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On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground. “You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena. “I tried to kick! I did this — you told me not to stick out,” said Laney indignantly. Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with...

I was driving through the town of Alameda the other day and passed a giant advertisement for “single-family homes.” I contemplated how the ad so clearly tied together the dream of homeownership with the American ideal of family. And then I thought about all the beautiful families I know who do not fit that ideal. Like my friend who, with his wife, just bought a home where they are raising their child and where his elderly father will spend the end of his life. And my daughter’s friend and...

On January 25, 1996, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton was campaigning for her husband Bill’s re-election in Keene, New Hampshire. She gave a standard stump speech to the college crowd, talking about health care, the child tax credit, and getting more students into higher education. It’s not the kind of speech you’d think would come back to haunt her own presidential campaign a decade later. Yet in the current cycle, 12 seconds of that speech has become one of the most re-watched moments of...

A newly formed coalition comprised of local government, education, law enforcement and judicial organizations, among others, have come together to hopefully combat the growing youth violence epidemic that is plaguing children and families across Miami-Dade County. Together for Children — including members of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Public Defenders and State Attorney’s Offices, Florida Departments of Children and Families and Juvenile Justice and other community-based organizations...

You can help. Isn’t that the best title? Today is the day Rebecca Street’s book got launched out into the world. It’s a guide book for friends and family of survivors of sexual assault and abuse. Whaoo… Congrats to her for being so bold, hopeful and ambitious. Rebecca is a survivor who is passionate about helping people. Not only does she care about other survivors but she cares for the people who love us as well. She felt there was a gap in the literature. What if people want to help...

Marilyn Gisser, the coordinator for Washington State Essentials for Childhood Initiative sent this: Are you or is someone you know an innovative, inspirational and adaptive leader who is driven to improve health and educational outcomes for children in Washington State? Essentials for Childhood needs your help! The Washington State Essentials for Childhood initiative – a cross sector, statewide effort to promote safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for children and their...

Thanks for sending this, Allen Nishikawa!

On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground. “You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena. “I tried to kick! I did this — you told me not to stick out,” said Laney indignantly. Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with...

I want to discuss the challenges youth face when exiting a detention facility and propose a more developed way of thinking about this population. I hope that through reference to my personal story I can help community stakeholders identify different ways of providing effective service and provide a voice for the thousands of youth across America who are faced with similar obstacles. I first made contact with the system when I was about 11 years old. I was picked up for vandalism when out of...

On Monday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed historic legislation that effectively grants farmworkers the same overtime pay as the rest of the state’s hourly workforce. The law sets a monumental new pay precedent for both the state — the largest agricultural producer in the United States—and the rest of the country at large: California’s farmworkers will be the first in the nation to earn equal overtime wages for their work. Assembly Bill 1066 requires time-and-a-half pay to all...

After nearly 14 years at the helm, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA , the first woman and the first African American to lead the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), announced today that she will step down once a successor is in place. Lavizzo-Mourey has served as president and CEO of the $10 billion private foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted to health, since January 2003. Under her leadership, RWJF has worked to advance the vision of building a Culture of Health, one that...

Hearing From Everyone on Health With Mount Adams in Washington to the north and Mount Hood in Oregon to the south, the windy Columbia River Gorge boasts ideal conditions for kite surfers and sailors. High-tech companies have moved into new waterfront buildings up and down the river, joining tourism and agriculture as the area’s main economic engines. But the Columbia Gorge—a vast rural area larger than the state of Connecticut with only 75,000 people—is characterized by extremes. Not far...