October 2016

“Money has been a constant struggle,” says Kim Silva of her 30 years as an early-education teacher in Massachusetts. “One unexpected expense can put you in the hole for months.” Silva, 46, is the lead teacher in a preschool classroom at NorthStar, a childcare center in New Bedford, Massachusetts, that largely serves children whose parents’ income is low enough that they are eligible to receive financial subsidies from the state to help pay for care. Silva has worked there since she was 15,...

In search of insight into the country’s stark cultural divides in preparation for a week of potentially difficult conversations in Kentucky where I’d be attending family reunion and 50-year high school reunion, I dove into “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance . Throughout this mesmerizing, painful, and hilarious memoir, I kept wondering if the author might know about the ACE study. The answer was found on page 226 when “ACEs” jumps out at me and...

Note: It's not just us in this community debating, discussing and thinking in varied ways about the resiliency word. I recently came across an article in the NY times by Paul Seghal called “The Profound Emptiness of ‘Resilience” I must admit, if it wasn’t sent to me by my boss, I am not so sure I would have read it. Not because I would have never come across it, but because “The emptiness of resilience?” What could he mean? Why would you consider resilience “empty!” I noticed my pulse rising...

In 2014, a Fox News Latino article cited that only 1 in 11 Latina/os seek mental health treatment. Chicana/o Psychology is rarely discussed as recourse to address this situation. In 2004, Dr. Manuel Ramirez outlined the tenets of Chicana/o Psychology , but the roots of Chicana/o Psychology run deeper. In 1977 the book “Chicano Psychology” was published. Still before that was the work of Dr. George I. Sanchez (considered the “Father of Chicana/o Psychology”), whose work in the 1930s shed...

New York's schools will have to teach about mental health in their state-mandated health classes in two years. The 40-year-old mandate for health education already specifically requires teaching about alcohol, drugs, tobacco and the prevention and detection of cancers. Sponsors say the new curriculum will increase the likelihood that students recognize the signs of mental illness in themselves and others and seek help when it's needed. They say many students with emotional or behavioral...

An older, unemployed man with chronic back pain recently visited Dr. Robert Devereaux, a family physician in this Southwest corner of Virginia. Devereaux recalled that months earlier, during a routine exam, he found crushed fragments of painkiller pills inside the patient’s nose. Though he refused to prescribe more, Devereaux worries that the man is still getting the drugs and has not recognized his problem or gotten treatment for his addiction. That story is common here. “There are a lot of...

The Huffington Post feature Alliance for HOPE International 's Camp HOPE America program in a recent post. Thank you, Karianne Gwinn Johansen, for your leadership of Camp HOPE America. You have been so faithful in designing a program that can change the lives of thousands of kids in the years to come. With special thanks to Melissa Jeltsen for spending a week of her life with us at Camp HOPE last summer and seeing our efforts to help children and teens find pathways to hope and healing. Next...

One day, when Peter Chiavetta was just out of college, he was driving down a road in Eden, NY. Before he could even give the slightest conscious thought to his actions, he swerved off the road onto the shoulder. The car that was heading straight at Chiavetta slammed into the vehicle behind him. “I thought I was a good prepared citizen,” recalls Chiavetta. “I had road flares and a two-pound fire extinguisher in the trunk of my car. I’m standing in the middle of the road with my little fire...

"most at-risk kids can be spotted early... ...learning to manage what makes us different and often difficult could change a trajectory that leads to tragedy." writes Maia Szalavitz, the author of "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/well/family/the-4-traits-that-put-kids-at-risk-for-addiction.html?_r=0

Almost four million American teenagers have just started their freshman year of high school. Can they learn better ways to deal with all that stress and insecurity? New research suggests they can. Though academic and social pressures continue to pile on in high school, teenagers can be taught effective coping skills to skirt the pitfalls of anxiety and depression. David S. Yeager, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a leading voice in the growing...

Controversy erupted in 2014 when video of National Football League player Ray Rice violently punched his fiancé (now wife) and dragged her unconscious body from an elevator. Most recently, Deadspin released graphic images of the injuries NFL player Greg Hardy inflicted on his ex-girlfriend. In both instances, NFL officials insisted that, if they had seen the visual evidence of the crime, they would have implemented harsher consequences from the onset. Why are violent images so much more...

There are a lot of things to envy about youth: clear skin, perfect hair, boundless energy. But nothing says young like a good set of telomeres. We’ve all got them, but if you’re past a certain age, you don’t want to think about them too much. Telomeres are the protein caps at the end of chromosomes that act as a sort of mortal fuse: the older you get the shorter they grow, a process that contributes to all manner of age-related diseases and breakdowns. Telomere length can be affected by...