May 2019

To build a Culture of Health, we must first ensure everyone has the basics to be healthy. And when it comes to expanding opportunities for health, thinking the same approach will work universally is like expecting everyone to be able to ride the same bike. Download and share this image to #PromoteHealthEquity, and help create a shared vision of better health for all. [To read more, please click here .]

Members of The Living Well Theater perform at the Good Food for All Conference at the Free Library/Parkway Central Library. Photo courtesy of Marie-Monique Marthol. ________________________________ Marie-Monique Marthol handed out the cards to older adults at meetings of her local civic association. With the pastor’s permission, she left some at a neighborhood church. She stacked them in restaurants, community centers and even at the laundromat. On the front, the cards read, “Time never runs...

Our recently published book, Trauma-informed Healthcare Approaches was written to share basic principles of trauma-informed care and ACEs science with general medical practitioners and administrators. As the recent #METOO movement has demonstrated, interpersonal trauma is widespread. A growing literature has demonstrated the impact of traumatic experiences on mental, physical health and wellbeing. Trauma survivors commonly access healthcare but their histories and needs are commonly...

All of us at ACEs Connection have experienced ACEs during our childhoods, either in our own families or vicariously through friends; some of us accumulated pretty high ACE scores, with not enough resilience factors, and we’ve suffered the consequences. That history propels us up and out of bed every single morning to grow this network of amazing people (that’s you!) to reach even more people so that kids don’t have to repeat what we went through. We want more of our taxes to go to such...

Therapy dogs are used in a wide variety of environments and circumstances but, broadly speaking, they are dogs whose presence is designed to help alleviate stress, promote feelings of well-being and sometimes help with a process of rehabilitation or healing in humans other than their owners.

Doctors give a lot of very good advice. Over the years, my primary care doctors have suggested better eating habits, more exercise, improved sleep hygiene, not carrying such a heavy shoulder bag, even exercises to improve my posture. The problem is, I am not sure I have ever made any changes in my behavior as a direct result. That would not come as a surprise to Ken Resnicow, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “Finger-wagging doesn’t work,” he said. “There’s...

Last month, an article titled “The Tragedy of Baltimore” in the New York Times Magazine described the upsurge in violence in a city long known for its “blight, suburban flight, segregation, drugs , racial inequality, [and] concentrated poverty.” At the center of the storm are transition-age youth, who too often face long odds and challenging futures in the communities where they live. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Patricia Cobb-Richardson , MS. For the past 20 years, she has...

By NLC Staff on May 10, 2019 Cities, towns, and villages are places of innovation and solution finding. If you want to improve early childhood wellbeing—local leaders are key partners. The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Learning Community is a program of Boston Medical Center’s Vital Village. The learning community’s goal is to support local early childhood coalitions and build their capacity to work together with the broader community to improve the wellbeing of our...