Science Says: How family separation may affect kids' brains

Lindsey Tanner, AP - ABC News

This article from ABC News in the US explores the harmful impacts of family separation on children's development and wellbeing. It includes statements from Charles Nelson of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project who describes some of the findings on the impacts of toxic stress on children's brain development, particularly as it relates to institutionalization and family separation. "Nelson said the images he's seen of U.S. detention centers housing children remind him of his research with Romanian children. In a recent research newsletter, Nelson wrote, 'The lessons we learned then taught us that housing children in institution-like settings, with rotating shifts of caregivers and unfavorable ratios of caregivers to children, may cause severe and permanent damage to their minds and bodies.'"