Mental Health & Trauma

When kids are at high risk for addiction, a good public school system can be one of the most effective ways to prevent drug use. In Española public schools, teacher turnover and administrative problems have instead created instability for students.

Research shows early childhood education is one of the most effective ways to prevent drug use later in life. That’s especially important in New Mexico's Rio Arriba County, where an opioid epidemic has been raging for decades.

Española, New Mexico, has had one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in the country for decades. It’s a public health crisis that can create particular challenges for pregnant moms and their doctors.

Crocker College Prep is one of five New Orleans schools in a program to better serve children who've been exposed to trauma. WWNO’s Eve Troeh profiles Crocker’s new principal to understand how the school’s approach differs.

In WWNO's ongoing series on how New Orleans kids deal with levels of trauma many times higher the national average, we hear the story of 13-year-old Sherlae, whose tumultuous home life left her struggling at school.

The number of babies born with opioids in their system has risen dramatically in recent years. That's particularly worrying in light of new research that found such children perform significantly worse in school than their peers.

In New Orleans, children screen positive for post-traumatic stress disorder at three times the national average. WWNO’s Mallory Falk and Eve Troeh explore how the city’s education reforms after Katrina have made it harder for some students to recover from trauma, and to learn.

Coverage gained under the ACA allowed one writer to start transitioning. This is one in a series of four perspectives on the impact of Obamacare.

Doctors are famously busy. Would having their staff run checks of patients’ prescription histories instead make drug-tracking databases more effective?

How do we begin to solve the prescription drug crisis ravaging communities across the country? A recent report points the way to promising solutions, including some that should've been implemented years ago.