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The reach of substance use disorders in America is far more significant than people think. 21+ million Americans struggle with substance use disorders. Their substance use and addiction-related behaviors impact 100 million more Americans. These are the moms, dads, husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren.... Together, these two groups represents more than one-third of the American population!

The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2019 Healing the Heart Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran Newsletter Contents : 1] May is Mental Health Awareness Month - By My Side Live at the River Ledge, You Tube 2] We Need New Ways of Treating Depression By Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections 3] I Now...

By K. Hecht, A. Hosack & P. Berman If only I could do more to help Claire? She is feeling so hopeless because there are no advertisements in the newspaper for Dental Hygienists. Mrs. Carson knew that Claire could figure out how to get a job on her own. But, that first job search was a complex process and she hated to see Claire so down after she had worked so hard in school. Claire was also taking it so personally. Rather than just realizing there weren’t job listings now, and everyone...

Finding child care in California can be tough for everyone. It’s even more difficult for families living paycheck to paycheck — families who make too much for welfare, but not enough to pay for care comfortably. Many of those families apply to receive subsidized child care through the state. But the slots are limited and the wait can last for years. Between her two younger children, Jacquelyne Gettone has been waiting to receive state-subsidized child care for over a decade. On a recent...

Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities has released a new brief, Building Stronger Networks (May 2019) . Drawing from existing literature and informed by a series of interviews conducted by Dr. Andrea Blanch and Dr. David Shern, this brief explores how a framework recognizing adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and resilience (ATR) can facilitate community collaboration. See what movement builders from across the country have to say about the value-added of the ATR framework in...

I am a poet-artist, child psychiatrist, and mental health advocate. My now 32 year old daughter Emma drew this picture of us when she was a little girl and I added the poem. It took me six decades to fully see the full, true, metaphorical, and creative meaning of "circle of love" and when I did in May 2019, I commissioned Amanda Meador to do this design! This Circle of Love poem and image can include your own family drawing or family photo, and is available as Mother Love and Father Love. I...

The World Health Organization is bringing attention to the problem of work-related stress. The group announced this week that it is updating its definition of burnout in the new version of its handbook of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases — ICD-11 — which will go into effect in January 2022 The new definition calls it a " syndrome " and specifically ties burnout to " chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed ." Despite earlier reports to the...

Ryan Prior, CNN , May 27, 2019. It's a feeling of extreme work stress that's long been embedded in the cultural lexicon, and now it might be codified in your medical records as well. Burnout is now a legitimate medical diagnosis, according to the International Classification of Diseases , or the ICD-11, the World Health Organization's handbook that guides medical providers in diagnosing diseases. Burnout now appears in the ICD-11's section on problems related to employment or unemployment.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation , May 10, 2019. Forward Promise aims to disrupt the cycle of dehumanization that is occurring in the lives of BYMOC and threatens to derail their life success by creating pathways to healing, growing, and thriving. Through this program, Forward Promise aims to seed new approaches by youth-serving systems to address health and trauma that are grounded in the lived experiences and cultural values, norms, and traditions of BYMOC, and the knowledge of community...

Tom Jacobs, Pacific Standard , May 16, 2019. For teachers in the early stages of their academic careers, student evaluations are a big deal. As a study published last year noted, the scores they receive "are often part of hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions." The same study also found strong evidence that these scores are driven in part by prejudice. "Women receive systematically lower teaching evaluations than their male colleagues," it concludes. A new study provides evidence that this...

Monica Rhor, USA Today , May 15, 2019. For the first time in a long time, C’alra Bradley felt a glint of hope. It was an unfamiliar feeling for the then-18-year-old whose life had been disrupted and derailed by one roadblock after another. Once an A and B student who loved to read, she was living out of her white 1997 Toyota Avalon, on her own for three years, scrounging to get by. But on July 18, 2016, as she attended one of her first classes at a GED and job training program in Houston,...

Anna Boiko-Weyrauch, NPR , May 26, 2019 Two key ingredients came together for Shannon McCarty to get off drugs in late 2017: connections and timing. "The police showed up because they said they got a call that we were shooting up in the car," Shannon said. Everett police officer, Inci Yarkut walked up to window of the car where Shannon was living. "I explained who I was and what my role in the police department was," Yarkut said, and she gave Shannon a business card. "[I] said, 'Hey, if...