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One of the more memorable statements of Barack Obama’s presidency thus far has been his claim, in a high-profile December 2013 speech , that great and growing economic inequality is “the defining challenge of our time.” In making his case Obama appealed to the authority of a seemingly unlikely ally: Adam Smith, the purported founding father of laissez-faire capitalism, who is widely thought to have advocated unbridled greed and selfishness in the name of allowing the invisible hand of the...

The Clermont County Juvenile Detention Center will be providing trauma informed case management and services after being awarded $56,051 from the Ohio Department of Youth Services. The DYS awarded $1,628,804 in funding to 23 counties through the Detention Alternatives and Enhancements Initiative, which was created to keep juveniles from continuing down a path of crime, according to a press release from the DYS. “Implementation grants will help fund physical plant enhancements as well as...

No great universities exist in the world without a deep institutional commitment to academic freedom, free inquiry, and free expression. For the past 60 years, American research universities have been vigilant against external and internal attempts to limit or destroy these values. The First Amendment scholar Geoffrey Stone has noted that free expression, in one form or another, has been continually under attack on campuses for the past 100 years. Today, these core university values are...

Drugs, domestic violence and poor mental health are among the reasons few fostered children are successfully returned to their biological family, according to a leading charity chief. Matt Forde, head of service for NSPCC Scotland said such social problems, combined with neglect were leaving children at substantial risk of physical abuse and emotional harm. He was speaking at the launch of the first findings from a pioneering scheme which aims to give parents every chance to resolve the...

On a July night in 2011, 16-year-old Jose Ferran was shot in the shoulder. He spent only a few hours in the emergency department of the city's St. Christopher's Hospital for Children before doctors sent him home. His injury wasn't life threatening, and he'd heal with outpatient therapy. So he returned to the North Philadelphia neighborhood where he'd been shot, in an ongoing feud between rival "squads" of teenagers in his predominantly middle-class, Hispanic section of the city. Most...

Latest research from a national sample of almost 10,000 U.S. adolescents found psychological trauma, especially abuse and domestic violence before age 11, can increase the likelihood of experimentation with drugs in adolescence, independent of a history of mental illness. Results of the study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health are published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. This is the first study to document...

Medical students cram a lot of basic science and medicine into their first two years of training. But most learn next to nothing about the intricacies of the health care system they will soon enter. That's something the medical school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is trying to remedy. "Clinicians today have to graduate being great providers of individual care," says Dr. Lawrence Deyton, the senior associate dean who's spearheading the new curriculum. "But they also...

Nine-thousand feet up in the Colombian Andes, in the province of Boyacá, a little orange schoolhouse sits on a hillside dotted with flowers. Thirty-three students, ages 4 through 11, walk as much as an hour to get here from their families' farms. The students greet reporters in English — "Welcome! Welcome!" — and Spanish, with a song and a series of performances. In one, an 8-year-old in a green school uniform and a colorful feather mask recites a folk tale about a terrible, tobacco-smoking...

Nearly a year ago, pro-bono lawyers from Los Angeles-based Public Counsel made national headlines by launching a landmark class-action lawsuit against Compton Unified School District in federal court in Los Angeles, arguing that the district had failed to address issues of childhood trauma that prevented students from receiving a quality education. In September, a federal judge agreed with arguments filed on behalf of five students and three teachers in the school district and declared that...

Was Jesus’ ministry trauma-informed, part 2: recognizing the signs and symptoms of trauma There is a movement that is beginning to take shape across the country when it comes to ministry settings: becoming trauma-informed . The topic concerns churches that are interested in missional engagement with the culture because there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that if we can break the cycle of adversity in childhood we can help everyone experience “life to the full” as Jesus intended...

Gabriel was 16 when he came into contact with the child welfare system for the second time. He was minimally engaged in school, but he flew under school administrators’ radars because he was well liked and had no behavioral issues in the classroom. Records revealed that Gabriel was actually years behind his grade level, despite fairly steady attendance, but he had never been assessed for an Individualized Education Program or Section 504 accommodations. Gabriel hoped to enroll in an...

Out-of-school suspensions dropped 20 percent nationally in recent years, but students of color and students with disabilities are still more likely to face harsh discipline than their peers, according to new federal data . The Department of Education said Tuesday the drop in suspensions from the 2011-12 to 2013-14 school years shows more schools are finding alternative ways to address nonviolent student behavior. [For more of this story, written by Sarah Barr, go to ...