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I’ve just caught up with an excellent 2014 story from ProPublica on how child welfare systems deal with parents who have mental illnesses. The story looked at two cases in which parents really did have some sort of mental illness (putting them in the same company as an estimated 43.8 million Americans in any given year). That sets the point of the story apart from another major problem in child welfare — quick-and-dirty “psych evals” that mislabel parents mentally ill largely because they...

Arkansas Nonprofit News Network (This is one of four parts.) In 2008, Wendy Jones’ teenage son, Corby, began getting into trouble with the law: skipping school, doing drugs, stealing. His behavior soon landed him in Benton County, Arkansas, juvenile court, followed by a stay in the local juvenile detention center, or JDC, a 36-bed, jail-like facility in Bentonville, not far from the home offices of Walmart. Corby was just the sort of youth who might be expected to stop dabbling in illegal...

Doctors at some of the country's largest hospital chains admit they went overboard with opioids to make people as pain-free as possible. Now the doctors shoulder part of the blame for the country's opioid crisis. In an effort to be part of the cure, they've begun to issue an uncomfortable warning to patients: You're going to feel some pain. Even for those who've never struggled with drug use, studies are finding that patients are at risk of addiction anytime they go under the knife . [For...

“In October of 2017, Commissioner Arkoosh stated that the county had five fewer overdose deaths in the first half of 2017, compared to the same period of 2016, bucking the trend seen in across southeastern Pennsylvania.” Jim Melwert, KYW Newsradio 1060, 10/17/17

WASHINGTON — In its second hearing on the country’s raging drug crisis since President Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the matter a public health emergency in October, the Senate health committee called a hearing with a single witness: a journalist. Such hearings conventionally spotlight high-profile government officials and career advocates with deep expertise in a subject. Every hearing this committee and a similarly health-focused House panel held to...

Now there is good news for those who fear it might be too late in life to improve their fitness. People into late middle age can reverse or reduce the risk of heart failure caused by decades of sedentary living by exercising, a study has found. But there is a catch - it takes two years of aerobic exercise, four to five days a week, researchers said. [For more on this story by Alex Therrien, go to http://www.bbc.com/news/health-42565137 ]

Most years, we write one (or two) Fixes columns about the year in social innovation. What were the big ideas, the new trends? This year, it’s tempting to sum all that up in a word: Ha! Never has social innovation seemed less relevant. Although the federal government is never the most nimble innovator, it’s normally a prime consumer and amplifier of social innovation. And at times, Washington does produce new ideas — for example, in the Obama administration, federal agencies held prize...

Glenn Baker loves his one-bedroom apartment on the South Side of Chicago, and it shows: on his walls hang pictures of his favorite superheroes, and a note above his sink reminds visitors to do their dishes. But Baker says his favorite thing about his apartment is simply the fact that it is his. “I never have to worry about a place that I can lay down at night to stay warm,” Baker said. “I’ve only been to the emergency room a few times since I moved in here. I’m very happy about that.” Since...

Pittsburgh's Hill District hasn't had a full-service grocery store in 30 years. Nestled in the heart of the city, the Hill was once a vital center of jazz, black culture, and civic life, earning it the nickname "Little Harlem." The neighborhood had its own newspaper and radio station. Thoroughfares were lined with black-owned clubs, restaurants, and shops. Dizzy Gillespie sat in at the Crawford. Satchel Paige played at Greenlee Field. Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay called it "the...

There is no more pressing issue facing cities and society today than how to create high-quality, family-supporting jobs. As manufacturing jobs have faded—today only 5 or 6 percent of American workers are engaged in direct factory production—the job market has cleaved into an advantaged and affluent third of high-paying knowledge, professional, and creative jobs; and a nearly 50 percent share, of low-paying, insecure, and precarious service jobs. A recent report by researchers at the London...

It can be hard to find hope in climate change mitigation. But that’s exactly what NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus does in Being the Change. While he’s not your typical government scientist—he commutes by bicycle, meditates, grows and exchanges food—he does approach his life and global warming with the solution-driven focus of one. To Kalmus, individual actions matter: His family cut their climate impact to one-tenth the national average. He finds hope in the data—cutting out some things,...

Image: courtesy of wikimedia To those in the pediatric community: I want to let you all know that I have the honor of managing the ACEs in Pediatrics site. I began working with ACEs Connection in October. I came here with more than 25 years of experience as a health journalist, and a commitment to reporting on the remarkable shifts occurring in medicine and other sectors to promote trauma-informed and resiliency-building practices based on ACEs science . ACEs in Pediatrics is a forum for...