy lifestyle factors" lived about 14 years longer than women who followed none of them, according to a report published Monday in the journal Circulation. For men, the difference was about 12 years. The five healthy lifestyle factors identified in the study should...

Loneliness isn't just a fleeting feeling, leaving us sad for a few hours to a few days. Research in recent years suggests that for many people, loneliness is more like a chronic ache, affecting their daily lives and sense of well-being. Now a nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna underscores that. It finds that loneliness is widespread in America, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel alone or left out always or sometimes. Using one of the best-known tools...

We hear you! With the phenomenal growth of ACEs Connection (we’re now at more than 22,200 terrific members), the volume of content has burgeoned, and email notifications from the site about the latest blog posts and comments can be (OK, OK...are!) overwhelming. Especially to those people (about 17,000 of you) who became members before October 2017, when we changed our system so that new members don’t automatically receive emails about blog posts and comments from ACEs Connection. So, here’s...

The Center for Youth Wellness and ACEs Connection are hosting the third biennial ACEs Conference Oct. 15-17, 2018, at the Hyatt Embarcadero in San Francisco, CA. The first day is devoted to a pediatric symposium. The main conference will take place Oct. 16-17. Our theme, “Action to Access”, will draw a line from the call to action established by previous conferences to the problem of access — how different individuals and communities are able to obtain and use the information, resources, and...

So many readers have written to me sharing their worries -- and their success stories -- around raising happy, healthy children despite having their own PTSD from childhood. The fear that we'll hurt the kids can hold us back from setting limits, yet losing control of kids' behavior can escalate discipline into a recipe for nervous system dysregulation and emotional overwhelm. In this video I talk about my worst parenting mistake, and how I.... ( Read More and watch the video at the Crappy...

Despite the landmark ACEs study in 1998, ACEs screening is uncommon in medical clinics - barriers include lack of time, ACEs resources, confidence in addressing sensitive topics, etc. Flanagan et al. developed a training program for clinicians that addressed the barriers, added resilience measures, and included clinic-specific adjustments. The study found that conversations on ACEs and resilience improved women’s trust in and relationship with their clinicians. After the training, clinicians...

LOS ANGELES — The temporary transformation of Fickett Street in Boyle Heights began with yellow shades resembling huge kites suspended over the sun-scorched asphalt. Soon, a thoroughfare known for its speeding vehicles and gang activity became something else entirely — a “play street” in which women gathered for Lotería, or Mexican bingo, and kids fashioned seesaws out of giant snap-together plastic shapes in colors inspired by local Mexican-American murals. There are roughly 7,500 miles of...

Under a sign that read “FUTURE CITY,” three mayors pondered whether titan tech companies such as Amazon could be models of equity and prosperity in cities. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf brought up a concept called “tech-quity,” which she explained meant that companies should be expected to conduct themselves in ways that contribute to local diversity and inclusion goals. The forum was part of a conference Pittsburgh hosted last week on prioritizing “people, planet, place, and performance,” or...

ALBUQUERQUE — Santiago Turrieta and Joee Ruiz were lounging in bed in a sleepy haze one morning after shooting their morning dose of heroin when Joee said, “Oh, baby. My water just broke.” They had grown up just a few blocks from one another in Barelas, one of Albuquerque’s oldest and most historic barrios, a collection of old adobe houses on the edge of downtown. But they didn’t get together until a year after Santiago got out of prison in 2013. He was an armed robber who had done 18 years...

Editorial in the New Mexico Politics. Dr. George Davis, former director of the New Mexico Juvenile Justice System and CYFD talks about how children end up in the criminal system. "Within the first five years of life, the trajectory is set for the most important skills a person will ever possess — such fundamental traits as the capacity for attachment and empathy, the ability to self-regulate and to be calmed, and the tendency to seek primary reward from contact with other humans rather than...