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Oprah Winfrey’s book, “ What I Know For Sure ,” comes to my mind often when I look at what life has presented me with and what I face each day. I often ask myself what do I know for sure about girls involved in our juvenile justice system. What I know is that our girls today are scared and often lack the guidance of a caring adult. It is my experience that many girls who come into contact with the juvenile justice system have experienced some form of trauma, mental health...

Monserrat Zarza was 15 years old when she was assigned to a group home, only six months after entering the Los Angeles County foster care system. Group homes provide a placement option for hard-to-place children “with significant emotional or behavioral problems,” according to the state of California. Being in an environment with several dozen other troubled kids was not what Zarza expected when she gathered the courage to pick up her phone and ask for help after a decade of...

The Community & Family Services Division at the Spokane (WA) Regional Health District has come through again, with a Spanish version of the parent handout (in English) that we posted last year , and which has been downloaded thousands of times. The English versions came about whiledoing a story about the trauma-in formed elementary schools in Spokane, WA .I interviewedp ublic health nurse Melissa Charbonneau who said that she'd been giving an...

Photo by Kim Seng A study showing that women veterans commit suicide at six times the rate of civilian women has prompted U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and colleagues to propose legislation requiring the VA to develop gender-specific suicide prevention programs. The “Female Veterans Suicide Prevention Act” would expand the Department of Veterans Affairs’ annual evaluation of mental health and suicide-prevention programs to include data specific to female veterans.

Hung above social worker Patrick Duganz’s desk in the Gallatin County Health Department is a quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead, to the effect of how teaching men to be good fathers represents “the supreme test of any civilization.” By that standard, his job — as the department’s “dad liaison,” or, technically, “father engagement specialist” — is among the most important in town. “We know we get the best outcomes if...

Key learning points: – The Antenatal-Postnatal Promotional Guides promote early infant development and early parenting – Practitioners use these materials to structure and facilitate personalised ‘guided conversations’ with parents that explore key topics and priorities during pregnancy and early infancy – The guides help parents and practitioners make accurate, well-informed decisions about families’ needs at a crucial time of life...

There have been a number of useful entries in the weeks since Senator Bernie Sanders declared himself against reparations. Perhaps the most clarifying comes from Cedric Johnson in a piece entitled, “ An Open Letter To Ta-Nehisi Coates And The Liberals Who Love Him. ” Johnson’s essay offers those of us interested in the problem of white supremacy and the question of economic class the chance to tease out how, and where, these two problems intersect. In Johnson’s...

Over the past 35 years, with the exception of a few golden years in the late 1990s, the wages of low- and middle-income American workers have taken a beating. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute highlights an often-overlooked consequence of this trend: Low-income workers are increasingly reliant on government assistance to get by. "Arguably the largest economic challenge facing the United States right now is the problem of wage stagnation," says David Cooper , the report's...

The number of women selling sex along Fourth Street’s string of dilapidated motels here used to be so high that fights broke out among pimps over who controlled each block. As the city tries to fix its image as a poor-man’s Vegas and technology makes it easier to buy and sell sex online, much of the local sex market has gone underground. The shift hasn’t diminished prostitution, but it has made it harder for law enforcement and victim advocates to address. “Online...

If the current election cycle hasn't convinced you that racism has yet to be eradicated, consider this: The mere image of a black man is enough to stimulate an   automatic threat response in whites. Research has found faces of African-American males are more likely to be perceived as angry , and can trigger neural activity associated with rapid detection of danger. While even pre-teens can stimulate this reaction (which helps explain the tragic shooting of a 12 year old holding...

Legislation follows Center investigation of harsh punishments directed at even middle-schoolers Virginia legislators are debating bills this week that would limit the role of school cops and prohibit charging K-12 students with “disorderly conduct” — a reaction to Center stories on unusually aggressive school policing there. Among the reform proposals: a measure that would release school administrators from state code requirements that they report a range of incidents to...

In late 2011, as Chelsea Manning awaited trial at the military corrections complex at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, she received a book from an anonymous sender called “Captive Genders,” an anthology of writings about the impact of the carceral system on queer and trans people. Two years later, on August 22, 2013—the day after she was found guilty of multiple charges related to her leaking of classified government documents, and sentenced to thirty-five years in...