By Mike Leach, The Imprint, Image: Unsplash via Crowdstack , February 17, 2025 When child welfare systems are scrutinized in the wake of lawsuits and investigations, the path to reform is often dictated by measurable outcomes such as caseload sizes, placement stability, health visits and timely permanency for children. These metrics are, without question, critical indicators of a system’s performance. But the fixation on quantifiable results often neglects a crucial, intangible factor: the...

Kennia Camacho, host of the radio show Crisis Communicator, outside the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory in Los Angeles. Photos by Isabel Avila. From a small station in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights, 18-year-old Kennia Camacho talks with teens about anxiety, stress and depression. We should listen. By George B. Sánchez-Tello, Capital & Main, Photo: Isabel Avila , February 17, 2025 At the 30-minute mark of her weekly radio show, Kennia Camacho strings together a list of events that are...

Anti-abortion activists rallying in front of the Supreme Court in 2022. Credit... Shawn Thew/EPA, via Shutterstock *Editor's note: The full article is behind a paywall. However, certain publications allow a limited number of articles to be viewed per month. Thank you. The findings showed the highest mortality occurred among infants who were Black, lived in Southern states or had fetal birth defects. By Pam Belluck, The New York Times, Image: Shawn Thew/EPA via Shutterstock , February 13,...

How a therapy called CBITS helps children who have experienced trauma By Molly Hagan, Child Mind Institute, Image: Unsplash via Crowdstack , February 7, 2025 Research shows that childhood exposure to trauma is far more common than one might think, with two-thirds of kids having had at least one adverse experience and more than 1 in 5 having had three or more. Living through an upsetting event can feel isolating — even when that event is shared, like a school shooting or a wildfire. (Because...

By The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Image: screenshot from article , February 5, 2025 A new report iden­ti­fies proven and promis­ing approach­es for expand­ing access that teens and young adults have to the pub­lic safe­ty net pro­grams for which they qual­i­fy. Fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, the Urban Insti­tute report, Strate­gies to Sup­port Young People’s Access to Pub­lic Ben­e­fits , ana­lyzes exist­ing evi­dence for what works to increase eli­gi­ble young people’s access...

By Dennis Nealon, Harvard Medical School, Image: Benjavisa/Getty Images , February 10, 2025 What research has gleaned about the most elusive of human experiences Love has been the source of ceaseless fascination since antiquity. Artists have tried to capture its beauty and darkness in books, paintings, and songs. Behavioral scientists have explored love as a social ritual, psychologists have studied its pathological manifestations, and evolutionary biologists have sought to define it as a...

"I notice the leaf looks like a 3 headed lizard. I wonder what tree my leaf is from. The leaf reminds me of bacteria." By Rob Wade, Greater Good Magazine, Image: from article , February 11, 2025 A place-based educator in California invites his students to spend time in, observe, and document the wild nature around them. As temperatures cool and snow begins to grace the northern Sierra Nevada’s ridges and peaks, the “Mountain Kids” of Plumas County carry a simple but transformative tool in...

By Suvradip Maitra, Lyndal Sleep, Paul Henman and Suzanna Fay, Phys.org, Illustration: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain , February 10, 2025 Late last year, ChatGPT was used by a Victorian child protection worker to draft documents. In a glaring error, ChatGPT referred to a "doll" used for sexual purposes as an "age-appropriate toy." Following this, the Victorian information commissioner banned the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in child protection . Unfortunately, many harmful AI...

By Nickolas Bagley, Youth Today, Image: Unsplash via Crowdstack , February 12, 2025 OUR GRANT OPPORTUNITIES: Youth Today’s grant listings are carefully curated for our subscribers working in youth-related industries. Subscribers will find local, regional, state and national grant opportunities. THIS GRANT’S FOCUS: Youth Employment, Job/Career Training, Low-Income Youth/Communities, Youth Leadership, Entrepreneurship Deadline: Mar. 4, 2025 “The Global Innovation Challenge provides...

About 21 million families across Brazil receive monthly payments as part of the Bolsa Família scheme Credit : Bruna Prado/Getty Images By Hannah Crowe, The Telegraph, Image: Bruna Prado/Getty Images , February 10, 2025 The scheme was launched to reduce poverty, but experts never anticipated the remarkable effects it would have on the country’s health Crislaine Souza lives with her husband and one-year-old son in a rural community in Ourolândia, a municipality in Brazil’s north-east that...

By Renuka Rayasam, KFF Health News, Illustration: Oona Zenda /KFF Health News , February 7, 2025 Valentino Valdez was given his birth certificate, his Social Security card, a T-shirt, and khaki pants when he was released from a Texas prison in 2019 at age 21. But he didn’t have health insurance, mental health medications, or access to a doctor, he said. Three years later, he landed in an inpatient hospital after expressing suicidal thoughts. After more than a decade cycling through juvenile...

Erica Watkins of Tulsa, state director of Defense of Democracy, on 28 January 2025 in Oklahoma City. Photograph: Sean Murphy/AP By Robin Buller, The Guardian, Image: Sean Murphy/AP , February 10, 2025 As Donald Trump mounts escalating attacks on immigrants in the US in the first weeks of his second term, schools are increasingly in the crosshairs. He has already revoked protective status for schools and churches , so that immigration authorities can make arrests on school grounds, sending...

Girls who identified as LGBQ consistently reported much higher rates of thinking about, planning and attempting suicide. ELZA_R/Shutterstock By Joseph Cimpian (New York University) and Mollie McQuillan (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Youth Today, Image: ELZA_R/Shutterstock , February 11, 2025 The alarming national rise in suicidal thoughts and behaviors among teenage girls has made headlines recently . Experts point to social media, cyberbullying and COVID-19 as potential new sources of...

Kansas City has had various specialty courts for more than 20 years. The new wellness court is the city’s latest attempt to reduce recidivism as well as better support people going through the legal system. Photo by peeterv via Getty Images By Gabrielle Hays, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) News, Image: peeterv/Getty Images , February 7, 2025 A new Wellness Court in Kansas City, Missouri, is aiming to take a more comprehensive approach to cases involving substance use and mental illness.

By Grewal-Kök, Y., McDaniel, B., Anderson, C. (Chapin Hall) & Dygert, M., Lee, K. (APHSA), Chapin Hall, Image: from article , January 2025 In April 2024, APHSA partnered with Chapin Hall to host the national convening, Breaking the Link: Disrupting the Connection Between Poverty and Child Welfare Involvement . The event brought together more than 75 leaders—including federal, state, and county health and human services officials, experts with lived experience, and national partner...

By Shabeer Syed, Laura D. Howe, Rebecca E. Lacey, et al., The Lancet Public Health, Image: Unsplashed in Crowdstack , February 2025 *Editor's Note: This is an Open Access article available to all. Summary Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) often affect multiple children within families, yet studies tend to focus on the health outcomes of individual children, underestimating the needs of affected families. We aimed to examine the association between firstborns exposed to ACEs...

By Wisconsin Office of Children's Mental Health, Image: screenshot from factsheet , February 11, 2025 Contact: Elizabeth Goodsitt/Jennifer Miller 608-266-1683 Young adults are experiencing elevated rates of mental health problems. Today’s college students were in, or starting, high school when the pandemic pivoted much of their educational and social lives to online experiences. The majority of today’s college students report struggling with substantial levels of stress. Emotional stress is...

By Karen D. Lincoln, California Health Care Foundation, Image: screenshot from article , December 4, 2024 The intersection of racism and health care continues to have profound effects on Black Americans, particularly as they age. Older Black Americans experience a double burden: the accumulated impact of historical discrimination in jobs, housing, education, and health care, alongside ongoing exposure to systemic racism in the health care system and stressful environmental, social, and...

Emily E. Haroz, PhD By Yulin Hswen and Jennifer Abbasi, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Image: screenshot from article , January 10, 2025 This conversation is part of a series of interviews in which JAMA Network editors and expert guests explore issues surrounding the rapidly evolving intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and medicine. In a recent study using electronic health record data from nearly 17 000 patients, researchers found that an existing suicide risk...

Concrete barriers placed in a residential neighborhood in Birmingham have become a symbol of just how hard it is to make a neighborhood feel safer while gun violence persists. Credit... Wes Frazer for The New York Times *Editor's note: The full article is behind a paywall. However, certain publications allow a limited number of articles to be viewed per month. Thank you. Birmingham, Ala., which had a record year for homicides, is trying to curb shootings by blocking streets. But the effort...

Students work in a classroom at Benjamin O. Davis Middle School in Compton, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer) By Anne Ma and Jocelyn Gecker, Associated Press, Image: Eric Thayer/AP Photo , February 11, 2025 COMPTON, Calif. (AP) — Math is the subject sixth grader Harmoni Knight finds hardest, but that’s changing. In-class tutors and “data chats” at her middle school in Compton, California, have made a dramatic difference, the 11-year-old said. She proudly pulled up a...

Vaccine information statements, which doctors are legally required to show patients before they are immunized, can be downloaded from the C.D.C. website, but their individual web pages are no longer active. Credit... Joe Raedle/Getty Images Intense backlash prompted the reinstatement of some online resources. But guidelines for safe contraception and information on racial inequities in health care remain missing. By Apoorva Mandavilli and Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times, Image: Joe...

Tips that young kids might need support to thrive By Rae Jacobson, Daryaneh Badaly (Clinical Expert), Child Mind Institute, Image: screenshot from article , December 2, 2024 Quick Read It can be hard to tell if a preschool-age child is likely to have a learning disability. When kids are young, they develop skills at different speeds, and kids have different strengths and weaknesses. As they get older their abilities usually even out. But there are some signs in preschool and early school...

The facts are available, if you look for them By Matthew Herper, STAT, Image: Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images , February 3, 2025 Vaccines do not cause autism. You’ve almost certainly read that before — probably hundreds of times. But many people do not believe it, perhaps because too often it is repeated without a real explanation of how we know that. So here is an attempt to offer that explanation. Of course, the issue is in the news again because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , President...

Study thought to be the first national accounting of both juvenile injuries and deaths from shootings by police in U.S. By Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Image: screenshot from article , January 30, 2025 A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that 317 juveniles under age 18 were shot by police between 2015 and 2020, one-third of them fatally. The Center for Gun Violence Solutions is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg...

By Qingji Zhang, Yeman Tu, Shunyu Yao, Qingdi Zhang, Jiangnan Liu, and Peng Quan, BMC Psychology, Image: Unsplashed provided by Crowdstack , February 3, 2025 Abstract The dual-factor model (DFM) of mental health has received increasing support in recent years. However, researchers have limited knowledge regarding the longitudinal changes in the DFM of mental health. This study considered the dual-factor mental health among adolescents using latent profile analysis (LPA). It explored the...

*Editors note: Below, please find two new articles featured in JAMA. They are open access and fully available to the public. These will be available soon in our ever growing Resource Center. Thank you - Rafael Maravilla Food Insecurity in Pregnancy, Receipt of Food Assistance, and Perinatal Complications By Rana F. Chehab, Lisa A. Croen, Barbara A. Laraia, et al., January 23, 2025 Key Points Question Is food insecurity in pregnancy associated with perinatal complications and do these...

By Judy George, MedPage Today, Image: screenshot from article , January 24, 2025 Mothers with multiple sclerosis (MS) had a higher risk of peripartum mental illness than comparator mothers, administrative health data from Canada showed. Incident mental illness -- most commonly, depression and anxiety -- affected 8.4% of mothers with MS prenatally and 14.2% during the first postpartum year, reported Ruth Ann Marrie, MD, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, and co-authors. The incidence of...

Donny McCullough, a music producer, says it was difficult to put on a brave face for his wife and daughters while fleeing their Pasadena home the morning of Jan. 8. (Molly Castle Work/KFF Health News) By Molly Castle Work (KFF Health News), California Healthline, Image: Molly Castle Work/KFF Health News , January 21, 2025 PASADENA — As Fernando Ramirez drove to work the day after the Eaton Fire erupted, smoke darkened the sky, ash and embers rained onto his windshield, and the air smelled of...

By Thomas Gull (University of Zurich), MedicalXpress, Image: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain , January 22, 2025 Children need stimulation and attention for the healthy development of their brains. Neglect can have serious consequences for children's health, as well as their ability to learn and form relationships. In 1989, the images coming out of Romanian children's homes shocked the world. They showed children in cots staring blankly, sometimes tied down, and very clearly neglected. The state of...

By Santiago, C.D., et al. (Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago), News Medical & Life Sciences, Image: Unsplash via Crowdstack , January 23, 2025 The first randomized control trial of the school-based intervention called Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups (STRONG) shows significant reductions in depression, anxiety and behavior problems among refugee and immigrant students. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, was co-led by...

By Marcel Marchetti (Mental Health Europe), Image: AlexLinch/iStock , January 23, 2025 Growing up in precarity is hard, especially when the adults around you face their own mental health challenges. Let’s Talk about Children is a short, evidence-based, and child-centred psychosocial intervention to break the cycle of mental health problems, particularly among children in vulnerable situations. Marcel Marchetti, from Mental Health Europe, shares how it’s working in Europe today Mental health...

There is a growing movement of health care providers prescribing social activities and community engagement to patients, not just pills. By Leif Hass, Greater Good Magazine, Image: screenshot from article , January 15, 2025 As a hospital-based physician, I almost always treat people with serious chronic health conditions. As a consequence of these conditions, they lose not just energy but also connection to much of what makes them feel alive. Such was the case with Mr. T., a 67-year-old man...

Palisades Charter Elementary School was destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires. Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images By Anna North, Vox, Image: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images , January 16, 2025 Kids lose so much when a disaster strikes. Too many have lost family members to the wildfires that have raged across Los Angeles in recent days. They’ve lost homes. They’ve lost the sense of security and predictability that so many kids depend on. And, to add insult to injury,...

Helping kids navigate the fear and uncertainty of wildfires. By Ken Druck, Psychology Today, Image: Unsplash on Crowdstack tool , January 10, 2025 Years ago, many of my friends and neighbors were under siege by 70-mile-per-hour Santa Ana winds and wildfires, decimating their homes and obliterating their sense of safety and security. Terrifying reports and pictures of people running for their lives, burned-out homes, and tearfully devastated families who had lost everything flooded the media...

By Taylar Dawn Stagner, Grist, Illustration: Sachi Kitajima Mulkey /Grist , December 23, 2024 The crowd sways like starlings in murmuration as we wait for the show to start. The relaxed vibe belies the pandemonium about to be unleashed. Metal concerts are like that. To an outsider, they appear violent, and they can be, but to fans like me they are a place of solace. I’ve been attending concerts since I was a teenager; the first was in a dusty parking lot and I never looked back. At the time,...

Baker County, Oregon, is one of many rural places in states that protect abortion rights where access to prenatal and birthing care is considered by locals to be a more urgent medical need than expanded access to abortion. But the new abortion bans affect these places, too. With abortion now illegal in nearby Idaho, access to pregnancy care in cases in which termination may be medically necessary has also been diminished for residents of Baker County. (Lillian Mongeau Hughes for KFF Health...

Systems for Action: Community-Led Systems Research to Address Systemic Racism is seeking community-led pilot studies to produce new, actionable evidence about how to help medical, social, and public health systems work together to address forms of systemic racism. Application Deadline, June 04, 2025 12:00 p.m. PT Introduction & Purpose The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is committed to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime and paving the way together to a future...

New research shows how platforms like YouTube and Snapchat amplify body dissatisfaction among youth, with sociodemographic factors adding to the challenge—highlighting the need for targeted global solutions. By Hugo Francisco de Souza, News Medical & Life Sciences, Image: Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock , January 12, 2025 In a recent study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , researchers investigated the prevalence of body weight dissatisfaction among...

By The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Human Rights for Kids, Image: screenshot from website , December 10, 2024 Summary This report details the results of a study on the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and childhood trauma among people incarcerated in Maryland state prisons for crimes they committed as children. While the number of children detained in the juvenile justice system has sharply declined over the past two decades, this promising trend leaves out a troubling fact:...

Abby Rafeek, a 14-year-old high school student from Gardena, California, says decision-makers aren’t doing enough to address climate change. “I think if we figure out how to live on Mars and explore the deep sea, we could definitely figure out how to live here in a healthy environment,” she says. (Jenna Schoenefeld for KFF Health News) By Bernard J. Wolfson, Kaiser Family Foundation Health News, Image: Jenna Schoenfeld for KFF Health News , January 9, 2025 We’ve all read the stories and seen...

By Emily Wright, Emily C. Dore, Karestan C. Koenen, et al., JAMA Network Open, Image: Unsplash in Crowdstack tool , January 15, 2025 Introduction Prior literature suggests mental health issues in the United States have not only increased population-wide in recent decades but also accumulated unevenly and unjustly across social groups. 1 - 3 However, few studies have leveraged multiple national surveys to strengthen understanding of the changing burden of poor mental health and differences...

I Am Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free HarperCollins Publishers By Marybeth Gasman, Forbes, Image: screenshot from article , January 14, 2025 In I am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free , Lee Hawkins examines his family’s legacy of trauma and bold resilience as a result of enslavement. He draws on historical data, oral history interviews, genetic testing, and genealogical research to tell a powerful story that has led to healing despite...

By Ian C. Fisher, Brandon Nichter, Benjamin Trachik, et al., Psychiatrist.com, Image: Unsplash , January 14, 2025 Abstract Objective: US military veterans are at elevated risk for suicide. High levels of suicide-specific cognitions, an indicator of chronic suicide risk, have been found to predict suicidal behaviors. The objective of this study was to examine data from a large, nationally representative sample of US veterans to determine the prevalence and correlates of high chronic suicide...

From U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Image: Unsplash , January 14, 2025 Introduction: The original ask was specifically: “Department of Health and Human Services consider drafting a literature review of the effect that trauma has on students (including but also beyond research related to active shooter drills).” HHS colleagues who met to discuss this ask confirmed that a review of the literature on overall trauma and stress in school-aged children is not helpful to the purpose...

Research suggests that an increased risk of obesity for those who have early traumatic experiences can be reduced through positive experiences. Photo: 123RF By Ladan Hashemi (The Conversation), Radio New Zealand (RNZ), Photo: from article , January 14, 2025 Children with traumatic experiences in their early lives have a higher risk of obesity. But as our new research shows, this risk can be reduced through positive experiences. Childhood traumatic experiences are alarmingly common. Our...

“Daruma of Resilience II” by Kristine Aono is a wall installation depicting Daruma, a Buddhist monk and symbol of resilience in the face of adversity. Visitors are encouraged to write out wishes on sticky notes to attach next to the piece. It’s part of the exhibit “Resilience — A Sansei Sense of Legacy” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie through June. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times By Erica Thompson, Chicago Sun*Times, December 28, 2024 Forty years after World War II, the U.S. government...

By Paul Horn, Inside Climate News, Graphics: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News , December 29, 2024 Telling the story of our lives—climate change—takes a lot of words. But sometimes, a graphic is what makes things click. Whoever coined the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” was likely not referring to a chart, a locator map or an infographic, but in many cases that’s exactly their value to the reader. I created or edited nearly 350 of them for Inside Climate News in 2024, including...