April 2017

By Daniel Champer, LCPC, Intermountain Clinical Manager of School Based Service s A quick internet search of the phrase “mushroom cloud” reveals that the technical definition of the phenomena is “a distinctive pyro-cumulus mushroom-shaped cloud of debris and usually condensed water vapor resulting from a large explosion.” The phrase will also conjure up frightening descriptions related to 1950’s nuclear trials and WWII documentaries. The aforementioned imagery is pretty universal. Yet, for...

During my two years off from medical school, I’ve been volunteering as a court appointed special advocate for children in the foster care system. And I’ve spent a lot of time reading about how these kids’ experiences could affect the rest of their lives. The seminal research on this happened in the late ‘90s using data from more 17,000 Kaiser patients. What the researchers found was that patients who reported more adverse childhood experiences were more likely to suffer from such long-term...

Just as life, for many, now takes place both online and in the physical world, so too does death. Social media has brought back the kind of public grieving often seen in ancient Greece —open performances of sadness that bring people together for communal mourning. And a new study shows that the connections made online after a loss can last for years to come. In the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Will Hobbs and Moira Burke looked at data from more than 15,000 Facebook...

A new report out says in the 2014-2015 school year, 8 percent of Texas students who dropped out did so in the seventh or eighth grades . The Fort Worth school district is taking several measures to prevent students from dropping out before high school and keep them on the path to graduation. Listen to the KERA radio story. ‘I thought I would pass’ For Jade Mayweather, problems at school started at a young age. “I used to get in trouble a lot, sixth and seventh-grade year. Sometimes, I used...

Christopher Goins is the founding principal of Butler College Prep, a four-year-old charter high school on the far South Side of Chicago with a student population that is 95 percent low-income and Black. Much like Goins, who is a bold and snazzy dresser, Butler stands out. Though surrounded by the blighted blocks of the Pullman community, Butler has fast become a model of what urban education should look like, particularly for African-American boys. “I know Black kids,” Goins said. “I do.”...

For Lauren Adair Ball, the cost of racism is a 25-milligram dose of Lexipro. She arrived at Lawrence University four years ago excited about the economics courses, nice financial aid package and beautiful campus about four hours north of her southeast Chicago home. Soon after, she got a counselor. A black student in a predominantly white community, Adair Ball felt overwhelmed by racial microaggressions — actions and remarks based on her race, marking her as out of place. Each one may seem...

Being an extrovert is a double-edged sword. I can speak confidently in my college classes and in front of large groups. But everyone seems to think I’ve got it all under control, and I rarely feel that way. There’s a ticking clock always in the back of my mind. I need to graduate and become financially independent before the support I get from the foster care system disappears. [For more of this story, written by Noel Anaya, go to ...

Police in a northwest Pennsylvania town responded about six years ago to a disturbance at a mental health center. The officers confronted an upset client. When he became combative, he was cuffed and spent five years in prison, said Audrey Smith, a psychologist in Meadville, Crawford County. Not long ago, the man returned to the center and became agitated. Back came the police. But this time, officers took a gentler approach. “They let the guy have a smoke,” Smith said, “and got him to an...

Participants in the Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity in Whatcom County, WA, form a human pulse. ________________________ Teri Barila, director of the Children’s Resilience Initiative (CRI), figured few people would venture to Walla Walla to learn about brain science, self-regulation and resilience. She was wrong. A June 2016 conference, “Beyond Paper Tigers,” drew 250 people—some from as far away as Texas, New Mexico and Tennessee—to sessions on “Why Brain Science Matters,”...

As many American parents know, hiring care for young children during the workday is punishingly expensive, costing the typical family about a third of its income. Helping parents pay for that care would be expensive for society, too. Yet recent studies show that of any policy aimed to help struggling families, aid for high-quality care has the biggest economic payoff for parents and their children — and even their grandchildren. It has the biggest positive effect on women’s employment and...

Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they...

Kassie Benjamin-Ficken, a teacher in Minneapolis, discovered her love of math in elementary school. One of her earliest memories is begging her mother to come to school so her teachers could share how she excelled in math class. While earning average scores in reading, she was consistently above average for math—which instilled her with a sense of accomplishment. That continued into middle school, where she recalls asking her math teachers to move her into a higher grade for more advanced...