Blog

By Cecily Sailer, Resolve Magazine, June 2, 2021 On a chilly spring morning in Philadelphia, Michelle Simmons unlocks the door to the building she owns on Chelten Avenue, not far from her old middle school. She owns three buildings in Germantown, actually. More accurately, her nonprofit owns them. But Simmons and her organization, Why Not Prosper , are basically synonymous. Once inside the building, she moves quickly, flipping light switches, sorting paperwork, stuffing goodie bags, talking...

By Martha Bebinger, National Public Radio, June 23, 2021 One evening in late March, a mom called 911. Her daughter, she said, was threatening to kill herself. EMTs arrived at the home north of Boston, helped calm the 13-year-old, and took her to an emergency room. Melinda, like a growing number of children during the pandemic, had become increasingly anxious and depressed as she spent more time away from in-person contact at school, church and her singing lessons. NPR has agreed to use only...

Trauma Informed Care Practioners, Dr. Warren Larkin of the United Kingdom and Becky Haas of the United States are teaming up to host a second global conversation on the implementation of ACEs science on August 16 from 12-1:30 p.m. (EDT). Session two will feature Mathew Portell, Principal of Fall Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee. Mathew Portell has dedicated a decade and a half to education in his role as a teacher, instructional coach, teacher mentor, and school...

By Emma Ockerman, Vice, June 23, 2021 After a Florida teacher mistook a third grader’s drawing of a person hugging a rocket for male genitalia, police seized the child for an involuntary psychiatric examination and threw her into the back of a squad car, according to a new federal lawsuit. A group of parents and advocates filed the complaint against the School Board of Palm Beach County and local officials Tuesday. What happened to the third-grader, who was 8 years old at the time of the...

By Anne Brice, Greater Good Magazine, June 18, 2021 Emiliana Simon-Thomas is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she co-teaches The Science of Happiness , a free, eight-week online course that “explores the roots of a happy, meaningful life.” She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from UC Berkeley in 2004, studying how emotional and cognitive processes interact to shape behavior and brain activity. In the interview below, Simon-Thomas talks about how humans are a...

By Jim Rendon, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 1, 2021 A wide array of grant makers have signed an open letter calling for foundations and wealthy donors who do not already have relationships with grassroots groups to direct more of their racial-justice giving to funds with close ties to communities of color rather than only trying to support grassroots racial-justice groups themselves. The past year has brought vast attention to organizations led by people from marginalized groups, and...

By Brandon Tensley, CNN Politics, July 1, 2021 "They're shooting at us. They're supposed to shoot BLM, but they're shooting the patriots." That was one of the Trump-supporting insurrectionists who laid siege to the US Capitol on January 6 in a deadly attempt to overturn the election that secured the White House for Joe Biden. She was expressing a sentiment that many Trumpists share: that the US belongs to Donald Trump (who at the time of the Capitol riot was still in the White House) and his...

By Dwayne Curry, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, June 16, 2021 My wife and I have been married since 2019, but we’ve known each other since we were 14-year-olds. We are raising a blended family. She has a daughter who is 9 and a 7-year-old son. I have a son who is 8, and together we have a 2-year-old son. The pandemic has profoundly shaped my parenting experience in numerous ways. I had to transform my house into a combined virtual school, daycare, and work setting. The last year has...

By Jim Krajewski, Reno Gazette Journal, June 24, 2021 Ku Stevens will not let history be forgotten. Stevens’ determination is already known. He was the lone runner on the Yerington cross country team this spring . In track, he posted the second fastest time in the state in the 1600-meter (4:23.16) and in the 3200 (9:47.26). Later this summer, Stevens, who will be a senior at Yerington, will retrace his great-grandfather's journey in escaping from the Stewart Indian School outside of Carson...

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN, June 28, 2021 Physical punishment does not appear to improve a child's positive behavior or social competence over time, according to a review of 69 studies from the US, Canada, China, Colombia, Greece, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The review, published Monday in the journal Lancet , found physical punishment such as spanking is "harmful to children's development and well-being," said senior author Elizabeth Gershoff, a professor in human...

By Guest Author, 7/1/2021, positiveexperience.org/blog Please introduce yourself and your work to our blog readers. I am a health policy researcher whose work examines health disparities among rural and other vulnerable populations, with a primary focus on children. I am an assistant professor in the Arnold School of Public Health’s Department of Health Services Policy and Management at the University of South Carolina and deputy director of the Rural and Minority Health Research Center . My...

To help our community better understand anxiety, learn three things to remember when it comes to what’s going on inside an anxious mind.