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“What good are we as humans if we can’t help each other,” Colella, an independent artist whose piece is now on display at the Fuller Craft Museum, said.

According to Dr. Richard Estes, “Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the U.S. and North America today. It is the nation’s least recognized epidemic.” This form of human trafficking – the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) – is a pressing concern for youth service agencies. The adolescents we work with are extremely vulnerable to recruitment into “the life” of exploitation. Some are lured by smooth-talking traffickers (pimps), some are abused by...

By Molly Walker, Medpage Today, September 30, 2019 Military sexual trauma was associated with a wide range of mental health diagnoses, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and suicidal ideation in older female veterans, a researcher said here. Female veterans, ages ≥55, who screened positive for military sexual trauma had a more than seven-fold increased odds of PTSD (OR 7.25, 95% CI 6.84-7.68), and more than two-fold higher odds of depression (OR 2.39, 95% CI...

By Linsey McMurrin, Brainerd Dispatch, September 30, 2019 We know the way we see and experience the world around us is influenced by many factors. These include our culture, how we were raised, and the challenges we have overcome. The research around Adverse Childhood Experiences helps us understand more about how hardships and intensely stressful situations we go through early on in our lives can impact our brains as they develop. This can cause us to be constantly on “high alert” as we...

By Nuria Martinez-Keel, The Oklahoman, September 30, 2019 A pioneering study of Oklahoma student test scores revealed troubling results while setting the path for public education in the state for the next decade. New state research found minority children had lower test scores than their white peers, even when the only apparent differentiating factor was the color of their skin or their ethnicity, according to data from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Students of color...

By Alan Blinder, The New York Times, September 30, 2019 It has been a bedrock principle behind college sports: Student-athletes should not be paid beyond the costs of attending a university. California threatened that standard on Monday after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to allow players to strike endorsement deals and hire agents. The new law, which is supposed to take effect in 2023, attacks the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s long-held philosophy that college athletes should...

As one of the Trauma Informed Care trainers for my region, I work with community based organizations daily and see first hand the extent of compassion fatigue and how it manifests itself through burn out and secondary trauma. How do we fight this silent, gradual killer? We build connections. Whether it's in our schools or agencies, the barriers to forming relationships are present. Time, communication skills, authenticity,etc- there are several barriers than can block developing organization...

The two biggest myths about ACEs science are: MYTH #1 — That it’s just about the 10 ACEs in the ACE Study — the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study . It’s about sooooo much more than that. MYTH #2 — And that it’s just about ACEs…adverse childhood experiences. These two myths are intertwined. The ACE Study issued the first of its 70+ publications in 1998, and for many people it was the lightning bolt, the grand “aha” moment, the unexpected doorway into a blazing new...

Unlike some of her staff at Benchmarks , a nonprofit alliance partnering with private and public health agencies in North Carolina, Chief Research & Development Officer Jenny Cooper has an ACE score of 0. Jenny, who joined Benchmarks to work on the Partnering for Excellence Initiative , which seeks to enhance child welfare services and outcomes, attributes her low score to her parents. They made sure to treat her and her sibling well and provide opportunities in their lives. She notes...

By Amy Goldstein, The Washington Post, September 30, 2019 Poor people in Michigan with asthma and diabetes were admitted to hospitals less often after they joined Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. More than 25,000 Ohio smokers got help through the state’s Medicaid expansion that led them to quit. And around the country, patients with advanced kidney disease who went on dialysis were more likely to be alive a year later if they lived in a Medicaid-expansion state. Such findings are part...

By John Kelly, The Chronicle of Social Change, September 26, 2019 sujatha baliga, who helped build one of the nation’s most successful restorative juvenile justice programs in Oakland, Calif., is among this year’s MacArthur Fellows, an honor bestowed by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. baliga (she does not capitalize her name), who is the director of the Restorative Justice Project at Oakland-based Impact Justice, will receive a no-strings, $625,000 “genius...

By W. R. Cummings, Psych Central, September 8, 2019 Sometimes, as adults, we use unhealthy methods to change our children’s behavior. We mean well, but we focus more on immediate change than we do on long-term success. Instead of teaching kids skills to make independent choices, we teach them how to obey our demands. More often than not, we use emotional manipulation to get the results that make our lives easier instead of the ones that make their lives more successful. How many people do...