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School violence is rapidly becoming a top-of-mind issue, with instances of bullying, dating violence, and suicide on the rise in recent years. According to the CDC, 20.2% of students reported being bullied on school property, 6.0% said they had been threatened or injured with a weapon, and 7.8% reported being in a physical fight on school property in 2015. Additionally, 17.7% of students reported that they seriously considered attempting suicide that same year. The correlation between school...

Gaps in a new California law requiring schools to test their drinking water for lead could leave children vulnerable to the toxic metal. The law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last October, puts California among only seven states and the District of Columbia nationwide that require schools to test their drinking water for lead. Thousands of schools across the state have already tested the water flowing from their drinking fountains, sinks and other sources. [For more on this story by NICO...

The aging of the Baby Boomers has inspired a lot of research into how we can stave off old-age cognitive decline. But a large new study suggests the most effective interventions may take place at the beginning of one's life. It finds people who grew up in socially disadvantaged households—defined as crowded living quarters that are lacking in books—tend to score lower than others on tests of cognitive skills. This gap apparently does not increase over time, but it remains significant after...

Native American women and girls are two and a half times more likely to experience sexual violence compared to other races. The truth is, however, that it’s been open season on Native women and girls’ sexuality for the last 500 years. For me, this is personal. My mother, and women of her generation, survived poverty, brutal men, sexual violence, and Indian boarding schools. While many of the Ojibwe women of my youth were bitter, quick-tempered creatures, their prickly exteriors camouflaged a...

A major meta-analysis published earlier this year that questioned the empirical evidence for supervised drug consumption sites has been retracted by the International Journal of Drug Policy. Supervised consumption sites (also known as safe injection sites) have gained traction across several US cities, including New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, in response to the opioid epidemic . These sites, which already exist in Canada, Europe, and Australia, create a space where people...

On a Tuesday morning in early May, students from Juanita Douglas’s African-American-history course sat in the library at Lincoln Park High School, on the North Side of Chicago , waiting noiselessly for Ronald Kitchen to compose himself. “Sometimes I be at a loss for words when I see a lot of young people actually taking heed to the things that’s happening in our neighborhoods,” he told the class. “I am a survivor of police torture from Jon Burge.” Kitchen was twenty-two years old in August,...

“Like so many rape survivors in this country living through this particular moment in history,” Deborah Copaken wrote last week, “I have been so brought to my knees by this latest allegation that I, too, was inspired to speak out.” After Copaken described her experience, her former pediatrician got in touch with her, and shared his letter with The Atlantic. [For more on this story, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/letters/archive/2018/09/pediatrician-i-didnt-discuss-sexuality-patients/571516/ ]

It was by pure fluke 20 years ago that Rob Anda created the world’s most widely used index of trauma exposure, which in turn laid bare both its widespread prevalence and its toxic aftereffects. Anda has seen his findings go from “junk science” in the first 10 years — when scientific journals refused to publish his work — to validation in studies in 72 nations in the last 10 years. His trauma index has spawned new schools of social work known as trauma-informed healing as well as new research...

Happy Independence Day Nigeria Together, let us continue to build the Nigeria of our dreams where every child is afforded a safe place to grow in an environment free of toxic stress from abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, community violence and fear of being trafficked.

Adults can accurately recall traumatic events from childhood, including instances of sexual abuse, a new article shows. This has prompted the researchers to advocate for investigation of childhood abuse claims made by people who come forward as adults. “Time alone should not be a bar to hearing evidence about prior sexual assault,” said FIU legal psychologist Deborah Goldfarb, who is a co-author on the paper. “The evidence should be heard on its merits and arbiters of fact can then make an...

The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health is pioneering a model of care that includes the baby starting at conception. Our model also includes transgenerational and intergenerational trauma, prenatal experiences, birth and attachment and bonding. We have a conference on this topic October 5-7, 2018, in Denver, CO. See: https://birthpsychology.com/2018-conference/welcome I will be a the Zero to Three conference representing our programs for a poster session. If you are...

Trauma: a story of hope Any story about healing trauma is a story of hope, and a story for all of us. Because we all carry trauma. Whether we think of ourselves this way or not. We know now that we all carry trauma because we know that trauma is transmitted intergenerationally . And we know that in the U.S., our country was built on--and continues to be sustained by--legacies of trauma : violence against Native Africans, violence against African Americans, violence against Latinos, violence...