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"We are here because our communities have been resisting for forever... If they’re going to talk about intergenerational legacies, and if they’re going to talk about epigenetics, let’s have the entire conversation."

Morgan's note: This great article has a story about the Goldbergs and the Franks (as in Anne Frank, whose diary is widely read, and her family), and how the daughter of Hilde Goldberg seeks to share her family story as a way to find her voice, be liberated, and move forward. Read the rest of the article here . Morgan Vien, Practicing Resilience for Self-Care and Healing

Following a blog published on ACESConnection about my encounter with Harvey Weinstein, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed me for their 2017 Women in Entertainment issue. I didn't want to supply salacious details to the already much chewed over picture we have of the habitual, historical abuse. I wanted to take control of the narrative and use this opportunity to talk about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the patterns set up by this kind of toxic stress in later life. It is so...

STOUGHTON, Wis. - The city of Stoughton is training their staff to help end corporal punishment. The area is the first city in Dane County to become a "no hit zone." The policy passed City Council in 2016, however city staff just started training on the policy last week. The concept enables staff to offer help to parents in stressful situations, before they feel the need to use physical discipline. "We are not standing in judgement of anyone or anything like that. What we are saying is there...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — It’s been 10 years since Teodora del Carmen Vásquez lost consciousness in a bathroom at work when she was nine months pregnant and delivered a stillborn baby. After police accused her of killing her newborn, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A third of the way through her sentence, she passes the weeks and months at the Ilopango Women’s Prison reading books. “In the 10 years I’ve been here, I’ve probably read 500 books,” the 34-year-old Vásquez told...

At the small home gatherings that are a center of evangelical Christian life across the United States, the topics of discussion range from the previous Sunday’s sermon to the latest Christian spiritual help book, from marriage to addiction to the Bible’s diet guidance. Add to the list: mass incarceration. Prison Fellowship, the nonprofit prisoner advocacy group, has created “Outrageous Justice,” a small-group study guide intended to transform more evangelicals into political evangelists for...

School districts had a year to implement a state law that banned zero-tolerance policies and emphasized restorative justice practices. We check back in with five districts we visited in the summer of 2016 to see how school discipline has changed. On the second day of the school year, Amber Owens got the kind of jolt every parent dreads. She was called to the nurse’s office at Champaign’s Bottenfield Elementary, where she found her 7-year-old son, Simon, sobbing uncontrollably and bleeding...

The best revolutions end in topplings—of statues, regimes, and Weinsteins. Others prove to be more smoke than flame. While heady days of Occupy Wall Street are long over, the national conversation they ignited about economic inequality still smolders. Since protesters decamped from Zuccotti Park, Thomas Piketty has become a household name, a populist has claimed the presidency, and universal basic income has gone from fantastical subreddit to serious policy proposal. Among developed...

This article and others in this series were produced as part of a project for the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship, in conjunction with the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. On a Monday in early October, the top administrator at the Bradenton youth lockup issued a terse order to subordinates: “Do not flush.” Three days earlier, on Sept. 30, the Manatee Regional Juvenile Detention Center’s plumbing went haywire. While...

On a single night in January 2017, 553,742 were homeless across the U.S. For the first time in seven years, this number has grown. In the past year, the nation has seen a one-percent increase in the nation’s homeless population. That’s 3,814 more homeless people since January 2016. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report —the report to Congress that analyzes the results of a nationwide point-in-time estimate,...

That bag of frozen cauliflower sitting inside your freezer likely sprang to life in a vast field north of Salinas, Calif. A crew of men and women here use a machine to drop seedlings into the black soil. Another group follows behind, stooped over, tapping each new plant. It is backbreaking, repetitive work. Ten-hour days start in the cold, dark mornings and end in the searing afternoon heat. More than 90 percent of California’s crop workers were born in Mexico. But in recent years, fewer...

This story was co-published with NPR. On a melancholy Saturday this past February, Shalon Irving’s “village” — the friends and family she had assembled to support her as a single mother — gathered at a funeral home in a prosperous black neighborhood in southwest Atlanta to say goodbye and send her home. The afternoon light was gray but bright, flooding through tall arched windows and pouring past white columns, illuminating the flag that covered her casket. Sprays of callas and roses dotted...