February 2017

People seeking easy answers to the problem of perpetual poverty, or hoping to justify their political ideology about why some achieve upward mobility and others do not, should likely look somewhere other than author J.D. Vance ’s memoir “ Hillbilly Elegy .” Vance’s widely acclaimed 2016 book skyrocketed to the top of the New York Times’ best-seller list, in part because it helps connect the dots about Pres. Donald Trump’s rise to power. But Vance also detailed his own family’s struggles in...

We don't need billboards to tell us we've got a crime problem. Or that police are frustrated. Why wouldn't they be? They're outnumbered. They need reinforcements. Not just more uniformed officers with badges and guns. Not just more SkyCops with flashing blue lights. Not just more manpower and machinery to keep watch over the ground where criminal behavior happens. [For more of this story, written by David Waters, go to ...

It was 34 degrees on December 21st in Chicago. As shoppers crowded the Magnificent Mile, a retail destination that stretches along Michigan Avenue north of downtown, Lucy Connor, 29, sat quietly on the charcoal gray sidewalk with a cardboard sign indicating she was homeless, a cup for change, and bags presumably filled with her belongings beside her. Connor says she and her husband have been homeless for more than two years. They lost their home after Lucy suffered a medical issue and had...

Julie Griffiths, the executive director of the the nonprofit Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, wanted to keep tabs on California’s American Disabilities Act compliance laws. But tracking what lawmakers were saying in the statehouse used to be a massive undertaking. She spent untold hours recording the live broadcast from California’s public access channel devoted to legislative hearings . “You had to sit there and videotape Cal access channels, or you had to order the videotape, which could...

Not long after the vote to appoint Jeff Sessions Attorney General of the U.S., President Donald Trump served up three executive orders for him to get started on. Two of them involve Sessions assembling task forces to address violent crime and protect police officers . In Trump’s address earlier this week to the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, he told them : Those who demonize law enforcement or who use the actions of a few to discredit the service of many are hurting the very people...

Supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success. The Issue Children begin learning at home before they ever reach the classroom, but many families face barriers to providing high-quality early educational opportunities. There are a number of research-based strategies to bolster parent engagement in ways that improve child outcomes. [For...

For more than 100 years, the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club has been countering crime with a love of horses. The non-profit, based in north Philadelphia, provides a safe environment for local teens to escape a community overcome by gang violence and unemployment. Photographer Ann Sophie Lindström spent several months documenting the organization to complete her interactive project, “ Don’t Fence Me In .” At first, the horsemen were not impressed by Lindström, but when she started sharing...

Sweeping changes to federal immigration policy could have a disproportionate effect on California, where 50 percent of children have at least one immigrant parent, compared to 25 percent nationwide, according to the latest data available on Kidsdata. That translates to 4.5 million children in California alone. In congressional districts 17, 34 and 46, which represent parts of greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 75 percent of children have at least one immigrant...

Note: I adore Linda Sanford. She is also the author of one of my favorite books, Strong at the Broken Places: Overcoming the Trauma of Child Abuse which came out in 1991. So when I heard she was speaking at a local event hosted by The Riverside Trauma Center, about military families I had to go. I had not considered the stress faced by military families, many of who are also parenting with ACEs, as well. “There are five things I want you to know about military families,” said Linda Sanford.

SAMHSA sponsored a webinar last week called "Trauma and Peer Engagement, The Power of Language and Portrayals”.

Dr. Christina Bethell, professor of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will be honored at the 2017 Annual Conference with the prestigious John MacQueen Lecture Award for her leadership in developing and implementing methods to measure and improve the performance of child health care systems. “Her contributions are used daily by MCH professionals, child health clinicians, researchers and policymakers,” said Edward Schor, senior...

On Tuesday evening UNM Health Sciences Center held a symposium to address the issues of childhood adversity affecting New Mexico. Dr. Andrew Hsi, professor of pediatrics at the UNM School of Medicine and a key figure in UNM’s fight against childhood adversity, walked on stage for his presentation with a large, black trash bag thrown over his shoulder. Hsi dropped the bag on the floor as he said that it was a visual presentation of the burden children and families carry with them after...