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Like many parents, Camille Proctor went to her first support group for parents of children with autism to feel less alone. Her son Hunter had just been diagnosed, and Proctor had lots of questions. All of the other parents at the various support groups she went on to visit were white; Proctor is African American. When she asked questions about how she should teach her son to interact with police, given that the wrong response by a black boy or man could be deadly, she just got blank stares.

A n expert on the way trauma at home also hurts children in the classroom encouraged Vermont educators to build a coordinated program to help affected students. Lynn Dolce spoke recently about the growing problem of “ toxic stress ” before more than 250 school superintendents, special education directors, and state employees who work in education and health. A group of children in Montpelier. File photo by Jasper Craven/VTDigger “This is not a mental health issue, this is a public health...

It's clear that coming from more humble beginnings can make ordinary life tougher in a lot of ways, and now a new study suggests that the experience of poverty and adversity can also alter biological mechanisms related to brain function, giving rise to increased chances of developing depression. By analysing the brains of adolescents, researchers have found that those growing up in households with lower socioeconomic status accumulated greater amounts of a chemical tag on a gene linked to...

In 2015, the demand for rental apartments reached its highest level ever since the 1960s . The pinched access to mortgage credit after the Great Recession is one reason why. Another is that many Americans—especially the poor and people of color —haven’t felt the effects of the economic recovery, and may not be able to rustle up the funds for a down payment. A third reason is that Millennials, now the largest generation ever since the baby boomers , are especially loath to buy homes. The...

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health and Lifestyle report. Health experts say there is evidence that many white women in the United States are dying too soon. In other words, they are dying before the average age of death in society as a whole. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics studied death rates nationwide. The center found that life expectancy rates for every population group has either gone up or stayed unchanged. Every...

[Photo by Evan-Amos ] The Village of Newburgh Heights, outside Cleveland, is a working class community of about 2,500 residents. It's also home to the most progressive parental leave policy of any municipality in the nation. As of last week, full-time public employees will be eligible for six months of paid parental leave after the birth of a child. [For more of this story go to http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/479349640/small-ohio-town-passes-progressive-parental-leave-policy]

The next generation of senior citizens will be sicker and costlier to the health care system over the next 14 years than previous generations, according to a new report from the United Health Foundation . We're talking about you, baby boomers. The report looks at the current health status of people ages 50 to 64 and compares them to the same ages in 1999. The upshot? There will be about 55 percent more senior citizens who have diabetes than there are today, and about 25 percent more who are...

Check out the latest WI DHS TIC News and Notes for the week of May 23, 2016

My parenting was not ideal yesterday. I'd slept three hours the night before after a condo deal fall through days before closing. I don't know where we'll be living in a few weeks. The house we are in did sell. This is high stress. All day I was distracted, distraught and on the phone over 50 times with real estate people, the bank, attorneys, friends, town hall and rental places. Not fun. It felt like my heart was a pulled muscle I couldn't unclench. I cried a little but mostly felt an...

It was the first day of classes at an elementary school in Florida. In just a few moments, my first group of 4th graders would walk into my classroom. Feeling both excited and nervous, I knew I was ready to launch this new chapter in life as a teacher. As I welcomed my students, all 28 of them, I thought about how I would be the great teacher, the one who would inspire and challenge them. But the first hour passed, and hours turned into days and then weeks, and my idealistic vision of the...

Reader Emotionally Exhausted writes, I need advice on moving forward after a toxic and controlling relationship. While I know that the recent break up was in my best interest, reasoning that things are for the better outside of the relationship doesn’t seem to be mending the hurt. I met my now ex-boyfriend about a year ago and there was instant chemistry. He was clever and funny and we enjoyed many of the same activities. We are of similar ages and had similar backgrounds. He was emotionally...

Of the many surprising statistics about America’s money bail system, this one may be the most astounding: More than 60 percent of people in America’s overcrowded jails are there because they can’t afford to pay their bail amount . That works out to roughly 450,000 Americans in jail daily, and how long they stay there can vary with waiting times for trials potentially lasting months (or sometimes, years ). The American money-bail system, which has been around since 1789 , has ripple effect.