Blog

In the summer of 2018, Ascend convened more than two dozen state and national policymakers and content experts in the fields of health and early learning for the Aspen Early Childhood and Health Forum in Aspen, Colorado, to discuss the growing potential to leverage the 2Gen approach at the state level and identify emerging innovations with potential for scale. To embrace new funding streams and opportunities to integrate 2Gen into policies and programs to improve economic stability for...

My 16-year old client – a young woman who had already spent several years in foster care – just wanted to share her story in court. She hoped to tell the judge the ways in which group home staff were mistreating her. She wanted an outlet to share her dreams about what she was going to accomplish after exiting the system. She craved the opportunity to hear – firsthand – what was happening in her case. Her case was about her. She desired to be a part of it. Yet, hearing after hearing, the...

Psychologist John Van Dreal has spent almost 30 years working with troubled kids. Still, it's always unsettling to get the kind of phone call he received one morning eight years ago as he was on his way to a meeting. "I got a call from the assistant principal at North [Salem] High, reporting that a student had made some threats on the Internet," remembers Van Dreal, the director of safety and risk management for Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Salem, Ore. Threats of violence in a Facebook...

For the first time, a national health panel has recommended a way to prevent depression during and after pregnanc y. This condition, known as perinatal depression, affects up to one in seven women and is considered the most common complication of pregnancy. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, said two types of counseling can help keep symptoms at bay. Its recommendation means that under the Affordable Care Act, such counseling must be covered by insurance with no...

I was running errands this weekend with my preschooler, who operates at a leisurely pace under nearly all circumstances. Clutching my shopping list, I headed straight for the produce section as soon as I entered the grocery store. He decided to stop at the floral section. He picked out a bouquet, placed it in our shopping cart, and said, “This one is beautiful for you, Momma.” My son reminded me that love is a good reason to pause—and a recent study by psychologist Mirka Hintsanen and her...

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1552. He even described “more than thirty other islands in the vicinity of San Juan are for the most part and for the same reason depopulated, and the land laid waste. On these islands I estimate there are 2,100 leagues of land that have been ruined and depopulated, empty of people.” Now a new study adds hard data, documenting the global cost of colonialism. Why does it matter? Because the invasion of the Americas changed everything on the...

America puts more people in jail and prison than any other country in the world. Although the country has managed to slightly reduce its prison population in recent years, mass incarceration remains a fact of the US criminal justice system. It’s time for a radical idea that could really begin to reverse mass incarceration: capping all prison sentences at no more than 20 years. It may sound like an extreme, even dangerous, proposal, but there’s good reason to believe it would help reduce the...

It looks like Congress may have reached a deal on immigration enforcement and border security to avoid another government shutdown, but President Trump says he is not happy. One of the major stumbling blocks in the negotiation has been an argument between Democrats and Republicans over limiting the number of spaces the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has available to detain immigrants while their cases are being adjudicated. Since taking office, the Trump administration’s ramp up...

In our book Anna, Age Eight , which focuses on preventing childhood trauma, we have a full chapter devoted to trauma-free kids and the promise and perils of technology. The good news is that the technology at our fingertips today can vastly improve the prevention of adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. There are ten ACEs that include: physical and emotional neglect; physical, emotional and sexual abuse; and living in households where adults misuse substances, have mental health challenges,...

Valentine’s Day prompts many of us to send messages of love to the special people in our lives. But I’d like to propose a new tradition. Why not use this day to start being kinder to ourselves? Being nice to yourself, particularly during a personal setback or a stressful experience, is known among psychologists as self-compassion. It’s a simple concept — treat yourself as kindly as you would treat a friend who needs support — but it’s one that most people find exceedingly difficult to adopt.

‘Our future can be brighter than our past.” These words of hope are critical for hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma children impacted by trauma and the public educators who serve them. Science tells us that childhood experiences of abuse and neglect linger in the brains of young people — causing them to relive their most agonizing experiences in an endless feedback loop and propelling them into a subconscious, and recurring, state of fight or flight that disrupts their ability to learn.

What can the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse teach us about child development? All stories and fairy tales contain symbols and archetypes. These are what make stories universal and relatable to everyone . Such symbols and archetypes can represent human conflicts, struggles or experiences we have or may encounter — such as trauma and loss. Stories provide us with options for how to deal with the adversity we face. They provide a way of experiencing how things could be resolved and...