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Native women in the U.S. are killed by police at a very high rate, at least according to this story [ LINK HERE ]. A young, petite Native woman is killed by a police officer for suspected shoplifting. The alleged weapon she is said to be carrying is a pair of medical scissors. I can't see them in the photo. There are two cops present, and as you can see, the one in the picture is big guy. The story references a story about another Native woman victim [ LINK HERE ]. A young pregnant tribal...

The Bitterroot Cares for Kids Network is presenting “ACES in the Bitterroot,’’ a day-long conference on identifying, preventing and alleviating the consequences of childhood abuse and neglect. Todd Garrison, director of the ChildWise Institute, will be the guest speaker at the Aug. 17 event, which also will feature the film “Paper Tiger.’’ The focus will be on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which has identified childhood trauma as a major public health issue. According to the...

Kids love the unstructured days of summer, but parents need to be sure children get moving during their summer holidays, a physical education expert says. "I always encourage students to keep active in the summer," Martin Wurmlinger, a physical education teacher at a Los Angeles middle school, said in a news release from the University of California, Los Angeles. "I stress just getting out and finding an activity that keeps them moving and raises heart rate levels," said Wurmlinger. He's...

[Photo by Thomas Hawk ] America is afraid. There is fear of daily new terror attacks here or abroad. There is growing fear of rampant domestic gun violence. Fear that this person or that is ruining the country. It is fear aimed outward: witness the pervasive discourse of threat at the recent Republican National Convention. It is fear aimed inward: witness our 2.2 million people behind bars, a highly disproportionate number of whom are people of color . If our country were a person, we would...

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down key portions of North Carolina’s strict 2013 voting law on Friday, delivering a stern rebuke to the state’s Republican General Assembly and Governor Pat McCrory. The three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia, unanimously concluded that the law was racially discriminatory, and it blocked a requirement that voters show photo identification to vote and restored same-day voter registration, a week of early voting, pre-registration for teenagers, and...

After two decades of trying tens of thousands of minors as adults every year, there’s little evidence the practice deters kids from committing crimes again, according to a new meta-analysis of previous studies. Instead, when researchers pooled data from different papers, they found young people who are transferred to adult courts have higher recidivism rates. Still, because the results of each of the studies varied so much, it’s hard to pin down what’s going on, write the authors of the...

[Photo by ϟ†Σ ] Abstract In the United States, exposure to media violence is becoming an inescapable component of children’s lives. With the rise in new technologies, such as tablets and new gaming platforms, children and adolescents increasingly are exposed to what is known as “virtual violence.” This form of violence is not experienced physically; rather, it is experienced in realistic ways via new technology and ever more intense and realistic games. The American Academy of Pediatrics...

Three out of four Texans report that a mental health issue affects someone they care about. Depression costs Texas employers $15.3 billion overall annually, including $10.9 billion for healthcare, $1.7 billion in absenteeism and $2.7 billion in lost productivity. Mental illness affects us all. Through an initiative called Okay to Say , the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in Dallas is working to bring people together to increase awareness of mental health issues and the effective...

What happened wasn’t your fault. ACE Overcomers assures people who take their course they didn’t deserve the trauma dealt them when they were children. Through no fault of their own, they must also deal with the effects of that trauma on their adult lives. People who’ve survived childhood trauma are often prone to sudden outbursts of rage or crying, and they can’t figure out how to stop it. Jamie Graham teaches an ACE Overcomers class each Thursday to show adults how to “regulate” their...

As physicians, we are often on the front lines of tragedies such as those in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas recently and in Florida in June. During these troubling times and two contentious national conventions, we are beginning to wonder what changes are in store for our profession and our patients. As first responders, we are intimately aware of what our patients endure after being victims of violence, after witnessing violence or struggling through the stressors of living in communities...

An issue brief from the Early Childhood-LINC Learning Lab on Community Approaches to Toxic Stress convened by the Center for the Study of Social Policy. This issue brief distills the experiences and recommendations of leaders from these six communities and from CSSP. It provides:  - A definition of toxic stress from a community perspective  - A framework for a comprehensive community approach to toxic stress, nested within the broader context of working toward healthy development and...

It's so nice to read about how some teachers are utilizing ACEs science and how movies like Paper Tigers are helping educate teachers about adversity, symptoms of trauma and ways to support kids in getting more regulated and less stressed. It sounds like a different framework is helping teachers and administrator too. I'm not surprised test scores are improving as well as behavior. I'm glad the behavior charts are getting tossed. “I’ve noticed that a lot of times we discipline them and tell...