Blog

Comments: I read the following Op Ed in my local paper (the Davis Enterprise) this morning about Earth Day, honoring leaders who spent their life working to end poverty, racism, militarism, ecological devastation and calls on us to join the Poor People's Campaign. The aim of the campaign is to build a fusion movement. Acknowledging the validity of the many issues and “silos” we are each committed to, they are calling people to act together to build a people-centered, transformative movement...

Sen. Tammy Duckworth gave birth to Maile Pearl on April 9, 2018. In doing so, the Democrat from Illinois became the first U.S. senator to give birth while serving in office. 10 days after giving birth, Duckworth made history again by bringing her baby onto the Senate floor. "People see that Senator Duckworth is a war veteran and a woman holding elected office," one woman wrote on Twitter . "I see a disabled mother who is holding one of the highest government positions. She is the answer...

Interview with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk by Elissa Melaragno: Elissa Melaragno: I read your entire book through the acknowledgments, and the very last acknowledgment was “to an affirmation of the life force which drives us human beings to create a meaningful life regardless of the obstacles we encounter.” What have you learned about this life force in the process of your work? Dr. Bessel van der Kolk: It comes up over and over again. I just went to visit my childhood friends in the...

The health disparities that exist for Black mothers in America are well documented. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from childbirth than their White counterparts. Yet, aside from listing “being Black” as a risk factor for maternal death, little has been done to address this alarming statistic. The inaugural Black Maternal Health Week , held from April 11–17, 2018, sought to change this through offering a forum for continued conversation. Importantly, they shed light on...

My fellow care-ers about trauma, A representative (the editor-at-large) for The Investigative Fund, Joe Conason, spoke this spring at Tucson Festival of Books. Today, this article was posted in that organization's email newsletter, and I am posting a link to it so members of this community may know about it. The ACE Study is included--as it should be--and the article is an excellent work of journalism.

Wow!!?? Advancing Parenting just got a $23,000 order for our parenting tips bumper stickers! Dr. Felitti often talks about a new kind of parenting education that will prevent adverse childhood experiences from happening in the future. This is the sort of thing he's referring to. Advancing Parenting calls it proactive, passive/public parenting education. Now all I have to do is figure out how to raise twenty-three thousand dollars! If anyone wants to make a donation every little bit will...

"Fixing our foster care crisis” was made possible through major funding from the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona and additional support from the University of Southern California Annenberg Center's Fund for Journalism on Child Well-being. They call it the “miracle question.” In Michigan’s Family Reunification Program, it’s asked of parents who’ve lost custody of their kids because of abuse or neglect and are about to be reunited as a family. If you were to wake up, and none of this...

Over recent weeks, we’ve seen a youth-led movement challenge our nation’s grim acceptance of this unacceptable status quo. This movement builds on the momentum of social movements that have been addressing violence in various forms across the country. From the March for Our Lives, which drew approximately 1.2 million people to over 450 marches across the US, to consumer boycotts of companies partnering with the National Rifle Association, to announcements like Bank of America’s decision to...

Five Minutes with Chris Haughee: Helping Kids Heal covenantcompanion.com /2018/04/16/five-minutes-with-chris-haughee-helping-kids-heal/ By Guest Author April 16, 2018 Chris Haughee Chris Haughee is a Covenant chaplain working at Intermountain Residential, an intensive residential program for children who demonstrate behavioral challenges with campuses in Helena and Kalispell, Montana. Chris and his family attend Headwaters Covenant Church in Helena. He writes about the ministry at...

CASTAÑER, Puerto Rico — Helicopters from the power company buzz across the skies of this picturesque valley, ferrying electrical poles on long wires to workers standing on steep hillsides. The people of Castañer, an isolated village in Puerto Rico’s central mountains, watch warily. Crews have come and gone, and people living along the mountain roads don’t expect to get power until late summer, if ever. Power finally started flowing to the center of town last month, but the electrical grid...

WASHINGTON — The number of new monthly prescriptions for medications that treat opioid addiction nearly doubled over the past two years, according to new data, while prescriptions for opioid painkillers continued to decline. The changing calculus reflects a stepping up of efforts among policymakers and the medical establishment to address the nation’s opioid epidemic, which is killing more than 115 people every day. But it also underscores questions about whether some pain patients are now...

The Eviction Lab at Princeton University released a new publicly available dataset with aggregated counts and rates of eviction filings and judgments across the United States. The researchers sought landlord/tenant records from courts in each state and other data providers, removed irrelevant cases, and aggregated them into counts by state, county, and other geographic levels. The 13 states that provided court data are Alabama, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri,...