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February 2016

We Can’t Put Them All In Prison

The noted English Jurist, William Blackstone, said in his famous Commentary, All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer. This view was repeated in the early United States political history by President John Adams when he was defending British soldiers from charges of murder during the Boston Massacre in the Revolutionary War. It is more important that innocence be protected...

Therapist Resource Guide - Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress

Working with children and families experiencing medical traumatic stress: A resource guide for mental health professionals What do mental health professionals need to know about pediatric medical traumatic stress? How can mental health professionals improve their collaboration with medical providers around pediatric medical traumatic stress? What resources and tools are available for professionals working with children and families who have experienced pediatric medical traumatic stress?

Are You a Toxic Waste Disposal Site?[New York Times]

In the Feb. 14 New York Times Sunday Review, op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, calls for a public health revolution focused on the roots of many pathologies caused by chemical toxins that Americans and others around the world are exposed to (the lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan being just one example). In addition to lead, he describes widespread poisoning by PCBs, flame retardants and pesticides as examples but also includes toxic stress among the toxins that impact children even...

Greater Kansas City, Missouri: Learning to Listen

In 2011, a youth needs assessment of the Kansas City metro area included surveys of pediatricians and school nurses, mental health providers and teenagers, pre-school teachers and parents. No matter what discipline was represented, trauma and toxic stress kept coming up, said Marsha Morgan, Chief Operating Officer of Truman Medical Centers Department of Behavioral Health. It was clear that we had to do something. We had to make this a community issue. The needs assessment showed that more...

Rehabilitation Using Vipassanā Meditation in Prisons

Prisoners have already suffered from one of the byproducts of having a high ACE load, imprisonment for a period of time. Many programs have been developed to reduce the negative behaviors present in this population and to reduce the rate of recidivism among prisoners. One successful method appears to be the teaching of a form of meditation referred to as Vipassanā. I believe this has relevance to healing for ACE victims and wrote the following for proposing a pilot project in Alaska prisons.

Child Abuse Costs Nations Billions of Dollars a Year: Panel [Consumer.Healthday.com]

Child abuse costs nations worldwide billions of dollars a year, experts report. In high-income nations, the median cost of child abuse equals a loss of 1.2 percent of per capita income, or $150 billion a year in the United States. The estimated cost in China -- a middle-income country -- is $50 billion a year, the experts added. In East Asia and the Pacific, the cost of emotional child abuse alone is more than $48 billion a year, the researchers said. The findings, from an international...

Blueprints Conference Offers Lessons in Evidence-Based Programming [JJIE.org]

At a time when communities across the country are interested in evidence-based youth programming, an April conference will bring together leaders from the field to discuss whats possible. The Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development biennial conference will feature sessions on evidence-based programs that promote youth education, healthy behaviors, emotional and physical well-being and positive behaviors. Some of these programs are used in the juvenile justice field. [For more of this story,...

ABA Task Force Wants to Help Disrupt School-to-Prison Pipeline [JJIE.org]

This school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nations most pressing challenges, that all of us must help reverse. A students involvement in the justice system often results from a combination of factors such as low academic achievement; low academic expectations; poor relationships with other members of the school community; poor school climates; low engagement; incorrect referral or categorization in special education; and overly harsh and exclusionary discipline such as suspension,...

What’s Really Behind Why Women Earn Less Than Men? [TheAtlantic.com]

Though headway has been made in bringing womens wages more in line with mens in the past several decades, that convergence seems to have stalled in more recent years. To help determine why, Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, the authors of a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research parse data on wages and occupations from 1980 to 2010. They find that as more women attended and graduated college and headed into the working world, education and professional experience levels...

Dr. Mandel’s Revolution [FreePressOnline.com]

When Rockport-based physician Dr. Ira Mandel checks his voicemail box, he hears voices of desperation. I just need someone to help me treat my opiate addiction, a man from Belfast says. I got involved from an injury in my back. I just need help cleaning my life up. Im 51 years old and full-time employed and I was hoping that you could help me. Im really hoping that you might be willing to take me as a patient, a 46-year-old Rockland woman says in a trembling voice. I was doing so well on the...

Why solutions journalism can help news organisations improve their reporting [Journalism.co.uk]

Solutions journalism is an approach to reporting that highlights answers to problems, as opposed to stories that focus on the issues themselves. Also known as constructive journalism, this method benefits both news consumers and journalists, increasing their ability to engage audiences in their work and produce content that helps shape society's perception of the world. Samantha McCann , curator of the Solutions Journalism Network , believes that without solutions journalism, reporters are...

America’s Tent Cities for the Homeless [TheAtlantic.com]

Though the overall number of homeless people in the United States has been in a slow decline in recent years, homelessness has risen sharply in larger cities. More than 500,000 people were homeless in the United States at the end of last year, according to a report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many who find themselves living on the streets find a level of community and security in homeless encampmentswhether the tent cities are sanctioned or unofficial. Gathered here...

The Power of Thinking Like a Preschooler [TheAtlantic.com]

What is it like to be a 4-year-old human? Trying to remember this experience with any accuracy is difficult. Memories are hazy flashes of sensory experience and emotion that fail to coalesce into something coherent: the red piped icing on a birthday cake, the sticky static of plastic wrap on moms dry cleaning, overwhelming waves of sadness from a Disney-movie soundtrack. Its no wonder that at an individual level, trying to talk and relate to a small child can feel like grappling with a...

Q&A: Many kids in Chicago’s most violent areas live in 'survival mode' [America.AlJazeera.com]

In "Survival Mode," "Fault Lines" examines the psychological toll of gun violence on children growing up in Chicagos most dangerous and neglected communities. The film airs on Sunday, Feb. 14, at 9 p.m. Eastern time/6 p.m. Pacific on Al Jazeera America. | Click here to find Al Jazeera in your area. In 2015, an average of one person every three hours was shot in Chicago, more than than any other city in the U.S. Over the course of the calendar year, there were nearly 3,000 shooting victims in...

Playing Offense: Behavioral Health Interventions During Adolescence Is Our Best Shot [YouthToday.org]

In the behavioral health field, it is clear that the most high-stakes developmental period is adolescence, when mental illness and substance use problems often emerge. During adolescence, experimentation or risky use of substances can eventually progress into addiction, with 90 percent of individuals with substance use disorders reporting that they initiated use of substances before age 18. Adolescence is also a common developmental window for the onset of mental health problems, with half...

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