March 2019

On a blazing hot day in late July, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase drove her black SUV, license plate "SEARCH", to a muddy landing on Lake Sakakawea. It was a remote entrance to the water on the northern edge of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota - not much more than a rickety dock at the end of an uneven gravel road. Hitched to the back of Yellowbird-Chase's truck was a 14-foot boat with a half-broken motor and a set of fishing sonar. By her own admission, she was not a particularly...

When Paul Barr was 16 years old, a priest asked him to the rectory of the Sacred Heart church in Niagara Falls, New York. Barr remembers that the priest handed him a beer, suggested that he lie down, and then touched his groin. Four decades later, Barr learned that his story was worth $45,000. In January, Barr got the offer from the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, as he sat at his desk at his law firm a few blocks from the Canadian border. Barr was prepared for disappointment; he was accustomed...

Darrell Jobe had a rough start in life. Raised in Richmond, California, Jobe dropped out of school in eighth grade, joined a gang, and was in and out of juvenile detention as a teenager. At age 14 he was incarcerated for stealing cars, he says, and later did time for possession of a stolen gun. By 23, he promised himself that he would turn his life around and be a better father to his kids than his absentee dad had been for him. “I remember my gang days, and being in shootouts, and in and...

Infant mortality rates for Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are 60 percent higher than rates for white babies. Hispanic children are more likely to be obese and African-American mothers experience the highest rates of preterm births . Children living in rural areas are more likely to have complex diseases and live further from hospitals; while children in urban areas experience the highest rates of morbidity from asthma. Health in the U.S. is not equitable. Not everyone has access to...

Interview by Suzanne Wilder. Photography by Stacy Wegley. | When we arrived at Lydia’s House, we found a scene familiar to new parents: Janell Roberts was making a sandwich in the kitchen, hoping to eat a quick meal while her infant slept in a nearby room. She chewed a little quicker as her baby fussed, then gratefully accepted our offers to hold her daughter so that she could eat with two hands. Her daughter was at the developmental stage – with impossibly tiny toes and fuzzy hair – when...

Abuse and neglect in childhood can leave a lifelong residue of guilt for things that were never our fault. This same fuzzy thinking can ALSO make us numb to the awareness that we HAVE actually hurt someone. This can make it painful to decide whether to stay connected -- or cut off contact -- with those who abused us in the past. In this video I talk about ways to free yourself from unnecessary guilt, while listening to the voice inside that tells you when you've made a mistake. If you'd like...

At the urging of a colleague, I have created an infographic that describes the expansion/contraction process that occurs as part of healing from ACEs.

The purpose of this full-day program is to provide an educational forum for practicing nurses, school nurses, nursing students and other health professionals to discuss Adverse Childhood Experiences and the potential effects they can contribute to long-term, adverse health-related issues. This program is presented by the Catskill Hudson Area Health Education Center's Nursing Workforce Development Workgroup in coordination with the SUNY Delhi School of Nursing. The NYU Rory Meyers College of...

A longstanding principle of Anglo-American law is that a defendant shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for his behavior if mental illness made it impossible for him to tell right from wrong. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hold that the Constitution requires that defendants be able to assert an insanity defense. That may be about to change. On Monday, the justices agreed to hear the appeal of James Kahler, who was convicted and sentenced to death after killing four members of...

David Monroe pulled a gun from his pocket, said “f— it,” and fired five shots at a boy he had never seen before. At age 15, he became a killer. The midday shooting on a Stockton street in 1997, while heinous, was hardly uncommon when it happened. In the mid-1990s, a juvenile was slain, on average, almost every day in California. Arrests of youths for violent felonies averaged about 60 a day statewide. Juvenile halls became so overcrowded, authorities were forced to release hundreds of young...

This past weekend, my preschooler’s neighborhood buddies didn’t want to play frisbee with him. Despite his insistence, they left him to go play with his soccer ball—and, unsurprisingly, he was fuming. Although my son didn’t stay mad for long, kids, like adults, can hold on to intense anger when they feel wronged. At its most extreme, this anger can lead young people to ruminate about betrayal and seek revenge through acts like physical aggression that can devastate families and communities.

The HEARTS team met folks from Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ) in April last year when they contacted us about AB2701 , a bill that sought to create a state-wide grant program for providers of school-based trauma services using the HEARTS program approach as a model. Dr. Joyce Dorado and I worked with the team just before it was presented and I was excited to testify at a hearing about the bill. I went to Sacramento the day before to see another hearing taking place, and spent...