Reports, Research & Policy

Launched in 2015 by the Osborne Association’s New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents (NYCIP), See Us, Support Us (SUSU) raises awareness and increases support for children of incarcerated parents. SUSU is a year-round effort with national partners, culminating in a month of action in October. This October, the campaign focused on supporting children’s educational success and wellbeing from early childhood through college. Learn how one amazing program in North Carolina (Our...

By Taylor Walker, Photo: WitnessLA, Center for Health Journalism, December 2, 2021 In April 2020, I read a brief report on Los Angeles County’s efforts to reduce incarceration among vulnerable groups — including people with mental health diagnoses and unhoused individuals — through diversion programs. The report from LA’s Office of Diversion and Reentry (ODR) revealed that, as of March 2020, the Maternal Health Diversion Program had removed 137 pregnant people from the county’s main women’s...

By Matt Barnum, Photo: Youngrae Kim, Chalkbeat, November 15, 2021 Earlier this year, Congress decided to try a remarkably straightforward approach to reduce child poverty: give their families more money. As part of the Biden-backed American Rescue Plan, Congress expanded the child tax credit, which provides cash benefits to most households with children, including some of the country’s poorest families. The IRS has been distributing that money monthly since July. How well has it worked?

By Soo Youn, Illustration: Washington Post/iStock, November 10, 2021 Tuesday was the first day in more than a month that Eileen Funke, 43, had both of her children in school and was feeling well enough herself to get anything done. A Slinky of sickness had uncoiled between her 7-year-old daughter, her 3-year-old son and herself with the colds that have been circulating through her kids’ two schools in Santa Monica, Calif. But things were looking up: Her daughter had just gotten her first...

New Study: Evolved Nest Experience In Childhood Buffers The Negative Effects Of ACEs

This article was initially published in RACmonitor and appears with the publisher’s permission The country’s smallest hospitals continue to be in peril, as are the patients who rely on them. This issue continues to be the reality for rural health with major challenges for the patients and providers in those regions. 7.4% of babies born in the US are birthed at hospitals handling 10 to 500 births a year, or “low-volume” hospitals. In the context of our industry’s fiscal focus, that number...

By Tyler Kingkade and Mike Hixenbaugh, Illustration: Eleni Kalorkoti/NBC News, NBC News, November 16, 2021 At a September school board meeting in Southlake, Texas, a parent named Tara Eddins strode to the lectern during the public comment period and demanded to know why the Carroll Independent School District was paying counselors “at $90K a pop” to give students lessons on suicide prevention. “At Carroll ISD, you are actually advertising suicide,” Eddins said , arguing that many parents in...

By Alexandra Villarreal, The Guardian, November 13, 2021 Even after Malik Johnson turned four years old, he would scream, trying desperately to communicate despite his speech delay. His mother, Jennifer Emelogu, a former English teacher, knew he wouldn’t be ready for kindergarten. So Emelogu transferred Malik from his daycare to Pre-K 4 SA, San Antonio’s grassroots model for high-quality early childhood education. Funded through a ⅛-cent local sales tax , the program has become a point of...

By Katie Schoenhoff and David Jordan, Kansas Reflector, November 9, 2021 A child’s earliest years have a lifelong impact. Nearly 80% of brain development occurs by age 3. Having a healthy start affects health, educational attainment and earnings throughout a person’s life. Toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) also have a major influence on a child’s overall development, affecting school readiness, student success, physical and mental health, and other factors, including the...

Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being used in this area...

By Darcia F. Narvaez, Psychology Today, November 7, 2021 A ten-year longitudinal study conducted by our lab at the University of Notre Dame has been examining the the human species’ developmental system for raising the young, what we call the evolved nest (evolved developmental niche; EDN). Most of the components of the EDN have mammalian roots more than 75 million years old. They helped our ancestors adapt (survive, thrive and reproduce, over generations outcompeting rivals without the...

By Darby Saxbe and Sofia Cardenas, The New York Times, November 8, 2021 After President Biden left paid family leave out of his Build Back Better Act last month, a familiar marshaling of forces took place. Women’s groups and female leaders protested. Senator Patty Murray of Washington said Democrats should not “tell all the women in this country that they can’t have paid leave.” Democratic leaders, well aware that women are the base of the party, have restored four weeks of family leave, at...