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[Some cute kids from UrbanPromise All Camp Day 2016...none of whom are Josiah!] I was just going to breeze in and out of CamdenForward School, our elementary grades at UrbanPromise, to fax something and grab my paycheck. Then the plan was to bury myself again in my mile long to-do list, the weight of which was interrupting my sleep with increasing frequency. But the fax machine is in the main office…and the main office has a picture window…and as I pressed buttons I heard, “Oh there’s Mrs.

Scientists, politicians, clinicians, police officers and medical workers agree on one thing: The U.S. mental health system needs a big fix. Too few people get the help they need for mental ailments and emotional turmoil that can destroy livelihoods and lives. A report in the October JAMA Internal Medicine, for instance, concludes that more than 70 percent of U.S. adults who experience depression don’t receive treatment for it. Much attention focuses on developing better psychiatric...

While questions over security and personal well-being have emerged in the wake of the Chemnitz explosives suspect Jafer Albakr's death, figures show that prisoner suicides happen far too often. In Germany, the phenomenon has witnessed a decline over the past 15 years, with 117 in 2000 dropping to 50 in 2013, reported a study by the country's suicide prevention program. However, Germany's suicide rate in prison remains higher than Europe's average, comprising 41 percent of all deaths in...

State officials, advocates and researchers are urging federal officials to tread carefully as they consider changes to how states demonstrate they are protecting juveniles in custody. They say that if the rules become too strict, cash-strapped states that find themselves out of compliance could abandon the federal program designed to help juveniles entirely. “This would inevitably lead to wider variances between and within states in terms of the efficacy, equity and efficiency of juvenile...

Responding to the overwhelming demand of funders in the Delaware Valley to better understand the impacts of trauma on our region and how they can apply trauma informed practices to their own work, Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey partnered to produce this hands-on resource that will help funders : Understand the science behind trauma, adverse childhood experiences,...

A new study adds to our knowledge of the profound and lasting impact child relationships have upon a range of adult experiences. The latter include our personality traits; the potential for positive, mutual engagement with others; or for emotional disturbance in many forms. This study, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , found that insecurity in childhood makes it harder to deal with stressful experiences when you’re an adult. You can see that, for example, in the fact that people...

Native American poverty doesn’t fit the image many may have of life on secluded, depleted reservations. Most Native Americans now live in cities , where many are still trying to adjust to urban life; as a group, Native Americans face a 27 percent poverty rate and are still trying to reverse some of the lasting effects of federal policies that have put them at a disadvantage for hundreds of years. The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 was the impetus for the relocation of the large number of...

People frequently consider going to therapy before they make a major life transition, such as getting married or changing careers. But what about when embarking on a monumental shift such as parenthood? Women, who are advised to exercise and watch what they eat while they are pregnant, don’t always think of psychotherapy as an important part of their prenatal care regimen, but it can be critical to the well-being of mother and baby, both during and after pregnancy. For many people, pregnancy...

Contrary to Donald Trump’s claims , the U.S. government isn’t neglecting its borders. It’s just the opposite: The U.S. is investing in them heavily, replacing border stations that used to be little more than shacks with facilities that are modern, secure, and welcoming. Border-control facilities took home two of the 2016 General Services Administration Design Awards, announced last month in Washington, D.C. The Mariposa Land Port of Entry (designed by Phoenix-based Jones Studio for Nogales,...

Rini Kramer-Carter has tried everything to pull herself out of her dark emotional hole: individual therapy, support groups, tai chi and numerous antidepressants. The 73-year-old musician rattles off the list: Prozac, Cymbalta, Lexapro. “I’ve been on a bunch,” she said. “I still cry all the time.” She has what’s known as “treatment-resistant depression.” It’s commonly defined as depression that doesn’t respond to two different medications when taken one after the other, at the right dose and...

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could feel perfectly happy every moment of your life? But there’s a word for animals that cannot feel anger, fear, and pain—extinct. Emotions have survival value. They may not make logical sense, but they’re an unavoidable part of life, and they’re part of being human. When someone has problems with anger, it’s often because they’re putting either too much or too little emphasis on it. Putting too much emphasis on anger compounds it. Too much emphasis...

Thousands of Houston police officers are set to get special training this year on how to respond to sexual assault cases . Acting police chief Martha Montalvo says that starting this year , all classified police officers will learn about the neurobiology of trauma. “The goal is to better equip police officers in recognizing and understanding the impact of trauma on victims,” Montalvo says. [For more of this story, written by Becky Fogel, go to ...