Skip to main content

October 2016

Many U.S. teachers can’t afford to buy a house [PBS.org]

Perhaps another salary-related grievance for teachers: Depending on where they live, buying a home can be far out of reach. In a new report , the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, analyzed 210 metro areas and whether workers in public education — from bus drivers to teachers — could afford to buy or rent a home. (The report did not account for a second income in the household.) High school teachers had a median income of $56,882, making it...

Wisconsin Childrens' Health Lagging Women's Health [WPR.org]

The 2016 Health of Women and Children Report by the United Health Foundation found that when it comes to the health of women and children, Wisconsin ranks at number 15 out of 50. That’s a "middle-of-the-road" ranking according to Dr. Ana Fuentevilla, chief medical officer at Unitedhealthcare Community & State. Wisconsin is well behind neighboring Minnesota and Iowa, which are ranked at numbers five and eight respectively, but ahead of surrounding states like Illinois and Michigan, which...

Youngsters being 'left behind', says children's commissioner [BBC.com]

Many youngsters in Wales are being "left behind" with Brexit "uncertainty" set to make the situation worse, the children's commissioner has said. Prof Sally Holland believes those with mental health problems and in poverty are most at risk, while some being home-educated go "under the radar". In her annual report she has called on the Welsh Government to publish a specific programme to help. A spokeswoman said it would study the report and "respond in due course". Prof Holland pointed to the...

Kid Cudi Sparks a Conversation on Depression, Race, and Rap [TheAtlantic.com]

Reviewing Danny Brown’s new album Atrocity Exhibition yesterday, I wrote about how we’re in a moment when rappers like Brown are regularly defying stigmas against admitting to depression, addiction, and other mental-health issues. Wednesday brought another powerful example from Kid Cudi, the Ohio rapper known for songs like “Day and Night.” He has checked himself into rehab for depression and suicidal thoughts, and he isn’t trying to hide it on. On Facebook he wrote , Its been difficult for...

How Hollywood Whitewashed the Old West [TheAtlantic.com]

As movie genres go, the Western is a workhorse. It draws from a well of cultural symbols meant to capture the essence of America, including the freedom of the open frontier and the righteous self-determination of man. Standing tall inside this cinematic shorthand is the cowboy himself, a figure commonly understood to be an excellent shot who rides horses and who, above all, is white. This narrow image is foundational to the genre, which includes films such as John Sturges’s 1960 classic The...

Where Childcare Is an Economic Engine [TheAtlantic.com]

At the end of a long day of work at a small sports-marketing firm in Atlanta, a very pregnant Micki Velmer is driving to pick up her 3-year-old son, Burke, from childcare when her car overheats and breaks down. Velmer’s husband, Jason, soon swings by to get her and then get both of them to the Frazer Center before it closes and starts charging late fees. Still, Velmer is uneasy. In just a few short weeks, once their second child is born, the Velmers will be paying more than $2,800 a...

Texas police train to defuse encounters with veterans [Stripes.com]

Two police officers watched Christopher Araujo pace back and forth, a gun in his waistband. Araujo was in Texas, but his mind was in Iraq. “I’m here to help, bro,” one of the officers said. “You need to stay outside the wire,” Araujo snapped back, his perimeter secured. The pistols stayed in the holsters. “I can get you in touch with some care,” one of the officers calmly said. “Why don’t you come on out?” Araujo snapped out of his daze: “Yeah, I can do that.” The Roy Butler Training Academy...

Adversity Is Not Destiny

Childhood adversity can activate the human stress response system, which is primarily made up of the hormones/chemicals cortisol and adrenaline. In the developing brain of a child, prolonged activation of the stress response system can cause these chemicals to actually become toxic. Think of that – a child’s brain being bathed in toxic chemicals due to abuse, neglect, or chaotic household dysfunction. It’s called toxic stress. It’s real, not imagined, and it’s physiological, potentially...

Can Childhood Traumas Make You Old Before Your Time? [Consumer.Healthday.com]

Childhood trauma might promote faster cellular aging in people, a new study suggests. Adults who had experienced stress as kids appeared to have an increased risk of shorter telomeres, which are found at the ends of a person's chromosomes. And that might increase the risk of illness and early death in adulthood, said lead researcher Eli Puterman. He is director of the Fitness, Aging & Stress Lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Puterman added that the increased...

California Legislature Orders Juvenile Justice Data Overhaul [JJIE.org]

Alex Sanchez knows the temptations of joining gangs for young Central American immigrants. He fled to the United States in 1979 as an unaccompanied minor (he was 7, his brother 5) to escape the Salvadoran civil war. Eventually he got involved in gang violence, went to prison and was deported before returning to the United States illegally. He was granted political asylum in 2002 and in 2006 became the executive director of Homies Unidos , a nonprofit violence- and gang-prevention...

App aims to conduct the world’s largest mental health study, reduce suicides [9to5mac.com]

A project called How is the world feeling? is aiming to use an iOS and Android app to conduct the world’s largest study of mental health over a one-week period starting on October 10. The aim is to gather data from ordinary people to identify patterns in emotions, then to open-source anonymized data to mental health professionals in a bid to devise approaches to reducing suicide rates … The app is designed to take seconds to use, asking people to select an emotion, select how strongly it is...

More Police Officers or Less Toxic Stress

My first thought when I saw the headline “Chicago Police Department announces plan to hire nearly 1,000 new officers” on the WLS-TV website was, “Is it really more police officers that we need on our streets?” The mayor of Chicago recently announced the city will hire 1,000 more police officers over the next two years to combat violence, in particular gun violence in its urban core. Though police officers are critical to a neighborhood and city’s sense of safety, I would argue that more cops...

Kids with mental illness forced to wait for care [WXYZ.com]

Buffy and Ernie Goodban watched helplessly for months as a mood disorder took control of their 14-year-old daughter Andrea. In March, she flooded the family’s North Carolina home, causing more than $40,000 in damage. But more importantly, her mother said, “She was hurting her brothers; she was threatening to harm herself. One day, she ran for the scissors as she was saying she was going to cut her wrists.” That’s when the Goodbans rushed Andrea to the nearest emergency room, and that’s when...

Family-Centered Pre-Kindergarten Provides A Strong Foundation For Children’s Mental Health And School Success [NewsWise.com]

A family-centered, school-based intervention in pre-kindergarten programs developed at NYU Langone Medical Center, known as ParentCorps, has a positive and lasting impact on mental health and academic performance, according to new research published online October 3 in JAMA Pediatrics. A study of close to 800 low-income black and Latino children enrolled in pre-k in New York City public schools found that children who attended programs with ParentCorps had fewer behavioral and emotional...

Social-emotional training decreases pre-K suspensions [CabinetReport.com]

Disciplinary polices have come under fire across the country with the revelation that thousands of preschool students are suspended or expelled each year–an issue that can be improved with professional development in social-emotional learning, according to new study. Researchers at Vanderbilt University found that teachers trained in using the Pyramid Model, an approach based on positive behavior support in developing children’s social-emotional competence and preventing and addressing...

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×