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On election night, as it became clear that Donald Trump would be the country's next president, Dorcas Lind was feeling unsettled. With her children tucked in bed, Lind watched as the results trickled in and battleground states like Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina turned red on the TV map. She thought about work. Maybe, she thought, this would be good for business. Or, maybe, it was time for a career change. Lind is a diversity consultant in the health care industry. It's her job to...

Sandra M. Chafouleas, a professor in the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, reflects on the film "Resilience" and how it can help encourage new and veteran educators to use a "whole-child" lens to support students and their families.

Futures Without Violence hosted a webinar to give a brief overview of compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma and provide strategies to enhance health, healing, and stress reduction for individuals and organization wide. The following are the learning objectives for the webinar: Identify how individual, organizational and work-related factors contribute to an individual’s experience of secondary trauma and ability to heal from it; Discuss the reasons organizations benefit from supporting an...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project Report Indigenous suicide is a significant population health challenge for Australia. Suicide has emerged in the past half century as a major cause of Indigenous premature mortality and is a contributor to the overall Indigenous health and life expectancy gap. In 2014 it was the fifth leading cause of death among Indigenous people, and the age-standardised suicide rate was around twice as high as the non-Indigenous...

For the first time ever, a sitting U.S. surgeon general has declared substance abuse a public-health crisis. “It’s time to change how we view addiction,” Vivek Murthy said in a statement last week, which was accompanied by a lengthy report on the issue. “Not as a moral failing, but as a chronic illness that must be treated with skill, urgency and compassion. The way we address this crisis is a test for America.” Murthy’s statement is a major victory for those advocates who have long hoped...

A new report from Children Now details wide disparities in children’s well-being across California’s 58 counties. The 2016–2017 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being looks at a series of indicators organized around the three domains of child welfare and economic well-being; health; and education. The report provides a comparison over time for each of 28 indicators, as well as a breakdown by ethnicity on each data point for every county in the state. Children Now, an advocacy...

It took less than a minute of playing League of Legends for a homophobic slur to pop up on my screen. Actually, I hadn't even started playing. It was my first attempt to join what many agree to be the world's leading online game, and I was slow to pick a character. The messages started to pour in. “Pick one, kidd,” one nudged. Then, “Choose FA GO TT.” It was an unusual spelling, and the spaces may have been added to ease the word past the game's default vulgarity filter, but the message was...

When 67-year-old Wayne Sperling appeared in a Denver courtroom for sentencing on December 30, 2014 , his long, snow white beard and button nose made him look like a real-life incarnation of Kris Kringle. But he more accurately resembled a sinister character from Oliver Twist. Sperling faced 10 felony charges related to child abuse but pleaded guilty to just one, a Class 5 felony that carried a sentence of up to eight years in prison. He’d already lost custody of his children. Now the judge...

On Nov. 9, educators at Bruce Vento Elementary in St. Paul fielded an onslaught of tough questions from students. Some wanted to know if they would be sent away, or if their parents would be sent away. Others were trying to make sense of the wall, wondering if Donald Trump intended to build a wall between black and white people. And at least one student raised the concern that black people would be forced into slavery. This list of post-election inquiries from students in a public preK-5...

To illustrate the impact of what’s known as Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACE, and the power of overcoming their impact, Peter Buckley tells the story of a young boy at Orchard Hill Elementary in Medford. The child could not sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, nor could he remain silent for long stretches like most of his peers. Consequently, the classroom interruptions were constant. Then, the teacher tried something called the “good behavior game,” which teaches students...

Elise just told me about her past. I knew she had been through a lot, but not all that. She said her mom hit her and left bruises when she was a kid, her neighbor touched her where she didn’t want to be touched, and I guess her brother was alcoholic. There was a lot of other stuff, too. It has gotten better in the last couple years so that is good. I have known their whole family for a long time and never knew any of that. What do I do now? I want to help somehow, but is there anything to...

To create healthy communities, we need to begin addressing the prevalence of trauma in our student’s lives. This webinar will discuss how community schools are helping to address trauma, as part of an effort to improve the health of communities. Speakers Include Tracey Schear, Director, Center for Healthy Schools and Communities, Alameda County Health Care Services Agency; Lara Kain, Senior Director, Transform Schools, Los Angeles Education Partnership; and Andrea Blanch, Acting Director,...