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Emotions run wild during the teenage years, and there is no stopping that. For most, the highs and lows tend to balance out after a yearslong roller-coaster ride. But for a significant number of others, the suffering during those low periods can lead to full-blown depression. An estimated 11.4% of U.S. adolescents, or about 2.8 million people, had at least one “major depressive episode” in a 12-month period, according to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The report, prepared...

Sanctuary is a place of refuge or safety. In urban neighborhoods all throughout America, sanctuary is a luxury almost beyond attainment. But Michael O'Bryan is working to bring that sense of sanctuary to the North Philadelphia community of Strawberry Mansion. The Sanctuary Model originated in Philadelphia in the early 1980s. It promotes safety and recovery from adversity through the active creation of a trauma-informed community. Crucial to this program is the understanding that trauma is a...

Michael Salzman (2005) in his article entitled, “Contextualizing the Symptom in Multicultural Consultation; Anger in a Cultural- Historical Context” discusses how anger has become a major focus of counseling services in school settings. Based at the University of Hawaii, Salzman shares through his research on Native Hawaiians how colonization, disempowerment, cultural oppression and the process of political and psychological decolonization have helped generate an atmosphere that seeds the...

****Hanna Teklu speaks at August, 2015 School to Prison Pipeline event**** This NPR story describes how Together We Bake has helped women who have been imprisoned gain invaluable work experience and regain lost independence. I met one of those women, Hanna Teklu, when she told her story at a forum on dismantling the school to prison pipeline last August at the University of the District of Columbia David E. Clark School of Law, sponsored by the DC Trauma-Informed Initiative and ACEs...

Students in Claire Foote's music class at Jesse S. Bobo Elementary School smiled brightly as they worked together using tissue boxes to choreograph a song about sneezing. Down the hall, teacher Jessica Barwick led groups of fifth-grade students in a classroom Lego building project. At Jesse S. Bobo Elementary, teachers and students are encouraged to model positive behaviors as a way to reinforce kindness and respect toward others. “We're being proactive and we're talking to students about...

Jordin Purcell-Riess has worked as a registered nurse at the emergency department at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn., for three years. She describes her workplace as phones going off, voices everywhere, every room full. "You look around and the hallways are full of patients on stretchers; you walk out to the waiting room and you can see on our board that there's 15 people signing in," she says. "The second you can get your ICU patient upstairs, there's another one waiting for you."...

An obese woman comes into a doctor’s office, and the doctor thinks he is helping her address her problem by putting her on a diet. She loses 150 pounds, but then quickly regains the weight. Confused by this outcome, the doctor delves deeper and learns this patient was molested as a child. She ate food to feel better, then discovered that obesity reduced sexual notice, providing her with a sense of protection. Sometimes, what presents as the problem may in fact be somebody’s attempt at a...

[Photo by Alberto Abouganem Stephens ] April is “Alcohol Awareness Month.” On the surface this appears to be about alcohol, its use and abuse, it implies that we need to learn more about why a person might drink alcoholically or, by extension use other substances to their detriment. But there is a much larger story here. It’s the story of all of those mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins who care about and are concerned about this person who is abusing alcohol. And...

Center for Child Counseling (CfCC) has received a $200,000 grant from Quantum Foundation to expand services in Palm Beach County for families and caregivers struggling with “toxic stress” from Adverse Childhood Experiences in children. Palm Beach Gardens, FL (PRWEB) April 14, 2016 Center for Child Counseling has received a two-year grant from Quantum Foundation, the largest health funder in Palm Beach County, to support their "Fighting ACEs" initiative, a trauma-informed model based on...

MacArthur today announced nearly $25 million in support for ambitious plans to create fairer, more effective local justice systems across the country. The Foundation is awarding 11 jurisdictions grants between $1.5M and $3.5M over two years to reduce their jail populations and address racial and ethnic disparities in their justice systems. An additional nine jurisdictions will be given $150,000 grants to continue their reform work and to participate in a growing, collaborative network of...

When Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced his OneNYC plan to preserve the city’s future on Earth Day last year, he delivered the news from the South Bronx community of Hunts Point. Standing with him was Kellie Terry, the then-executive director of The Point , a Hunts Point-based grassroots organization focused on economic development and environmental justice. Given that the South Bronx is one of the poorest areas in the nation , de Blasio’s venue choice appeared to signal that OneNYC would focus...

Are we teaching our kids to feel? It’s a question posed by countless education pioneers, many of whom took issue with the rigid conformity of No Child Left Behind (and found at least some subsequent relief through the new Every Student Succeeds Act). And as study after study proves, Americans don’t fare too well in social-emotional competency; the need for early childhood education is becoming increasingly more apparent. For more, Pacific Standard spoke with Joan Cole Duffell, executive...