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Every day at Weiner Elementary School starts with a dance party, usually to Best Day of My Life by American Authors — and that's before the 7:50 a.m. bell even rings. Then comes the morning assembly, where all 121 students and the staff gather for 20 minutes in the cafeteria of the school in Weiner, Ark. They sing songs and learn about an artist, a musician and an international city of the week. They celebrate birthdays. A lucky student is crowned Student of the Day. And Pam Hogue makes it...

On Nov. 8, California voters will consider Proposition 57 , a ballot initiative that would bring much-needed reform to the state’s juvenile and criminal justice systems. The measure, championed by youth justice advocates and Gov. Jerry Brown, is predicated on the values of rehabilitation and second chances. If passed, Proposition 57 will extend opportunities for parole consideration, invite a revision to the prison system’s earned credit scheme and place the decision to transfer youth to...

By age three, young children from lower-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than children from upper-income families. Research shows that these inequities during the preschool and kindergarten years largely persist throughout life. At this month’s Clinton Global Initiative America Meeting, The National Diaper Bank Network announced that it is thrilled to be teaming up with Too Small to Fail , a joint initiative of the Clinton Foundation and The Opportunity Institute, to provide...

A researcher from East Tennessee State University will investigate the effectiveness of TIC for reducing the effects of toxic stress among at-risk children and their caregivers. The project, “Building Strong Brains and Strong Families,” is funded by a $119,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Trauma-informed care (TIC) emphasizes compassion and incorporates the belief that every person has value and should be treated with dignity, as well as the understanding that...

Over 700 educators, parents, nonprofit leaders, retired corporate leaders, social workers and others gathered at Duke Convention Center Oct. 29 to brainstorm community solutions and public policy changes to shift the dynamic of child poverty in the city. Cincinnati has the sixth highest rate of child poverty in the nation with 33,069 children living in poverty (a household income below $19,073 for a family of three). "We're here to take personal responsibility for lifting 5,000 families,...

For nearly a century, the Canadian government took indigenous Canadians from their families and placed them in church-run boarding schools, forcibly assimilating them to Western culture. Children as young as 2 or 3 years old were taken from their homes, their language extinguished, their culture destroyed. With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting , photographer Daniella Zalcman has been documenting the lingering effects of this trauma for her book, Signs of Your Identity,...

Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing services were supposed to be a more egalitarian transportation option than a traditional cab service. There’s a mountain of data that shows how difficult and dangerous something as simple as finding a cab ride home can be, particularly for women and black people. Ride-hailing apps were expected to help fix that. But a new study finds some of the problems persist. The economists Yanbo Ge and Don MacKenzie, of the University of Washington, along with...

For the first time since LA Unified has collected such data, the number of incidents involving fights, suicidal behavior, bullying, drugs and other disruptions on campuses was higher at middle schools than at high schools. The district last week released the 2015-2016 iSTAR Annual Report, which stands for the Incident System Tracking Accountability Report. The report not only shows serious issues such as finding weapons or illegal drugs on students or staff, but also records accidents,...

Paternity leave can make a big difference in a dad's long-term engagement with the child, doctors find. Paid family leave also fosters breastfeeding and reduces the incidence of maternal depression. As part of All Things Considered's series Stretched: Working Parents' Juggling Act , NPR talked with Dr. Benard Dreyer , a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the New York University School of Medicine and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to get a better sense of what the...

Founded along the Merrimack River in the early 19 th century, Manchester, N.H., sprang from a utopian vision: create an industrial center to rival its English namesake, complete with sprawling, red-brick textile mills, workers’ quarters, schools, libraries, theaters and parks for all who lived and worked there. But as manufacturing sagged in the latter half of the 20 th century, the city lagged as well. Today, in a transformation that has spanned the past several decades, the city’s business...

Untold numbers of students go to school each day distracted, angry or highly anxious as a result of adverse experiences in their lives. Resilience Re-Set is a campaign to help communities understand why many of these students misbehave or disengage, and give adults resources to support students who live with toxic stress. Resilience Re-Set begins Nov. 1 and is led by KPJR Films in partnership with Childhood Abuse America, American Academy of Pediatrics, ACEsConnection and The California...

Once you see ACEs and trauma you find them everywhere.