April 2016

More than 5 million U.S. children have had a parent in jail or prison at some point in their lives. The incarceration of a parent can have as much impact on a child’s well-being as abuse or domestic violence. But while states spend heavily on corrections, few resources exist to support those left behind. A Shared Sentence offers commonsense proposals to address the increased poverty and stress that children of incarcerated parents experience. [For more go to ...

The 911 caller had reported a man with a samurai sword, lunging at people on the waterfront. It was evening, and when the police arrived, they saw the man pacing the beach and called to him. He responded by throwing a rock at the embankment where they stood. They shouted to him from a sheriff’s boat; he threw another rock. They told him to drop the sword; he said he would kill them. He started to leave the beach, and after warning him, they shot him in the leg with a beanbag gun. He turned...

Last Friday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 people with previous felony convictions. It’s a momentous stroke in both scope and effect; with an eye towards the 2016 races, The New York Times estimated its electoral impact as “ small but potentially decisive .” But the significance of McAuliffe’s efforts goes far beyond a single election. It instead marks an exorcism for one of Jim Crow’s last vestiges in Virginia’s state charter—and a reminder of...

Around the world, an average of 60 percent of children receive some kind of physical punishment, according to UNICEF . And the most common form is spanking. In the United States, most people still see spanking as acceptable, though FiveThirtyEight reports that the percentage of people who approve of spanking has gone down, from 84 percent in 1986 to about 70 percent in 2012. “The question of whether parents should spank their children to correct misbehaviors sits at a nexus of arguments from...

As I start to talk with pastors about why ACEs matter and why they should inform themselves and their congregations, I regularly hear something like this: "But why does it matter? What difference should it make in ministry? Can't I simply preach and teach the Bible and leave the results up to God?" By way of answer to these questions, I am starting to put together a training called "10 things that kid with ACEs would like you to know: moving your church toward greater empathy." The following...

In the high-beamed auditorium at the Clarkston Community Center near Atlanta, a dozen teenagers sit in a circle on metal chairs. Each one sings out his or her name, making the sound musical and adding a dramatic gesture at the request of instructor Ruth Schowalter. Shy participants screw up their courage to become dramatic. The entire group repeats each name and movement, singing the sounds loudly and energetically. Schowalter asks the group to do another exercise. It begins with the words:...

I arrived at the Anamosa Iowa Men’s Reformatory in October 1992. I can still remember riding in the van, wearing a set of cold steel shackles and handcuffs attached to a long dog chain that went around my waist and attached to a black box. The black box was padlocked around the cuffs, immobilizing my hands. I had heard rumors that a prisoner actually invented this black box contraption and I cursed him silently as we took a 2½-hour trip, which seemed more like it took all day. Immobilized in...

To wrap up our series on public health in Baltimore , Audie Cornish met up with Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen in Freddie Gray's neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester. The health department recently opened a new outpost of its violence prevention program Safe Streets there, employing ex-offenders to mediate conflicts before they erupt in violence. Wen spoke about pushing a public health agenda in a city that has long struggled with poverty, violence and addiction. She also talked...

Growing up in Iowa, once a summer my dad would pack a tent, sleeping bags, and load up our camper which sat securely on the bed of my dad's pick- up truck. My mom would pack hot dogs to roast, and of course s'mores. We would then head off to a local campground on the shores of Saylorville Lake for an overnight adventure. We laughed as we burned marshmallows, and sometimes my mom even brought her guitar to play for us. This is all, thankfully, I knew of camping until I became an adult living...

Last week's meeting of the Building Community Resilience collaborative provided an opportunity for one of our nation's leading experts on obesity to call attention to ACEs and trauma. Read more from Dr. Bill Dietz at this Huffington Post blog. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obesity-zip-code-and-adversity-new-action-toward_us_571ea1a5e4b03b93e7e42a69

I have shared my opposition to spanking children to anyone who would listen, including the 2 mothers of my children. While we were married, the mothers didn’t, as far as I was aware, spank our kids. When we divorced, however, the resumed doing what their parents were doing. And a typical response from others was “my parents spanked me and I turned out just fine, so I don’t see anything wrong with it.” As a social science junkie, I look at the research and apply what I feel is common sense...

Unique Trauma-Informed Care Course Coming Soon Making It Real is a unique course- there is nothing else like it. It is NOT a course in which individuals go through the course and get some new knowledge about trauma and how it affects the brain. Those courses are very valuable. But that’s not what this is. Making It Real is a course for a TEAM to IMPROVE THEIR TREATMENT . As a team, you work through it together. You learn from the videos. The Resources enlarge your options and possibilities.