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My name is Rebekah Couch and I am a former teen mother of five children, the youngest child being my only clean & sober pregnancy allowed to remain in my care. I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and was afflicted with untreated mental health issues as an adolescent. My destructive journey began with self-medicating and illegal activities in Jr. High and a daily cocaine addiction by the age of fifteen that eventually advanced to methamphetamine abuse. My addiction and criminal...

"A new initiative by the National Parks Service seeks to designate sites for their historic significance in the Reconstruction era. It's a bold and vital move for an agency that has only recently begun to seriously address the racial complexities of the Civil War. During the restive years following the Civil War, the Era of Reconstruction —often referred to as the nation's Second Founding or the first Civil Rights Movement—America saw a virulent backlash from white supremacists in response...

Boston, MA On Boston’s “Methadone Mile,” the city’s opioid users cluster around a few-block-stretch, where they find some support, and a sweeping range of treatment services. They are also out of sight of the rest of the city. Michael Young, 40, stands on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. On his left, cars whir past; on his right, about two dozen people line up along the chain link fence overlooking Boston’s Interstate 93, some drifting in and out of...

"Boys aren't meant to even cry, but I can assure you I've seen plenty of them do it - and I've even been to that point myself," Wally Newman, a farmer for over 40 years, says as he vows to do his bit to tackle the high suicide rates in rural WA. Financial stress, remoteness, loneliness and isolation are the factors that see more people taking their own lives in the country than in metropolitan WA. Topping a national average, suicide is the leading cause of death for West Australians aged...

"Loneliness is hazardous to your health—and more psychologists and doctors are calling for a public-health campaign to fight it. “This has been underappreciated in the past,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, “but cumulative data over hundreds of studies with millions of participants provides robust evidence of the importance of social connections for physical health and risk for premature mortality.” Social isolation,...

"It is relatively early on a summer evening, just after sunset. From my bed, I notice a shadow of a spindly branch dancing across the corner of the bedroom wall. I get up and close the curtains tightly to make it disappear, careful not to step on my daughter, who’s camped on my bedroom floor, lying stiffly under the weighted anxiety blanket I’d made her. I don’t mind the shadow, but I know it will make it impossible for her to fall asleep. This is the fourth night in a row she’s spent here.

"Working in an ER poses constant challenges. There are the predictable ones such as dealing with sick people and their families, making clinical decisions and plans for patients, and contending with a busy workload in a crowded space with finite resources—trying to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There are also challenges that may be less obvious to those outside this work environment: the difficulty of self-care during a shift (meeting one’s basic needs like...

This was just sent by the RACP “Paediatric Pot-Pourri”. It continues the developing and worrying themes presented at the recent NBPSA and CCCH satellites days before the RACP Congress. I cannot see any reason to imagine that these same outcomes do not also apply to those children living anywhere in the world where ACE’s are flooding into their lives. John Goldsmith “All paediatricians, particularly those with an interest in child development, are aware of the Adverse Childhood Experiences...

Kerri Walker has been in two relationships involving domestic violence. Like many survivors, she was hit repeatedly. She was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and even suffered an aneurysm. “So when I say my brain is special, it’s special,” she says. Over the years, Walker, 52, has made many adjustments, including moving from a shelter in Ohio to a new life in Arizona. “We all get forgetful the older we get,” she said. “But if you’ve had an injury and if you’ve had trauma in your...

“Recent research about grievers who are termed “resilient grievers” adds to our vast knowledge of grief and grieving. After a loss, resilient grievers show little disruption in their ability to function. Their experience with loss differs substantially from the experience of many bereaved people, who often find themselves incapacitated, temporarily or longer, following a loved one’s death. But studying resilient grievers can be helpful in several ways. First, the research reinforces what we...

“There's nothing like a natural disaster to bring humanity together, and look no further than Hurricane Irma for evidence. The catastrophic cyclone, officially a tropical storm as of this morning, quickly registered as one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. Its long and winding path—much of it as a Category 5 storm with winds of up to 185 miles per hour—left plenty of destruction in its wake, from the tiny state of Antigua and Barbuda to the mainland United...

The immensity of Los Angeles County’s foster care visitation challenge is hard to fathom. When a child is removed from the custody of his or her family due to abuse and neglect, a key part of the reunification process is ensuring that child can visit with his or her parent. But in L.A., which is larger and more populous than most states, scheduling those visits takes the county’s child welfare system 2 million hours every year. The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is hoping...