Sharing – Vulnerable adolescents face sharp drop in mental health service access
We are failing to protect kids from trauma, and them failing to provide proper resources to assist them after that trauma. There’s no nice way to put this failure.
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Sharing – Dolly Parton’s legacy includes an unfortunate reality of caregiving: Not taking care of oneself
I’m not sure what the solution to this is. I imagine it is likely some combination of better healthcare resources, better communities, recognizing the need to support caretakers at home and work, etc. What I do know is that romanticizing it won’t solve anything. Talking about how Dolly wanted to be with her husband does a disservice to what happened while she was caring for him, and to all the people out there caring for a loved one without nearly the resources she had. They deserve better than platitudes; they deserve real support.
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Sharing – National rollout of a brief suicide prevention program for veterans shows high success rates
This program is making a difference for veterans, and I have no doubt it would be the sme for many: The Safety Planning Intervention is a structured process that involves six distinct steps. A healthcare provider and a patient work collaboratively to identify personal warning signs that a crisis might be developing. They also outline…
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Sharing – Listening to Survivors: What Our Survey Is Telling Us
As a survivor of childhood abuse, I don’t know if these being in place would have changed whether I reported it. For many of us, where abuse happens within the family, that’s a very complex question. What I do know is that those three things did not appear to exist, and that guaranteed I would not tell anyone about it until I was an adult, let alone report it.
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Sharing – We Say It Takes a Village — Here’s How You Build One
What more can I say about this? There are clear connections between improved outcomes for kids who are surrounded by supportive adults, and then we created a society that makes it nearly impossible to create that kind of community. The article talks about small acts of cooperation and inclusion, building the network of trusted adults, but how many of us would even know where to start? How many of us don’t trust anyone? How many of us have friends or non-immediate family members around who our kids can trust?
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Sharing – How schools can support mental health in high-needs areas
Schools in poor areas where students are likely to be dealing with instability at home and poverty all around them have different mental health needs than kids living in a wealthy suburb. Programs designed to help families in poverty should be part of school mental health programs. As I’ve said many times, you can’t meditate or exercise your way out of poverty. A full-service mental health program would recognize the impact that something like poverty has on kids.
