December 2017

Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping airplanes off-course 90 percent of flight time, most flights arrive in the correct destination at the intended time. The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple — through air traffic control and the inertial guidance system, pilots are constantly course correcting. When immediately addressed, these course corrections are not hard to manage. When these course corrections don’t regularly happen, catastrophe can result. For example, in 1979 , a...

How do Native Americans experience discrimination in daily life? A poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is examining the extent of discrimination against five major ethnic and racial groups in America today . It finds that Native Americans experience very high rates of discrimination in everyday life. More than a third of Native Americans and their family members have experienced slurs and violence, and close to a third have faced...

More than 30 years ago, Congress identified what it said was a grave threat to the American promise of equal justice for all: Federal judges were giving wildly different punishments to defendants who had committed the same crimes. The worries were many. Some lawmakers feared lenient judges were giving criminals too little time in prison. Others suspected African-American defendants were being unfairly sentenced to steeper prison terms than white defendants. In 1984, Congress created the U.S.

When O’Nesha Cochran teaches medical residents about adverse childhood experiences in patients, she doesn’t use a textbook. Instead, the Oregon Health & Science University peer mentor walks in the room, dressed in what she describes as the “nerdiest-looking outfit” she can find. And then she tells them her story. “My mom sold me to her tricks and her pimps from the age of three to the age of six,” she begins. “I could remember these grown men molesting me and my sisters. I have three...

In the face of the many obstacles that threaten the delivery of quality services and positive outcomes, resilience is more important than ever--for our organizations, staff, and those we serve. How do organizations foster a culture of resilience? Since 2011, the National Council has worked with over 450 behavioral health, social service, and community organizations to develop trauma-informed, resilience-oriented change. With the launch of our 8 th National Learning Community, the 2018-2019...

A grizzled face, smudged grey with the factory soot. Hands that are calloused from making things—things that Make America Great. This person is, of course, white. In the popular imagination, this is the portrait of a “working class” American—a figure that political leaders say will benefit from their policies ; the same one that props up the myth of bootstrapping —the hardworking, real American who is deserving of help; and the one whose “economic anxieties” are commonly cited to justify the...

Feeling sad can actually be a good sign. Depression is a clinical term used to label a group of behaviors and internal experiences associated with a depressed mood. It is also a clinical diagnosis. Depression is different than being sad. Sadness is a normal part of life and, as long as you are not feeling it all the time, it is actually a healthy thing for you to feel. It is important to realize that learning how to be happy again after depression looks slightly different for everyone.

In our Family Keys program, a prevention program that served close to 40 percent Latina youth in 2016, there is a strong sense of familia. Familia, the sentiment of treating others like family, runs through the core of Southwest Key Programs , a Hispanic-run organization with more than 90 percent Latino staff, and is a key value in our agency. Our natural tendency to uphold Latino values in programming got us thinking … how do organizations intentionally serve and support the unique needs of...

Discrimination in the form of sexual harassment has been in the headlines for weeks now, but new poll results being released by NPR show that other forms of discrimination against women are also pervasive in American society. The poll is a collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For example, a majority (56 percent) of women believe that where they live, women are paid less than men for equal work. And roughly a third (31...

The potentially harmful effects of loneliness and social isolation on health and longevity, especially among older adults, are well established. For example, in 2013 I reported on research finding that loneliness can impair health by raising levels of stress hormones and inflammation, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, dementia and even suicide attempts. Among older people who reported they felt left out, isolated or lacked companionship, the...

Spanking looks to be instantly effective. If a child is misbehaving—if he keeps swearing, or playing with matches—and then you spank that child, the behavior stops immediately. The effect is so apparently obvious that it can drive a sort of delusion. Lived experience tends to be more powerful than facts. One of the few memories that many people retain from early childhood is times they were spanked. The desire to believe it was “for our own good” is strong, if only because the alternative...

In September, after Donald Trump cancelled Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the popular Obama-era program that granted legal protections to undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the U.S. as children, he told the program’s seven hundred thousand recipients, who then faced the prospect of being deported, that they had “ nothing to worry about .” His decision didn’t end the program right away—it gave Congress six months, until March, to negotiate a policy solution. Until then,...