Blog

By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, May 27, 2020 In the wake of a federal order for schools to keep providing special education during school closures, one of the trickiest parts of those services — mandatory parent meetings — has proven to be an unexpected boon in some districts but almost impossible in others. For parents who have computers and are comfortable with videoconferencing, the virtual meetings with teachers, therapists and other school staff have been relatively smooth and efficient. In...

From Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, May 2020 The worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a source of unexpected stress and adversity for many people. Resilience can help us get through and overcome hardship. But resilience is not something we’re born with—it’s built over time as the experiences we have interact with our unique, individual genetic makeup. That’s why we all respond to stress and adversity—like that from the COVID-19...

By Jensen Toussaint, Al Dia, May 21, 2020 When Amy Perez was a college undergrad, she went through a difficult and challenging period of time. “There were a lot of personal things that were going on in my life, like family issues,” she said. It was during that time that she found an elective yoga course, which she called “very therapeutic” for her as she looked for ways to cope with her emotions. [ Please click here to read more .]

I keep going back and forth on whether to call this behavior out: the use of the word “crazy” to describe stuff that is unpredictable, wild, unusual, or that provokes confusion. I used to use it a lot myself. “That’s crazy!” is a phrase I’ve uttered probably, and this is no exaggeration, a million or more times. But I’ve stopped now. I’ll explain why. Right now I’m seeing it even more than ever used to describe this era that includes the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. “These crazy times,”...

By Renee Gross, JD Health Policy Consultant, Kaiser Permanente Over the past few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused everyone to grapple with uncertainty and manage new stressors at home, at work, and in our communities. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll indicated that 45% of Americans report that the current crisis is harming their mental health. We are facing unprecedented disruption in our daily lives and navigating a world of school and business closures, job losses, social...

By Kristy A. Clark, Susan D. Cochran, and Anthony J. Maiolatesi, JAMA Pediatrics, May 26, 2020 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are more likely to be bullied and to report suicidal thoughts and behaviors than non–LGBTQ youth. 1 Whether bullying is a more common antecedent among LGBTQ youth who die by suicide, however, is unknown. We investigated this question using postmortem records from the 2003-2017 National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). Methods...

By David Caraccio, The Sacramento Bee, May 25, 2020 The chief medical officer for Sutter Health is seeing a worrisome trend when it comes to COVID-19 diagnoses. According to data reviewed by Dr. Stephen Lockhart, African Americans were almost three times more likely than their non-Hispanic white peers to learn they had the coronavirus-caused illness through an emergency room or hospital test. The black patients also were far more likely to be admitted for care, leading Lockhart and research...

By James Hamblin, The Atlantic, May 22, 2020 The word I keep hearing is numbness. Not necessarily a sickness, but feeling ill at ease. A sort of detachment or removal from reality. Deb Hawkins, a tech analyst in Michigan, describes the feeling of being stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic as “sleep-walking through my life” or “wading through a physical and mental quicksand.” Even though she has been living in what she calls an “introvert heaven” for the past two months—at home with...

This week we explore and address the difficult feelings children and youths are having right now as they hear so much confusing information. They may now start being personally affected not only by quarantine, but people getting sick. We hope these resilience briefs help the children and youths in your practice and lives.

By Sean L. McCarthy, Decider, May 25, 2020 The mythology of the sad clown dates back to the 1800s. A classic joke, incorporating the British star Joseph Grimaldi ( modernized in the Watchmen graphic novel and movie to reference Pagliacci ), the myth has become a hardened cliche of a stereotype we use to rationalize the offstage downfall of a beloved comedian or comedic actor. But as we learn once more, or perhaps for the first time, in a new documentary about Saturday Night Live star Darrell...

By Jason DeParle, The New York Times, May 26, 2020 As child hunger soars to levels without modern precedent, an emergency program Congress created two months ago has reached only a small fraction of the 30 million children it was intended to help. The program, Pandemic-EBT, aims to compensate for the declining reach of school meals by placing their value on electronic cards that families can use in grocery stores. But collecting lunch lists from thousands of school districts, transferring...

By Jessica Trounstine, Housing Matters, May 20, 2020 Although segregation has decreased from its peak in 1970, the United States remains highly segregated. City governments regulate land use, and thus, control the distribution of housing. A recent study tested the hypothesis that whiter communities create restrictive land-use policies that allow them to exert control over their neighborhood’s demographics and maintain the status quo. To test the hypothesis, the author analyzed the...