Child Trauma

The siblings – a teen and a pre-teen – waited for good news that never came. Their mother was sick, and doctors suspected it was COVID-19, the potentially deadly disease barreling through New York. 

Eight years after her 14-year-old cousin was shot and killed by law enforcement during a mental health crisis, Los Angeles youth activist E.V. is closely watching the protests against police brutality that have now gripped every major American city. 

When James McIntyre left the foster care system at age 21, he said good riddance to therapy. It had never helped him much, and it felt like a chore.

“Therapy was thrown at me.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced that his office will award $2 million over three years to develop an intervention to address youth sex trafficking in New York City.

“In case after case, we see traffickers target children and teens, particularly those in our child welfare system or those who have run away from home,” said Vance, in a press release.

“Your father is as worthless as your mother.”

Those words – said by a caseworker to a 13-year-old child whose parents were addicted to heroin – jumped out at me as I read the case file.

In the late 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente published a landmark study showing that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a long-lasting negative impact on a person’s overall health and well-being as they enter adulthood.

The Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law outlining adoption and foster care regulations for American Indian/Alaska Native children in the United States, turns 41 on Nov. 8, 2019.

ICWA, as the law is commonly known, has faced dozens of legal challenges over its lifetime and finds supporters and opponents both within and outside Native communities.

Earlier this week a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) linked Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to several leading causes of death in the country, including heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes and suicide.

When the parents or caregivers of young children start the San Bernardino County, California, CARE program, they are desperate.

One mother said she hadn’t been able to go to the store in four years because of her 5-year-old son’s challenging behaviors.