November 2017

One day in 2013, AJ Vandermeyden drove to Tesla’s corporate headquarters, in Palo Alto, California, sat down on a bench outside the main entrance, and waited, in the hope of spotting someone who looked like a company employee. Vandermeyden, who was thirty years old, had been working as a pharmaceutical sales representative since shortly after college, but she wanted a different kind of job, in what seemed to her the center of the world—Silicon Valley. She knew that Tesla’s ambitious,...

SEATTLE—Mere blocks from the tourists swarming Pike Place Market, Stacy Lenny pointed out the tradecraft of some of her drug-dealing clients: “There’s Todd with a wheelchair—that’s good camo for a drug hustle,” she said, nodding toward one man sitting on the corner and dealing crack out of his motorized scooter. “Missy has a lot of drugs in that bag,” she said, about another woman passing by. A 50-year-old mom with short, gray hair and bright-blue glasses, Lenny is a harm-reduction recovery...

Traditionally, Ojibwe people observe a lunar calendar. Each moon, or giizis, is often named after activities conducted during those times, weather, harvests, or other notable things in Ojibwe life. November coincides with Gashkadino-Giizis or Freezing Over Moon. Since beginning my career as a journalist, however, I have come to think of November, National Native American Heritage Month, as the Moon of Explaining Indians to White People. Inevitably I get requests from editors of mainstream...

A new study out of the University of Manitoba shows kids are not the only ones affected by the child welfare system — mothers of children who have been taken into foster care see a significant deterioration in their health and social situation after apprehension. The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at the health records and other data of mothers whose first child was born in Manitoba between April 1998 and March 2011. Half of the mothers, just shy...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador —It’s a few minutes after 10 a.m. and Frank Ticas has just finished teaching his first English class of the day, on the perfect progressive tense. As a dozen young Salvadorans, most in their early- to mid-20s, file out of the classroom towards the institute’s front door, Ticas wishes them well. The 41-year-old sports a shaved head, goatee and jeans. On his right upper-arm, a scorpion tattoo peeks out from beneath the short-sleeve of his blue FC Barcelona soccer...

Fingers flying, incessant texting, phones held to ear as secondary appendages gives the illusion we are well connected. We are chattering and snapping and “selfieing” (I think I just made that word up — you can do that these days) all the live long day. Meanwhile scientists quietly dispense reports underlining an incredible finding: We are socially anxious people. Extremely socially anxious. So what gives? Slowly raise your head away from your phone. It’s okay. You can do it. I am trying the...

Empathy is a skill, and a new workshop from the Institute for Healthcare Communication teaches essential, evidence-based empathy conveyance skills to all members of the caregiving team. The Empathy Effect: Countering Bias to Improve Health Outcomes , is a half-day workshop, based on evidence in the literature that patients' health outcomes are influenced by how patients feel they are treated by their healthcare team members. Consider a caregiving organization where every patient and family...

The five city bus tour to raise awareness for a new diagnosis for childhood trauma and share a hope for healing is underway. The public-private collaboration between Calo Programs, ATTACh, ATN and the American Adoption Congress has completed campaigns in Minneapolis and Chicago to healthy and enthusiastic crowds. This week they have stops in Boston, Philly and Washington DC. To learn more go to www.endchildhoodtrauma.com.

It is time for youth justice reformers to stop and take stock of how we pursue justice. The racial disparities that pervade our youth justice systems from beginning to end are not random occurrences. Rather, youth justice reformers can directly track the development of our justice policies to government control of populations largely seen as “other” by the white majority. As such, our work to shrink the system is insufficient if we do not fully confront the racist roots of the youth justice...

On a fall foliage-filled Saturday before Election Day 2017, sixteen people got together in a suburban church basement just outside Washington, D.C. to hash out their political differences for seven hours. They started at 10 a.m.; they had a lot of ground to cover. “In my house, we’ve trained my granddaughter to yell ‘no politics’ when someone mentions Trump or Obama,” said Paul Roche, a retired financial consultant. The group laughed, but it underscored the fear that brought folks here for a...

Britain’s most socially excluded groups are 10 times more likely to die early than the general population, according to analysis showing inequality is more pronounced than is documented. Its lead author said the disparity exposed “something toxic in our society”. The findings, published in the Lancet and described as the most comprehensive assessment conducted into levels of mortality inequality , reveal women in socially excluded groups are 12 times more likely to die than other women of...

An experienced kindergarten teacher contacted me the other day. She reported that she and teachers in her district have seen a spike in children entering kindergarten having suffered trauma. Distraught, she said that she and her colleagues are not trained to meet these children’s needs, and there are not enough services in the schools to help. This phenomenon is sadly not unique. The New York Council of School Superintendents recently issued the results of its annual survey. In 2017, for the...