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ACE Overcomers: The Center for Resiliency and Trauma-Informed Training The Valley Dream Center of Fresno, California hosted a 2-day training, conducted by ACE Overcomers. 40 individuals gathered for the 2-day training on The Power of a Trauma-Informed Ministry. Most participants were from California's Central Valley, along with attendees from San Diego, Oregon and New Mexico. The primary goal was to increase an understanding of trauma and adverse childhood experiences and introduce a...

Around 1 a.m. on April 24, semi-truck drivers in the Oak Park area of Michigan received a distress call from area police: An unidentified man was standing on the edge of a local bridge apparently ready to jump onto the freeway below. Those drivers then did something amazing. They raced to the scene to help — and lined up their trucks under the bridge , providing a relatively safe landing space should the man jump. The impressive line-up wasn't a coincidence - the drivers were prepared for...

Another opioid overdose death. Another drug-related crime. Another billion dollars spent on ineffective treatments. News about the opioid crisis keeps getting worse. Simple solutions haven't changed the epidemic's course. The number of deaths has continued to increase, driven by an influx of illicit fentanyl sold as heroin, as well as counterfeit pills and other illicit drugs like methamphetamine and cocaine often contaminated with fentanyl. To effectively treat this evolving public health...

Allen County's homicide count stands at 15 for the year, but there are many more victims when you count the children touched by each death. In a new field examining trauma-influenced behavior, knowledge of those events – adverse childhood experiences, or “ACEs” – is now informing how people who work with youth respond. Judge Charles Pratt, who oversees Allen Superior Court's Family Relations Division, has organized a six-month leadership academy to train 40 leaders from education, law...

New research shows there might be health benefits to eating certain types of dark chocolate. Findings from two studies being presented today at the Experimental Biology 2018 annual meeting in San Diego show that consuming dark chocolate that has a high concentration of cacao (minimally 70% cacao, 30% organic cane sugar) has positive effects on stress levels, inflammation, mood, memory and immunity. While it is well known that cacao is a major source of flavonoids, this is the first time the...

Lucas Johnson’s résumé is characteristic of any high-achieving high school senior. There’s the raft of Advanced Placement classes, a dozen during his four years at Monticello High School in Virginia’s Albemarle County. There are the extracurriculars — tutoring and Model United Nations and student council and cross-country. During his junior year, there was the stress that accompanied all of it — stress that, at times, made him ask: “What is the point of all of this?” The 18-year-old...

This is a story about love and sacrifice in the shining city on a hill. It is about the wildest, blindest love story in America, the story of the devotion immigrants have for a country that wants to expel them . This love perseveres past heartbreak; past giving your body, mind, and youth to a country you risked your life to get to, then seeing your own tax money pay for immigration officials to pursue an ambulance carrying a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy on the way to emergency...

People who are 30 pounds or more overweight may want to slim down a bit even if they don't have high blood pressure or any other heart disease risk, according to scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. In a study published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the researchers found that slightly less than half of the people who were considered obese -- 30 pounds or more overweight -- developed metabolic syndrome within 10 years, putting them at a...

This story was co-published with ProPublica . Doctors would see new mothers sooner and more frequently, and insurers would cover the increased visits, under sweeping new recommendations from the organization that sets standards of care for obstetrician-gynecologists in the U.S. The 11-page "committee opinion" on " Optimizing Postpartum Care ," released Monday by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists , represents a fundamental re-imagining of how providers, insurers and...

In 2012, following more than a decade of significant decline, the number of American children in foster care began rising. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of children in foster care nationally has increased by more than 10 percent. There is broad agreement that the ongoing opioid epidemic has been a primary contributor to those increases. Now, a recent research brief issued by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and...

“In Kenya they have a greeting , and that greeting is, ‘How are the children?’’’ said Pastor Patricia Sealy during a panel on day one of the inaugural National Children of Incarcerated Parents conference in Phoenix. If the children are well, then all is well, Seely explained. For those at the conference, the concern is that the children could be well if the American criminal justice system made efforts to be family focused. Attracting around 300 attendees from all over the U.S. and a handful...

Would you describe yourself as a compassionate person? Even if you don’t necessarily see yourself that way, I bet you’re compassionate at least some of the time (e.g., when you’re well-rested and not in a hurry), or with certain people in your life (e.g., with your closest friends). Compassion can be thought of as a mental state or an orientation towards suffering (your own or others’) that includes four components : Bringing attention or awareness to recognizing that there is suffering...