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Excerpt from this blog post, which I wrote earlier today: "This past week has been brutal, in terms of what has been coming across my newsfeed. And 2016 wasn't exactly a picnic either. So lately I've been thinking a lot about the mental health impact of a steady avalanche of Really Bad News. Many of us (myself included) deal with mental health challenges on a daily basis and being fed a steady diet of devastating world events only serves to make that harder. So I've decided to share a few...

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Diana Rauner, President of Ounce of Prevention Fund _____________________________________________ Consistent with being the first state to adopt standards for social emotional learning (SEL) in the country, Illinois recently passed legislation (SB 565, Public Act 99-0927 ) to require social and emotional screenings for children as part of the their school entry examinations. Governor Rauner (R) signed the bill on January 20. It goes into effect June 1 of...

As a parent, you’ve watched your child grow from infancy to adolescence and now your son or daughter is entering a whole new world. While most kids will get through college just fine, others find themselves on a different, more precarious path. According to the latest results from the National College Health Assessment , many college students experience mental health difficulties. More than 1 in 5 felt overwhelming anxiety in the 12 months prior to the survey. In addition, 18 percent felt...

Chronic bullying can take a toll on kids' grades. That's the suggestion of researchers said they found that young children who are bullied for years, or teens who face increased bullying in high school, lack confidence in their academic abilities, get lower grades and dislike school more than their peers. "It's extremely disturbing how many children felt bullied at school," said lead researcher Gary Ladd, a psychology professor at Arizona State University. "For teachers and parents, it's...

In prior posts in this series, I focused on understanding Jesus' ministry through the lens of trauma-informed ministry practices. Starting with this post, I hope to engage specific teachings of Jesus and show how in my ministry to emotionally disturbed children, many of whom have experienced early childhood trauma, where the proverbial "rubber meets the road." That is, having laid out biblical points of connection between SAMHSA's guidelines for trauma-informed care, I hope to give practical...

Pediatricians can support children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation by identifying the need for intervention and maintaining positive, neutral relationships with both parents, according to a new clinical report released by the American Academy of Pediatrics. More than 1 million American children annually are affected by their parents’ break-up and may suffer emotional trauma that requires extra support, according to the report, “Helping Children and Families Deal With...

Samantha Jackson balanced her 9-month-old baby, Elias, carefully on her lap inside 6th Judicial District Judge Sally Tarnowski's courtroom one January day. Gathered around four heavy tables pushed together in the middle of the room, Jackson and Elias — there for a hearing — were joined by Tarnowski, attorneys and social workers. There was good news to be finalized: Jackson was regaining full custody of her two children, and her child protection case was being closed. "It's a really good day...

In her pediatrics practice in Winston Salem, North Carolina, Julie Linton has seen several young patients who she believes are psychologically suffering from President Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigrants. One 9-year-old boy came in with headaches, which Linton said started when “he was being told in school that his parents would be sent back to their country of origin.” Another patient, a 15-year-old girl, began experiencing panic attacks in crowds because she feared she would be...

The United States’ juvenile incarceration woes are well-documented: More than 1.3 million adolescents and children are arrested every year, and roughly 80 percent of juveniles who spend time incarcerated wind up back behind bars as adults. There are major public-health implications from this high juvenile incarceration rate, and academics and policymakers alike are both scrambling to understand how, exactly, juvenile incarceration affects young people’s health. Though previous studies have...

Editor's note: Community Builder is a periodic Q & A series providing perspectives from local people who have been involved in significant change in Southern Oregon. Today's conversation is with Kathy Bryon, executive director of the Gordon Elwood Foundation. Q: It seems like you are involved in many projects and conversations in the region. Kathy: I'm an organizer by heart and background. My early "training" began as the oldest daughter of a single mother of three children. When I...

U.S. pediatricians are taking President Donald Trump to task after he issued executive orders Wednesday that -- the doctors said -- will make the country a much less welcoming place for immigrant children. Not only will refugee children be harmed by the new policies, but children of immigrants already living in the United States will become frightened for their family's safety, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "Children do not immigrate, they flee," AAP President Dr.

President-elect Donald Trump and Congressional leaders have been very clear that repealing the Affordable Care Act is a top priority as soon as Congress returns to town in January. While Republican leaders have long talked about “repeal and replace” the replace part of the equation is a lot harder to figure out. As a result, it is possible that Congress will move quickly and repeal the ACA and leave us guessing as to what the “replace” would look like. So let’s tease out what the...