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When a child is acting out or not paying attention in school, it might not be because he or she is misbehaving. It might be because a parent was arrested the previous night. Teachers don't always know about the traumatic events a child experiences at home, but a new program being organized in Mercer County could give teachers notice when one of their students need to be handled with care. Andrea Darr, director of the West Virginia Center for Children's Justice spoke May 6 at Mercer County...

In the Resnick Education Wing 10 floors above the main stages of historic Carnegie Hall, a teenage girl named Breanni stood nervously in front of the crowd. She was chosen to kick off the Musical Connections concert this week, presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. JJIE New York Metro Bureau logoBut Breanni stood frozen before her peers and family members, well-dressed in black and white, her long hair styled in braids. She struggled to recite her poem, which would be the...

Over the past two years, I have converted my younger daughter into a country music fan. Since I drive her to school every day, this wasn’t hard to do because we follow this very simple rule: my car, my radio station! She is now a much bigger fan than I am. About a month ago, she really got excited and couldn’t wait to share with me a song that she had just heard for the first time. She was sure I would like it. As soon as she started playing it, I laughed out loud and completely shocked her...

When Chené Marshall got into a fight in high school, she assumed she might be suspended. Instead, the police arrested her. Then a 17-year-old junior with no criminal record, she did not realize that Louisiana was in the dwindling minority of states where all 17-year-olds are treated as adults by the criminal justice system. She was charged with battery, with bail set at $5,000. She was booked and clothed in a jumpsuit at the Orleans Parish Prison, a notoriously violent facility where she...

The doctors wanted to talk about illness, but the patients — often miners, waitresses, tree cutters and others whose jobs were punishingly physical — wanted to talk only about how much they hurt. They kept pleading for opioids like Vicodin and Percocet, the potent drugs that can help chronic pain, but that have fueled an epidemic of addiction and deadly overdoses. “We needed to talk about congestive heart failure or diabetes or out-of-control hypertension,” said Dr. Sarah Chouinard, the...

Unfortunately, not all kids have the same experiences growing up. While some have a comfortable, relatively happy home life, others have to deal with situations like poverty, violence, or death of others at a young age. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris was the first to bring the term “adverse childhood experience” or ACE into the mainstream with her September 2014 TED talk that has received over two million views. She describes how too many stressors (especially those invoked by parents) as a child...

The idea that America has far too many people behind bars has become bipartisan, conventional wisdom . But actually releasing prisoners early remains a scary prospect due to fears that crime rates will rise once they’re back in their local communities. A new study that examines the effects of a large-scale prisoner release in California suggests such fears are largely unfounded. It finds a court-mandated 2011 law that reduced the state’s prison population by 17 percent “had no effect on...

Social learning and analysis of cultural views on interpersonal violence have much to say about peer-to-peer bullying, vertical workplace microaggressions, and social horizontal violence. We generally agree that "microaggressions" are undesirable, yet some would suggest interpersonal aggressions are unavoidable. For some time professional development workshops and staff-focused social-emotional capacity training have focused on merely coping with microaggressions or assuming an assertive...

Do you know anyone you could partner with to take advantage of this opportunity to influence the training of children's mental health professionals and transdisciplinary professionals to understand and utilize ACES science in their work? If so, share this link and begin a conversation about how you can partner. The goal of the funding opportunity is to increase the numbers of adequately prepared behavioral health providers entering and continuing practice with at-risk children, adolescents,...

On Friday morning, the Obama administration issued a "Dear Colleagues" letter to the nation's school districts spelling out what they can do to safeguard the civil rights of students at K-12 schools and colleges, based on their gender identity. The administration argues that Title IX, which outlaws sex discrimination for any school receiving federal funding, covers gender identity. The letter does not change any existing laws, but provides what is called "significant guidance." It explains...

They say if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I wonder, then, why my toolbox often seems so inadequate for fixing my patients. I open one recent afternoon in clinic with a middle-aged man I’ve come to know well. He’s drunk. His breath smells of alcohol and he slurs his words. He tells me his brother’s in jail, his mother died, and he punched a neighbor who tried to steal his wallet. In the past year, he’s been admitted to the hospital countless times for everything from...

The Wisconsin DHS Trauma-Informed Care News and Notes for the week of May 9, 2016 has just been released! This collection is formally known as the WI TIC ListServ. Enjoy! Scott Webb, LCSW Trauma-Informed Care Coordinator Wisconsin Department of Health Services