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By Anne Marshall-Chalmers, Photo: Katie Rodriguez/UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2022 Seven months ago, Betty Gray could climb the 11 inside steps leading to her Berkeley apartment, though it would take her about 15 minutes. In her 70s and suffering from chronic pain and congenital arthritis, she’d park her wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs and then scoot backward up each step. At the top, she’d pause before grasping the rail “for...

By Casey Parks, Photo: Ilana Panich-Linsman/The Washington Post, The Washington Post, September 23, 2022 The day after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of families with transgender children, the first case came up, and Morgan Davis’s name was on it. Davis was one of four investigators on a Travis County unit tasked with reviewing claims of child abuse. Usually, he and his colleagues took...

By Nigel Duara, Photo: Ben Margot/AP Photo, Cal Matters, September 26, 2022 In solitary confinement, a former California inmate recalled, there were two kinds of people: One kind would read books in their cells, exercise and do and re-do crossword puzzles. The other kind would scream and curse, refuse to dress and throw their feces at the walls. The goal in solitary confinement, he said, was to avoid becoming the second kind of inmate. “There’s one that’s resilient and one that’s not so...

By Hannah Schneider, Photo: Getty Images/LWA/Dann Tardif, Well+Good, September 25, 2022 hen you're pregnant, a full medical team is looking out for you and your baby. But after the baby arrives, most new parents go home with their newborn, some pamphlets and postpartum pads, and an ob/gyn appointment card for a few weeks. Support for new parents during the postpartum period—aka the "fourth trimester"—is far from robust. in the United States, postpartum medical care is "too limited to meet...

By Jillian McKoy, Photo: Screenshot from article, Boston University School of Public Health, October 1, 2022 Despite climate experts’ repeated warnings that extreme rainfall events will likely become more frequent and intense due to human-caused climate change, several US cities in the Northeast were caught off guard by the catastrophic rain that Hurricanes Henri and Ida dumped on the region in August. Both storms broke rainfall and flooding records in parts of New Jersey, Philadelphia, New...

By Wilfred Chan, Photo: Kemal Yildrim/Getty Images, The Guardian, September 22, 2022 J azmyne Casillas, 23, describes her mental health struggles as “pretty gnarly”. She has been diagnosed with autism, borderline personality disorder, comorbid with bipolar type 2, depression and anxiety. She also struggles with forming long-term memories. “There are cycles where things are going fine, but the moment I hit a depressive slump, my life and everything I do just goes down the drain,” she says.

I suggest everyone use email and social media to encourage President Biden and Vice President Harris to honor Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Below is the message I use and you are welcome to copy it. I send it at least once a week. ------------------------, Please consider Dr. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda, co-authors of the Kaiser Permanente/CDC Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, for the...

School should be a place of exploration and discovery — a place of opportunity and promise. For students with learning difficulties, however, life in the classroom is anything but hopeful and exciting. Indeed, children with learning challenges often find themselves marginalized, misjudged, and demoralized. As a result, they are at increased risk not only for poor performance and low education attainment, but also for behavioral and mental health issues. Fortunately, though, there is hope,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXzkXjQLb_M&t=24s Interview with Skip Skipper, CEO, Justice Peer InitiativeConducted by Carl Blumenthal, Peer Specialist 1. What's your recovery story and how did it lead you to your current job? 2. What are the origins of the JPI and who has been involved? 3. Since you don't want to reinvent the wheel, what are the models and who are the leaders in the field? 4. What is the mission, goals, and structure of JPI, including your fundraising efforts? 5. Where...

When we consider the high numbers of children that are sexually abused it is disappointing how little is out there to support parents in prevention efforts. Although Erin’s Law has brought Sexual Abuse Prevention to many children in the school setting, parents are still often at a loss as to how to talk to their children about this difficult topic. As a therapist who has specialized in treating child sexual abuse for twenty years, I have crossed paths with thousands of children and families...

“Mental Health Is Political,” a guest essay by Professor Danielle Carr in the New York Times (9.20.2022), asks “What if the cure for our current mental health crisis is not more mental health care?” She argues that what has been called an “’epidemic’ of mental illness” medicalizes what is primarily a social and political problem – that is it makes it a medical problem to be dealt with through treatment rather than a larger social problem to be addressed through changes in social policy and...

Hello All! Happy to share the latest Blue Collar Consulting newsletter with you, hope you find some helpful nuggets to keep you powering through. If interested in chatting further, let's find a time to connect! Take Care, Friends NEWSLETTER LINK