Blog

As the holidays approach, we often forget there are so many youth who are detained, in placement or simply away from their families. There were 50,821 youth in some type of facility in 2014, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency and Prevention reported. Even though some young people can't be home during the holiday season, they should never feel alone. Many youth-serving agencies provide a celebration and recognition of the holidays in December, due to compassion for all youth and...

“Sometimes he would choke me until I passed out,” -- 16-year-old Alina said

Ten tiny shoes sat in a pile outside the room, and the laughter of children burst through the door as Brianna Schiavoni and her class of children struck a dead bug pose on a Sunday afternoon last month. Some had spent their young lives battling depression, dyslexia and bipolar disorder. But as they contorted their bodies and quieted their minds, their symptoms subsided. In Schiavoni’s eyes, yoga has the power to heal. Through her business, Yoga 4 Youth, the 34-year-old renaissance woman —...

In 2014, 55 U.S. military service members died fighting in Afghanistan. Today, an average of 20 veterans lose their lives every day to suicide, according to a recent report by the Department of Veteran Affairs. We do a spectacular job of providing our citizens with resources they need to keep our country safe. But the moment these brave men and women come home, there is a profound opportunity to better support their adjustment back to civilian life. A recent Morning Consult survey from the...

The U.S. Army’s efforts to come to grips with a dramatic upsurge in war-related behavioral conditions over the past 13 years holds valuable lessons for bringing precision mental health care to the civilian world. Virtually everyone realizes that precision medicine, which aims to tailor care to the individual patient’s needs, is essential. Yet in attempts to bring patient-centered, outcomes-based approaches to health care in recent years, mental health has taken a back seat to other areas of...

Shortly after being sworn in to his second term in the California State Assembly, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) this week introduced Assembly Bill 11 (AB 11), which will create a child care early intervention partnership to help California infants and young children suffering from toxic stress. Toxic stress most commonly impacts infants and young children in households where a relative is suffering from physical, emotional or sexual abuse, mental illness, substance abuse,...

At 3 p.m. on a weekday, Briya Public Charter School on Georgia Avenue in Washington, D.C., is noisy with excitement. The school day has ended and pickup has begun. Toddlers bound out of classrooms as parents steer strollers down the narrow halls. Briya is not just a preschool—many of the parents collecting their children are students here as well. Some took classes in English or parenting earlier in the day. Others will return tonight to study for a credential. Briya’s two-generation...

On Tuesday, Ikea—the Swedish furniture company that has become eponymous with trendy, affordable furniture and relationship tension —announced a new parental-leave policy. The plan is notable not only because of its generosity—both in terms of time off and pay—compared to many American employers, but also because Ikea will become one of very few employers to make such leave policies available to both part-time and full-time employees. The new policy, which begins January 1, is based on the...

When Corey Roberts came out of prison, he hit the ground running. In short order, he found a job at a chicken joint. He found a girlfriend. And at 21, after an 18-month stretch in Georgia correctional facilities, including nine months in a drug-rehabilitation program, he began the process of rebuilding a life within the legally constrained horizons of an ex-convict. But like a lot of people who struggle with drugs, depression and a criminal record, Roberts soon hit some setbacks. He went...

When Misty Jones looks back on her drug-using years, she sees a pattern. Since she was 18, she’s been having babies, using drugs, losing custody of her babies, and trying to quit drugs so she can get them back. Now 36 and in recovery from heroin addiction for 15 months, Jones, a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe , said she realizes she needs to beat her drug habit before she can take care of her children. “This time it’s going to be all about Misty and getting clean and not about...

Before he went to prison, Ernest killed his 2-year-old daughter in the grip of a psychotic delusion. When the Indiana Department of Correction released him in 2015, he was terrified something awful might happen again. He had to see a doctor. He had only a month's worth of pills to control his delusions and mania. He was desperate for insurance coverage. But the state failed to enroll him in Medicaid, although under the Affordable Care Act Indiana had expanded the health insurance program to...

A RECENT study by Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) has revealed that members of black and minority ethnic (BME) groups are facing barriers to mental health services because of a communication breakdown between healthcare users and providers, along with cultural factors, such as an inability to accept mental health problems and stigma. This study was led by Professor Anjum Memon, who said that mental health services are not meeting the needs of BME communities. "Our study has...