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Within days after the tragic killings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, copycat threats started popping up across the country, including my school district. In the weeks since, there have been five arrests made in response to threats against schools in my community. I know students who were so scared to go to school, they just didn’t show up. While no one has threatened my school directly, there has been an additional police presence on campus. Neither I nor my friends feel...

I remember as a twelve year old, sitting alone in our living room after one of our by then typical family melt downs …….trying to make sense of the pain and general devastation of our once very happy family……trying to understand how kind, decent and loving people could cause each other such unrelenting pain, how we could say the things we were saying, hurl insults, act out in anger and rage……I recall saying to myself “wars do these things to people, separate loved ones, wound hearts,tear...

[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Brown NM, Brown SN, Briggs RD, et. al. Associations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and ADHD Diagnosis and Severity. Acad Pediatr. 2017 May -...

"People do recover from both sexual addiction and sexual offending. I see it every day. They don’t do it alone, and healing does not come easily, but it’s possible for any person who wants it and is willing to put in the work. Usually, once the problematic behaviors are under control, these individuals begin working on the underlying issues (most often various forms of unresolved early-life trauma) that drove them into addiction or offending. That process is incredibly healing, and a great...

Jennifer Donahue, Delaware Office of the Child Advocate, testifies before the HELP Committee (Jennifer Perry on the right) ____________________________________________________________ Some seasoned advocates say legislators are influenced by stories while their staffs are swayed by data. There was some of both at the April 11 hearing on the draft Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 of the U.S. Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee, but it was the personal stories...

Sixth grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister (photo: Laurie Udesky) ________________________________ During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people...

Trauma is the theme of the 2018 SAMHSA-sponsored (U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day on May 10 th (7-9:00 pm ET) . The virtual town hall, “Partnering for Health and Hope Following Trauma,” will focus on taking an integrated health approach to support children, youth, and young adults who have experienced trauma. The goal of Awareness Days in general is “to raise awareness about the importance of children’s mental health and...

...the chemistry-based explanation leaves out the most important factor: emotional pain. Emotional dysregulation underlies the vast majority of substance use issues. Watching a loved one struggle with any kind of substance dependence fills many of us with worry, confusion, and questions. What can we do? Understanding trauma's role in addiction will help more of us lead the change in attitude we need. If the struggle with drug addiction is so often painful and deadly, why does it happen? How...

Michel Martin speaks to Diane Rowland from The Kaiser Family Foundation about a new order from President Trump to establish work requirements for recipients of Medicaid and other federal benefits. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Another potentially significant move by the president last week happened without any fanfare, an executive order he signed quietly to create work requirements for people receiving federal benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid. Now several states, including Kentucky, already...

As a rule, friendship is considered an unalloyed good, one of life’s happy-happies, like flowers and fresh fruit. “Report: It Would Probably Be Nice Having Friends,” read a recent headline in The Onion. Ha ha! Of course it’s “kind of fun” and “pretty cool” to “have a few select people in your life to do stuff with on a regular basis.” Most people can name at least half a dozen people they view as reasonably good friends. The only society where people don’t have any friends, according to...

The distance from the Avalon Gardens public housing development in South Central Los Angeles to elite Smith College in western Massachusetts should be measured in more than the 2,900 miles separating them. The housing project near Watts is a cluster of nearly identical pale orange one- and two-story buildings surrounded by a high metal gate installed to keep gangs out. It is home to about 440 low-income, mainly Latino and black, residents whose scramble for economic survival is eased by...

You cannot find a corner of this continent that does not hold ancient history, Indigenous value, and pre-colonial place names and stories. And every place we occupy was once the homeland for other people, most of whom didn’t leave willingly. Whose land are you on? Start with a visit to native-land.ca . Native Land is both a website and an app that seeks to map Indigenous languages, treaties, and territories across Turtle Island. You might type in New York, New York, for example, and find...