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In Tornillo, Texas, in rows of pale yellow tents, some 1,600 children who were forcefully taken from their families sleep in lined-up bunks, boys separated from the girls. The children, who are between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, have limited access to legal services. They are not schooled. They are given workbooks but they are not obliged to complete them. The tent city in Tornillo is unregulated, except for guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services. Physical...

Recently Unstoppable, a Planned Parenthood initiative that promotes full equality for women and LGBTQ people, released a new animated film by Alexa Lim Haas that brings to life the fundamental belief that your body is your own. Everyday, I is an animated exploration of the ways the trauma and threat of sexualized violence infiltrate the everyday routines of various women. It focuses not on the offenders’ actions, but instead on the longterm reverberations their acts have on their victims'...

VANCOUVER—A local therapist says reframing our cultural understanding of how trauma works is fundamental to creating institutional and personal strategies for healing that truly work. While there is a growing awareness in Canadian workplaces and communities about the prevalence of trauma in both personal and occupational contexts, a nuanced understanding of healing is still in the early stages, says Barbara Allyn, a certified trauma therapist and crisis intervention worker based in...

Penn State Scranton assistant professors of psychology Karin Machluf and P. Douglas Sellers II, along with their colleague, Christopher Aults from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, have found in a study that heart rate reactivity is a biological moderator between peer victimization (bullying) and internalizing problems (anxiety/depression) in adolescent girls. The researchers' paper, titled "Adolescent Girls' Biological Sensitivity to Context: Heart Rate Reactivity Moderates the Relationship...

Quite apart from the known links between knife crime and deprivation and male gender, there seem to be distinct temporal and geographical patterns by age group among young stab victims, indicate the findings. The frequency of stabbings spikes between 1600 and 1800 hours, attributable to incidents occurring on school days, the findings show. And nearly half of injuries (47%) in this age group occurred 1-5 km from home, reflecting the average distance from home to school for children living in...

This issue of the Community Development Innovation Review is dedicated to the topic of mental health and community development. It advances the healthy communities conversation by explicitly recognizing the relationship between mental health and physical health as well as the role social factors play in both aspects of overall wellbeing. As the World Health Organization (WHO) says, “There is no health without mental health.” As the articles in this issue of the Review reveal, there are...

Several months ago, Kendrea Todt, a nurse educator from Tennessee, responded to a post that I wrote on Twitter. It was about an article documenting the 26,000 school-aged children who have died by gun violence since 1999. Kendrea had a vision for a public awareness campaign that would use art as a form of social activism to represent the forced absences left from gun violence. Her vision included brightly colored children’s desks to represent those lost to gun violence. Here is Kendrea’s...

The 3rd Annual Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference: Promoting Equitable Access to High Quality Services for Vulnerable Children and Families , will be held on Thomas Jefferson University's East Falls Philadelphia Campus July 29 th -August 1st, 2019 . This unique training conference will provide an intensive, collaborative, and engaging experience to providers, educators, and leaders across health, education, and social service disciplines, as well as to community members invested in...

Children who suffer abuse are more likely to age faster, while those who endure food insecurity or neglect may develop more slowly, according to new research led by the University of Washington. Violence, psychological or emotional abuse, deprivation and neglect — adverse childhood experiences — can affect both epigenetic, or cellular, aging and biological development, the study finds. The new study links violence exposure in childhood with accelerated aging, and demonstrates that different...

Climbing the shallow gray stone steps leading to the borderlands of justice in Las Cruces, New Mexico , you see something in the arid morning sun gleaming between the glass. It looks like a miniature Washington Monument on the first landing of the 10th district federal courthouse. Closer inspection reveals it represents a border crossing marker, half white Italian marble and half Mexican honey onyx, the union of two places where cultures flow as one not far from the Rio Grande. Up above on...

GLASGOW, Scotland — Jonathan has scars from his former life. Jagged scars on his neck and the back of his head. He has a history of drug abuse and assault. Some of the punches he threw landed on police officers. But today his scars are partly covered by a bright pink shirt and black apron. He leans across a gleaming counter to hand over a chicken wrap and fries. “Sea salt or chili salt?” he asks a customer, with an affable grin. Jonathan, 28, works at Street and Arrow, a cafe in a 31-foot...

SUCCESS! RESULTS! Here's a testimonial from a preschool teacher who reinforces the Superkid Power skills I teach to a classroom of 3 and 4 year olds. "Two very active little boys were playing in the dramatic play area. Both saw a police officer uniform that they wanted to wear. We have been working on social dialogue throughout the month so one little boy responded with "Can I have it when you are done?" The other little boy responded with "Yes." Thinking that he was able to play with it...