May 2018

Omar Williams is an actor — a deadly one, he jokes. Having spent 21 years in prison for kidnapping and attempted murder, the Fishkill Correctional Facility inmate says he’s been acting his whole life to get what he wants. “I know exactly how to play you,” he tells me from one of the counseling offices at the prison, which is located about 60 miles north of New York City. “I could tell you anything to bullshit you, to rob you, to kill you. I’ve been acting my whole life.” Minutes later,...

The two 9th-grade girls heard the laughing the minute they walked into their third-period class that December morning at Oakland’s Fremont High School. And they knew why: a video of one of the girls being slapped by a classmate had gone viral among students on social media. It was one of those moments that could have gone bad in a hurry — like so many others had at Fremont High, a school that had more suspensions last year than any other in the Oakland Unified School District. Both girls...

Aging Baby Boomers have taken a variety of approaches to keep their cognitive abilities sharp, from meditation to specially designed games to (my personal favorite) eating chocolate . But new research finds one factor that influences the rate at which our brains age is largely outside our control: our socioeconomic status. "We provide evidence that there exists a powerful relationship between an individual's present environment and their brain," a research team led by Micaela Chan and Gagan...

Aside from the students, there isn't much to suggest that this might be a classroom. It certainly doesn't look like one. Instead of in rows of desks, students sit at tables, on couches, or along padded benches that look like they came straight out of a restaurant. There are treadmills in a corner. It's quiet reading time, and a girl with crayon-colored hair pulls out a large blue book with Alcoholics Anonymous written in gold on the spine. This is Independence Academy in Brockton,...

It is well known that the U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of state-to-state migration flows. But that’s not the case with Puerto Rico. Most of the publicly known numbers related to the post-Maria diaspora from the island to the continental U.S. were driven by estimates, and neither state nor federal institutions kept track of how many Puerto Ricans have left (or returned) after the storm ravaged the entire territory last September. But Teralytics , a New York-based tech company with offices...

Jane Stevens has worked for nearly 40 years as a journalist primarily covering science, health and technology. When she learned about Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, she saw unmet needs to disseminate the findings of ACEs science and to bring practitioners together. She created Acestoohigh.com and ACESconnection.com , a news site and social networking site which both serve as hubs for education about ACEs and resiliency as well as offering connection for communities striving to put...

For more of this article by Tori Rodriguez , please click here .

ABSTRACT. This article is an adaptation of a chapter from the author’s 2005 book, The Living Stage: A Step by Step Guide to Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Experiential Group Therapy. The author proposes the use of psychodrama to help clients in recovery who are dealing with complicated grief issues associated with addiction and addition related trauma. She emphasizes the importance of grieving and recognizes the many causes for a client’s grief, ranging from death to divorce to addiction...

It is both remarkable and natural that the theme of the 2018 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) May 10th Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day event was “Partnering for Health and Hope Following Trauma”—remarkable to hear “ACEs” and “trauma-informed” roll off the tongues of all the federal officials (some seasoned, some new appointees in the Trump Administration) and natural as the awareness of ACEs science grows at lighting speed…at least it feels that way.

Shanel Lindsay is excited. The Boston-based marijuana legalization advocate and owner of Ardent LLC , a medical cannabis device company, is confident that her home state is laying the groundwork for the first statewide marijuana marketplace that will truly compensate communities that were most devastated by the War on Drugs . "This is an industry that presents a high opportunity to build wealth, probably one of the few brand new industries that will come along in our working lifetimes," says...

February's mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which left 17 dead and 17 more wounded, horrified people across the country, spurring student walkouts and marches in support of stricter gun control laws, including universal, comprehensive background checks and a ban on assault weapons. But gun debates in the United States have proven to be contentious and intractable. Even as thousands rally for new legislation, opponents contend that such measures won't...

One could argue that parenting, for Black women, is an act of political warfare. Women of color-led organizations have been working for decades to disrupt the toxic narrative around Black motherhood, a critical step toward dismantling the white supremacy stronghold—but it remains a steep hill to climb. Launched this week, Forward Together’s eighth annual Mamas Day celebration is honoring Black motherhood in all its forms and the right to parent . To commemorate the celebration, artists...