May 2016

On Friday morning, the Obama administration issued a "Dear Colleagues" letter to the nation's school districts spelling out what they can do to safeguard the civil rights of students at K-12 schools and colleges, based on their gender identity. The administration argues that Title IX, which outlaws sex discrimination for any school receiving federal funding, covers gender identity. The letter does not change any existing laws, but provides what is called "significant guidance." It explains...

They say if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I wonder, then, why my toolbox often seems so inadequate for fixing my patients. I open one recent afternoon in clinic with a middle-aged man I’ve come to know well. He’s drunk. His breath smells of alcohol and he slurs his words. He tells me his brother’s in jail, his mother died, and he punched a neighbor who tried to steal his wallet. In the past year, he’s been admitted to the hospital countless times for everything from...

The Wisconsin DHS Trauma-Informed Care News and Notes for the week of May 9, 2016 has just been released! This collection is formally known as the WI TIC ListServ. Enjoy! Scott Webb, LCSW Trauma-Informed Care Coordinator Wisconsin Department of Health Services

As a pediatrician and advocate working with immigrant families, I see firsthand the deleterious toll on children who live under constant fear that the person who takes care of them could at any moment be taken away. A robust body of research shows that children who grow up with family instability, economic strain and chronic stress suffer poorer health, lower educational achievement and increased poverty and hunger. Indeed the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child...

It’s Mental Health Month. Check Out These Schools That Are Making Mental Health Services a Priority It’s Mental Health Month. Check Out These Schools That Are Making Mental Health Services a Priority Statistics say that 50 percent of students battling mental health issues drop out of school. That’s why more and more schools and districts are recognizing the very real need to improve the kinds of mental health services offered to students in need. Massachusetts District Embarks on Journey to...

Across the United States, people who participate in WIC—the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—overwhelmingly redeem their benefits at large retail stores, according to a recent USDA report that tracked the proportion of WIC benefits redeemed at various kinds of stores. Larger stores tend to have a much greater selection, which has been especially crucial to WIC participants since 2009, when WIC revised its food package recommendations to include a wider...

Caregivers for the critically ill often suffer depression that lingers long after their loved one's hospital stay ends, new research suggests. "Caregivers to patients who have spent at least seven days in the ICU [intensive care unit] commonly experience symptoms of depression for the full first year after ICU discharge," said study leader Jill Cameron. She is a researcher at the University of Toronto. "A large portion of them improve over the year, but a [sub] group does not," Cameron said.

After the Doors Were Locked: A History of Youth Corrections in California and the Origins of Twenty-First Century Reform By Daniel E. Macallair Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015 350 pages In California and across the United States, youth corrections systems have often demonstrated an inability to shape their practices to meet children’s actual needs. While other countries have dramatically lower numbers of incarcerated youth or no incarcerated youth at all, the United States...

The Shasta County Public Health Department will use a $50,000 grant from Partnership HealthPlan to begin measuring adverse childhood experiences among Shasta County adults — the first time such a study has been conducted since 2012. Hill Country Health and Wellness Center, Shasta Community Health Center, and Mercy Medical Center's Maternity Center and Family Medicine programs will work on the project starting in June. Health care providers at those medical centers will ask patients whether...

Gaby Rabinovich remembers the first time she threw up while taking a test. It was a few months ago, early on in her freshman year at Marblehead High School in Massachusetts. She was sitting in biology class when, she recalls, she got so anxious that she excused herself to the bathroom. Rabinovich typically starts her day at 6 a.m. and gets to school at 7:15. On Mondays she runs a government club called Junior State of America. She's also running for class president, sits on the women's...

We are co-hosting @IndigenousX this week to highlight how much is going on around suicide prevention, families and communities in Indigenous Australia. On 5-6 May, the Inaugural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Conference took place in Alice Springs, and 12 May is #IHMayDay16 – a day devoted to discussing Indigenous health. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and knowledge are fundamental to our wellbeing. It is important for individuals to be happy and...

Bram Sable-Smith of member station KBIA reports Missouri doesn't have a database. David Greene talks to Danna Droz of the National Assoc. of Boards of Pharmacy about differences in state databases. [For more of this story go to http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477449821/as-opiod-crisis-escalates-missouri-is-without-monitoring-database]