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In 2013, Trisha Prabhu read a news story that broke her heart — a 12-year-old girl had taken her life after experiencing cyberbullying. Prabhu was only 13 at the time and couldn't understand someone younger than her taking her own life. However, instead of processing her shock and moving on, she decided to do something about it. "I started thinking about what I could do to stop this from ever happening again," writes Prabhu in an email. [For more on this story, go to...

When I started graduate school, I did not realize that I was a student with mental illness. I knew that I suffered near-daily migraines and sought out disability services. What I did not understand was that my migraines were a physical manifestation of a mental illness, and that the way I felt my entire life was called "anxiety" because the experiences I had as a kid were called "trauma." Graduate school severely exacerbated my anxiety. Whether you are a student or a professor, keep in mind...

We are swimming against the tide of taboo. All we brave and battling souls deciding it is time to stop abuse from happening to the children. I’m watching so, so many hearty hearts step up to microphones, web sites, and audiences filled with curious faces, open faces, even welcoming faces. I remember a day in 1998 – I had been invited by someone in Boston to lead a workshop for survivors. I had a most simple agenda – form a circle, say our names, tell each other why we’re here, look at a...

A decade ago, researchers reported that more than half of Detroit residents live in a food desert -- an area where access to fresh and affordable healthy foods is limited because grocery stores are too far away. Efforts since then to bring more grocery stores -- and food security -- to predominantly Black neighborhoods haven't worked. But that's looking to change. Malik Yakini is executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network , a coalition of people and groups that...

When I was 11 years old, I went to the doctor for a check-up and my whole world stopped. In that one moment, the family I had spent six months becoming a part of decided against adoption. I was removed from my biological mother at just six months, and this was the closest I had ever been to joining a family. One week before a judge made me somebody’s daughter, my almost-parents decided that they did not want “a kid with a baby.” “You’re pregnant!” “What were you thinking?” “There are...

Education, money, and power provide access to good health. However, access to those systems is limited for people of color by the historic and systemic injustices that benefit white people. This is one manifestation of White Privilege. The data show that factors like your race, income, and ZIP Code have a bigger impact on your health than your behavior, your medical care, or your genetic code . These social determinants of health are also social determinants of economic and social class...

The idea behind public education is simple: A community pays into a system that aims to create a bright future for the next generation. Years pass, and those kids grow up. They pay into the same system, yielding the same dividends. Repeat. But things aren’t always that simple. As this week’s episode explains, the policies that shape public education can be subject to influences – ideological and financial. We begin with a profile of President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos.

Americans’ obesity rates have reached a new high-water mark. Again. In 2015 and 2016, just short of 4 in 10 American adults had a body mass index that put them in obese territory. In addition, just under 2 in 10 American children — those between 2 and 19 years of age — are now considered obese as well. The new measure of the nation’s weight problem, released early Friday by statisticians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , chronicles dramatic increases in obesity levels...

October is Resilience Awareness Month What does the word “resilience” mean, and why do we dedicate a month to promoting this word? Simply stated, it means being flexible and adapting to change, like a tree bends in the wind or a rubber band stretches. For humans, it means learning to build our toolbox of skills for managing our emotions. It is staying regulated. It is teaching our children and students how to identify, name and manage their feelings. It is how to develop hope and mastery of...

LEBANON, Conn. — Rob Sullivan still remembers the gun and the sound of his mother’s high-pitched pleas. Two thieves had burst into his parents’ Hartford home. Demanding his father’s dope stash, one of the men placed a gun to Rob’s right temple. “Just give it to them,” his mother begged his father. He was 6 years old. The incident, charred in his memory, was an early trauma among many he recalls from his childhood. He watched his father beat his mother for not having dinner ready on time or...

Here is my advice to anyone who is considering coming forward about a predator, famous or not, regarding a recent encounter or one from long ago.

Deadline: Nov. 1, 2017 The Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc. (ATN) is hosting this National Conference for Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools at the Washington Hilton Washington, DC, February 19-20, 2018, to give all educators — teachers, administrators and school personnel — as well as other child-serving professionals, community leaders and parents an opportunity to explore the importance of trauma-informed care for in schools and other child-serving environments. Through the ACE...