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Full of historic suburban towns on Boston’s outskirts, Essex County, Massachusetts, does not look sick on paper . It is not plagued by obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. Folks get a fair amount of exercise. Most are insured. Judging by social factors that influence health, it should actually be in better-than-average shape: Nearly 38 percent of the population iscollege-educated. Only 11 percent live in poverty. Yet all is not well in Essex County . Drugs are claiming lives at a growing...

LaVonte Stewart was a Little League coach between jobs. Sister Tesa Fitzgerald was a nun with a long career in Catholic education. Chelina Odbert and her five friends were students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Tara Libert and Kelli Taylor were TV journalists. Kate Barnhart was running a shelter for LGBT youth. Each was doing something else when they felt a calling to start a civic organization that changed not only their lives, but also many others’. In the process, they...

Editors Note: In the first of two articles based on a new report by EdSource titled “Early Learning Time: Accessing Full Day Preschool and Kindergarten in California,” we examine the state’s progress in providing full-day preschool and the current financial disincentives to offering a full-day program built into the way California funds these programs. In part two, we will look at full-day kindergarten. Despite continuing efforts to expand learning time for young children, large numbers of...

Georgi, a Russian refugee who came to Sweden with his family when he was five years old, could talk at length about the virtues of the Volvo. His doctor described him as “the most ‘Swedeified’ in his family.” He was also one of the most popular boys in his class. For his thirteenth birthday, two friends listed some of the qualities that he evoked: energetic, fun, happy all the time, good human being, amazingly kind, awesome at soccer, sly. Georgi’s father, Soslan, had helped found a pacifist...

Young children are exposed to violence, abuse, and other forms of trauma and adversity at alarming rates. One national study found that 44% of all children aged 2-5 had experienced at least one potentially traumatic event. 1 In Connecticut, 49% of all child abuse and neglect victims are under age 6, slightly higher than the national rate. 2 It is estimated that more than 95,000 children under six in Connecticut have experienced trauma. Although Connecticut has made significant progress in...

Vonya Quarles grew up in South Los Angeles and describes herself as a third-generation convicted felon. But by the time she took the microphone at a Highland town hall meeting in January 2016, she was a lawyer and executive director of a Riverside County nonprofit that helps connect the homeless, formerly incarcerated and mentally ill to transitional housing. [For more of this story, written by Jazmine Ulloa, go to ...

Charles Clayton Daniels Jr. was a "love child," he says, and his father dropped by randomly when he was a little boy. “Man, it was some of the happiest moments of my life,” he recalls. “I would literally wait by the door and when I saw his blue pickup truck arrive, I would be so happy I’d try to hug him before he came into the house.” But those drop-ins became less and less frequent. And when Charles Jr. was 10, his father stopped coming. Flash forward a decade. Daniels is in college --...

A bill makings its way through the Colorado Legislature would create a task force to support child-welfare caseworkers in Colorado — especially in the area of mental health. Caseworkers face numerous challenges in their work, and child-welfare departments see high rates of burnout and turnover. Nationwide, most caseworkers don’t stay on the job more than two years. In January last year, Westword explored the child-welfare workforce in Colorado in a feature story , finding that workers often...

Early adversity and trauma – also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – have significant health effects that carry forward throughout life. ACEs, which include childhood abuse, neglect and household dysfunction, can disrupt the growing bodies and brains of children, leading to a higher risk of disease, disability, risky health behaviours and social problems later in life. During my clinical training I have found myself wondering: how might the health issues of patients I have met...

Parenting Through the Storm: Find Help, Hope, and Strength When Your Child Has Psychological Problems , is written by Ann Douglas. The author, a member of this group and network , has a warm, open and honest tone. She's a parent and gets that parents and kids are sometimes or even often scared, struggling and in crisis. She knows. She writes about the time she almost lost her daughter, thirteen at the time, to death by suicide and they spent the night in intensive care. Her daughter was...

Local, regional, and national speakers will focus on evidence-based practices that prevent and address the intergenerational transmission of ACEs. Multiple breakout sessions will encourage and promote interprofessional networking. Now accepting abstracts for presenters through May 5, 2017 at 5:00 pm Click HERE to visit Conference Website & get info on abstract submission! Attendees will return home with tools and ideas for addressing ACEs and building resilience within their own...

Please take a moment to vote for the Hopeworks Youth Healing Team, bringing trauma informed education to Camden! The Scattergood National Innovation Award has our Camden youth against professional researchers and institutions! Voting closes at the end of this week. You know how hard our young people work! Please vote for the Hopeworks Youth Healing Team at https://innovationaward. secure-platform.com/a/gallery? roundId=1079 Our youth are one of 5 finalists for a prestigious national award.