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This brief explores the practice of “kinship diversion,” in which children are placed with relatives as an alternative to foster care. Also referred to as informal or voluntary kinship care or safety plans, its use varies across the country. In this brief we present findings from an in-depth review of kinship diversion in one state. Interviews and focus groups revealed common themes among agency caseworkers, kinship caregivers, and court personnel around the reasons for using kinship...

Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this week. The officers were responding to an anonymous 911 caller, who said “a black male who was selling music [CDs] and wearing a red shirt [had] threatened him with a gun,” National Public Radio reports . The story garnered national attention, protests, and a Department of Justice investigation after a bystander’s video circulated, showing the officers seemingly pinning Sterling, then...

Politics are more polarized and acrimonious than ever. But one public health concern — the nation’s epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse — is uniting some unexpected bedfellows. There is Patrick Kennedy, former Democratic congressman from Rhode Island, who has since made a career of advocating for mental health treatment since leaving the House in 2011. And there is Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives and 2012 presidential candidate, who recently...

When Kelsey Sisavath enrolled as a freshman at Lincoln Alternative High School in Walla Walla, Washington, in the fall of 2012, her mother was struggling with drug addiction. Kelsey herself was using meth. The multiple traumas in her life included a sexual assault by a stranger at age 12. She was angry, depressed, and suicidal. Her traumatized brain had little room to focus on school. Today, much has changed in Kelsey’s life. She graduated from Lincoln this spring with a 4.0 GPA while also...

The Veterans Administration has issued a news release updating their knowledge base about Veteran suicide. [ LINK HERE ] While news about suicide is never good, I am heartened to read that the VA is developing "Predictive Modeling" for the purpose of identifying those Veterans who have a high risk of attempt. I explained the model I believe should be followed in place of the existing programs, but did not think of Predictive Modeling to describe it. We have a lot of data that we can use to...

At our country’s 240th birthday, I am reminded of our forefathers’ preamble to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” While history has uncovered the blatant shortcomings of this dictate, the rights to one’s liberty, or freedom, seem particularly important to highlight now. With nearly...

In 1852, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass asked an audience what the Fourth of July should mean to a population of enslaved African Americans. Forty-eight years later, still pondering the question of “independence” for the formerly enslaved, a group of black researchers attempted to quantify the answer in sociological terms. Among this study group was the noted scholar W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington , a man normally billed as Du Bois’ intellectual rival. Together, they worked...

Lois Thetford, a physician’s assistant in the UW’s MEDEX Northwest program, is currently developing a course for the UW’s Health Sciences program that focuses on homelessness. The two-credit class will be offered during winter 2017 and will feature input from staff members of the health sciences. The class will explore homelessness through various lenses, such as “homelessness and racism,” to give students a better understanding of the reality of homelessness for those that live it. Thetford...

Last night, with the developmental coping skills of a four year old, she:

I am writing to inquire about representation for a class action lawsuit or other suit structure related to trauma-informed policy and racial justice. I recognize you are not a "legal firm" and also recognize the connections you may have from the tireless work you do on behalf of people of African ancestry. While it may be most productive to discuss the strategy rather than read/write about it, I will briefly outline some of the theory here. Specifically, as an educational psychologist it is...

The persistency of state-sponsored and state-sanctioned violence against people of color in the United States is largely unrecognized, inquired about, or understood within the conventional and emerging trauma and trauma-informed fields. What systems can we look to when for safety, stabilization, or support when the harm and hurt we bear is their doing and being? This blog article was helpful for me as I try to make sense of and tend to my own and my communities' grief and terror. ...

Five-year-old Naja Tunney’s home is filled with books. Sometimes she will pull them from a bookshelf to read during meals. At bedtime, Naja reads to her 2-year-old sister, Hannah. “We have books anywhere you sit in the living room,” said their mother, Cheryl Tunney, who curls up with her girls on an oversized green chair to read stories. Naja and Hannah are beneficiaries of Reach Out and Read, an early intervention literacy program that collaborates with medical care providers to provide...