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By Susan Kellam, The Baltimore Sun, September 12, 2019 My first true love lived down the hall. On hands and knees, I would crawl into his room. “Where Baba?” — my very first words. In a home tattered by divorce and bitterness, I endured the strife glued to my older brother Robert. He was the one most likely to succeed. I was the one most likely to do foolish things, fall in love with the wrong men and leap headlong after college into New York City without a job or a place to stay. Determined...

By Mark A Bellis, Karen Hughes, Kat Ford, et al., The Lancet, September 3, 2019 Background: An increasing number of studies are identifying associations between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and ill health throughout the life course. We aimed to calculate the proportions of major risk factors for and causes of ill health that are attributable to one or multiple types of ACE and the associated financial costs. Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched for...

By Dana G. Smith, California Health Care Foundation, August 1, 2019 When babies are born dependent on opioids, typically they are whisked away from their mothers, put into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), dosed with morphine to get them through withdrawal, and gradually weaned off the drug—a process that can take weeks. Research now suggests that this long-established standard of care may be the worst way to care for a newborn with opioid dependency, or neonatal abstinence syndrome...

By Christina Bethell, Jennifer Jones, Narangerel Gombojav, et al., JAMA Pediatrics, September 9, 2019 Question : Are positive childhood experiences (PCEs) associated with adult depression and/or poor mental health (D/PMH) and adult-reported social and emotional support (ARSES) independent from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)? Findings : In this cross-sectional study, adults reporting higher PCEs had lower odds of D/PMH and greater ARSES after accounting for ACEs. The associations of...

This nonprofit focuses on a mediation intervention based on healing attachment issues. I found the resources plentiful, and I highly recommend their podcast. Mettagroup

By April Dembosky, KQED, September 14, 2019 On her 21st birthday, Keris Myrick was in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. She was throwing boxes of Cheerios on the ground, yelling back at the voices in her head. Food is poison, they told her. If you eat you will die. “So I actually stopped eating for about four months,” Myrick said. “I just told my mother it was stomach pains.” It took years before Myrick admitted the problem was not in her stomach, but in her head. She was eventually...

By Alliance for a Healthier Generation, September 16, 2019 Congratulations to the 2019 winners of America’s #HealthiestSchools! Keep up the great work! See which schools made @HealthierGen’s list: HealthiestSchools.org  [ Please click here for more information .]

Roberto Rodriquez, M.A., has over twelve years of experience in the treatment of substance use disorder. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor. He has worked in intensive outpatient settings and residential settings, providing transformative experiences for adolescents, men, couples, and families. Rob currently works with Family Recovery Resource Experts in Saint Paul, MN, where they specialize in trauma-informed intensive family workshops.

By Juli Fraga, National Public Radio, September 8, 2019 "Before I became a dad, the thought of struggling to soothe my crying baby terrified me," says Yaka Oyo, 37, a new father who lives in New York City. Like many first-time parents, Oyo worried he would misread his newborn baby's cues. "I pictured myself pleading with my baby saying, 'What do you want?' " Oyo's anxieties are common to many first-time mothers and fathers. One reason parents-to-be sign up for prenatal classes is to have...

By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, September 13, 2019 An estimated 10 million US children have parents who are currently locked up, or who have previously been incarcerated. A bill currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, SB 394, seeks to reduce the number of parents and children separated by incarceration by boosting diversion. Children arguably suffer the worst consequences of mass incarceration. In 2014, a UC Irvine study found that having a parent behind bars can be more damaging to a kid’s...

By Kaylee Domzalski, Oregon Public Broadcasting, September 14, 2019 Josh Cocker stood among a group of Grand Ronde tribal members and asked for someone to take a healthy risk. Cocker and his co-facilitator, Shalene Joseph, had spent the last two days in a community gymnasium in Grand Ronde, Oregon, leading group exercises meant to start the healing process and deepen the community’s understanding of belonging, interdependency and generosity. On the third day, they introduced the rope...

By ACEs Connection, September 16, 2019 You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming toward us and why prevention is the only realistic solution; the framework for prevention we call...