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Latosha Poston says she made a lot of mistakes in her life. Her legal troubles began in her teens after her first child was born in Indianapolis. Over the years, bad decisions led to some arrests, some convictions. "Sometimes we get stuck in our past and let our past guide us," she says. The 44-year-old has worked hard to straighten out her life. But her criminal record — all involving misdemeanors — continued to haunt her as she tried to find a decent job and place to live. [For more on...

Do the multitude of algorithms engineered to govern our livelihoods reflect the biases and prejudices of those who create them? Absolutely —but, according to a new paper , that may not ultimately be such a bad thing. Over the past decade, a growing body of research has found that algorithms themselves can contain biases: For example, a ProPublica analysis in 2016 found that an algorithm used by many states in sentencing decisions and to set bail overestimates the likelihood of recidivism of...

Today, students from all backgrounds are choosing to go to college, and many borrow money to make that possible. While education debt is of genuine concern for a wide range of students and families, the broad-brush narrative of student debt in this country ignores sharp differences in borrowing across racial and ethnic groups. As a nation, we should be very concerned that African Americans carry a disproportionate amount of higher-education debt. This unprecedented and unequal level of...

QBI researchers have discovered a DNA modification that enhances our ability to extinguish fear. The findings, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could help guide the development of new treatments for fear -related anxiety disorders. Professor Tim Bredy explains that while fear is an important survival mechanism in which cues in the environment tell us to respond in certain ways, so too is the ability to inhibit fear when it's no longer needed. [For more on this study by...

Dr. Diane Suffridge, a clinical psychologist and director of the University Counseling Services at Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif., has been interested in trauma for many years. But last summer that interest took a sudden and interesting turn. A student counselor she advised had written a research paper on the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) health and mental health outcomes in foster youth, and it gave the student a new view of the patients she counseled at the...

Please join me (Robbyn Peters Bennett), the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children , The New York Foundling , and The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children to end the hitting of children! There is strength and momentum in numbers! https:// usalliancetoendthehittingof children.wildapricot.org/ Join-us Following on the heals of the AAP warning that spanking harms children, the APA now commits to ending spanking due to the overwhelming research that links spanking to poor...

The relationship between adverse childhood experiences , healthcare utilization, cost of care and medical comorbidities. Koball AM, Rasmussen C, Olson-Dorff D, Klevan J, Ramirez L, Domoff SE. Child Abuse Negl . 2019 Feb 15;90:120-126. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.021. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 30776737 Similar articles Select item 307734 Peritraumatic Neural Processing and Intrusive Memories: The Role of Lifetime Adversity. Rattel JA, Miedl SF, Franke LK, Grünberger LM, Blechert J,...

Please join ACEs Connection and the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) for a free webinar on Thursday, Feb. 28, that features the Self-Healing Communities Model (SHCM) presented by Interface co-founder Laura Porter. The 60-minute webinar starts at noon PT/3:00 pm ET. The webinar is the second in a series on best practices in states. The first webinar was on Alaska’s new statute directing state policy to incorporate principles of brain development. The Self-Healing...

MIDWEST CITY - While many students had Monday off - some educators used the day to learn how to help their students learn better while at school. Teachers learned how to deal with one of the biggest problems facing Oklahoma kids: trauma. "If something happens, grades go down," said Robin Gurwitch, PhD. [For more on this story by BRENT SKARKY, go to https://kfor.com/2019/02/18/educators-work-to-help-oklahoma-kids-exposed-to-trauma/ ]

As someone who’s in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug dependency I’ve often reflected upon the various causal factors associated with addiction and what these suggest in terms of successful recovery. There seems to be many diverse opinions, often polarising voices, in relation to the causes, nature and treatment of addiction. There are those that focus upon research into the neurobiology of addiction and consider it to be a “brain disease”. This approach is often associated with...

This question came up in conversation when I was speaking with someone who has experienced severe panic attacks to the point of calling them “debilitating”, requiring inpatient care. As they were sharing about the ordeal, they told me that when they contemplate the time spent seeking treatment and the aftermath, it ramped up both the anxiety and PTSD symptoms. Even as a career therapist with decades of experience treating people with stand-alone anxiety , with no overt PTSD symptoms, I had...

"A GROWING NUMBER OF CLINICIANS AND CAREGIVERS ARE SUFFERING BURNOUT AND COMPASSION FATIGUE AS THEY STRUGGLE TO FEEL EFFICACIOUS IN THEIR JOBS. BOTH OUR SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR SERVICE USERS ARE IN NEED OF ACTIONABLE TOOLS AND PRACTICES THAT TRANSCEND PATHOLOGY, THAT CAN BE SHARED AND STRENGTHENED THROUGH ORGANIC SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND INCREASE OVERALL WELL-BEING FOR ALL PARTIES IN THE SYSTEM. SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS WANT TO OFFER EMPOWERED SOLUTIONS THEY KNOW WILL WORK". --Sue Jones