This interactive graphic is part of our project exploring the more than 33,000 annual gun deaths in America and what it would take to bring that number down. See our stories on suicides among middle-age men, homicides of young black men and accidental deaths, or explore the menu for more coverage. [For more go to http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/]
The brutalization of black bodies is now a form of repetitive trauma. The highly publicized killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, recorded and shared on multiple social media outlets (many of which include autoplay on videos), only reinforced the onslaught of violence and made it inescapable. For young black people, the visibility of this violence only reinforces the idea that the black body is up for consumption. It can be viewed, manipulated, desecrated, and even legally...
Whac-A-Mole players (photo by Laura ) _______________________________________________ Many people and organizations focus on preventing violence with the belief that if our society can stop violence against children, then most childhood trauma will be eradicated. However, research that has emerged over the last 20 years clearly shows that focusing primarily on violence prevention – physical and sexual abuse, in particular – doesn’t eliminate the trauma that children experience, and won’t...
On television screens, social media posts and the pages of newspapers, it is impossible, it seems, to escape the relentless bombardment of images of last week’s fatal shootings in Dallas, Minnesota and Louisiana, and it is affecting people’s psychological health, experts said Monday. “We have a nation that is extremely impacted,” said Dr. Andrew Williams, mental health services program manager for Riverside University Health System-Behavioral Health. And to cope with the disturbing...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/business/economy/child-care-expansion-takes-a-toll-on-poorly-paid-workers.html?emc=edit_th_20160713&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=56829562 Why is there a disconnect between the amount of love and care these workers give to children and what they get in return?
Mobilizing action can be intimidating. Creating a movement even more so. John Hagel provides the following definition of a movement: “an organized effort mobilizing a large number of independent participants in a grassroots effort to pursue a broad agenda for change.” He indicates that there are two key ingredients in movement making: 1) compelling narratives and 2) fostering creation spaces. In Buncombe County, we are experimenting with both of these notions. Opportunity-based Narrative A...
Great article by Barbara J. King. An excerpt: The biggest lesson that I've taken from Self-Reg is that when a child insists that a teacher's voice is harsh, or a restaurant or classroom is unbearably bright or loud, we need to recognize (even though we might not experience things that way at all) that the child is very probably not lying, exaggerating or trying to be oppositional. Instead, the child's biological sensitivities may make her exquisitely reactive in a way that triggers a...
July is National Minority Mental Health Month. The stigma surrounding mental health issues is one of the biggest barriers between people and the help they need, and there is reason to believe that people of color are less likely to receive treatment for mental illness, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Spoken word artist Bassey Ipki created the nonprofit Siwe Project to combat the stigma surrounding mental health treatment among those of African descent. Named...
Local mental health care providers want residents to know that services are available to help people cope with last week's shooting — even for those who may not have the ability to pay. "In this incident, we don't want to turn away folks. We want to encourage everyone to come regardless of their ability to pay," said Charlene Stark, vice president of marketing and development for Metrocare Services, which has nine mental health clinics throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. "We want to help...
Back in 2010, after Tonette Walker became Wisconsin’s first lady, she went to a workshop with other new first ladies from other states, a kind of orientation. One of the topics there was choosing causes to champion. “They were talking to the first ladies about ‘pick what you love, do something you love so you can make a difference,’” Walker recalled Tuesday morning during a visit to La Crosse as part of the Walker administration's two-day Cabinet on the Road event. Walker, who became first...
The world can be a dark place for many children: the "lost boys" from Sudan, refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, child sex workers in Brazil, baby girls abandoned in China, kids pulled into gang drug wars in the United States. Such suffering by children is more common than most people might think and represents what some believe to be one of our biggest public-health crises of all time. A study published in January in the journal Pediatrics puts that violence into stark perspective by...
“He was very angry. He was scratching his face, kicking, and screaming,” Carrie Giddings, a preschool teacher, said of one of her students during his first days in her class at Kruse Elementary School in northern Colorado. The boy’s father had been in and out of jail, Giddings said. She thinks the 3-year-old had witnessed abuse at home before he enrolled in preschool at Kruse. His family was poor. For a while, they had lived with relatives, unable to afford their own place. “Everything that...
A new plan unveiled by Elkhart County staff Wednesday calls for a major reconfiguration in how children, particularly those with potential health issues, should be treated in the county’s juvenile justice system. The project calls for building a Juvenile Resource Center, which would screen and assess youth accused of delinquency to determine the most appropriate intervention. Those actions could include anything from requiring mental health treatment to detention. The goal, however, is to...
As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out — at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation — we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through. After all, isn't it our job to teach our kids to learn some self-control? But what about the kids who not only can't calm down, they have no idea what it means to calm down? What about the kids who are continuously over-aroused, stressed to the point where their...
GIVING OUT PARKING tickets in New York does not usually inspire goodwill. If anything, it inspires a steady stream of insults from angry drivers. So several years ago, Elizabeth Brondolo , a psychologist at St. John’s University, came to counsel the city’s traffic agents, most of whom were African-American. “We could do standard behavior therapy things about being called a ‘fat pig’ or ‘get a real job,’” says Brondolo. Her team ran through relaxation exercises and skits, which usually...