May 2016

This week marks the 120th and 62nd anniversaries of the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board U.S. Supreme Court decisions, respectively. Plessy legalized the racial “separate but equal” policy on May 18, 1896. Brown reversed that decision on May 17, 1954, finding that anything separate is inherently unequal, especially given America’s unique history of racial discrimination. What the U.S. learned about itself in those six decades between those two rulings was supposed to guide...

Sometimes, we make the mistake of thinking that joy only resides in the big things. Birthdays. Baby showers. Weddings. Holidays. Vacations. Even weekends. But we can cultivate joy every day. We don’t have to wait for momentous once-a-year or once-a-week occasions. Below, two therapists share their strategies — some of which might be very familiar and others which just might surprise you. Get enough sleep You might not equate sleep with joy. But when you don’t get enough sleep, your ability...

The 911 call came in just before 10 o’clock on a Sunday night. The voice on the other end of the line was unnerving—it sounded automated, like a computer. This was odd, but there was no time to waste: Something terrible was reportedly unfolding at the suburban home of Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts congresswoman. Although it was January, it was unseasonably warm for New England. Not knowing about the swarms of police scrambling toward their home, Clark and her husband were settling in...

When I arrived in North Carolina more than a decade ago to teach and practice law, it was a bit of a culture shock for someone who had rarely been south of the Mason- Dixon line. In juvenile delinquency court, judges would tell tales from their own childhoods that sounded almost too clichéd to be true: mamas beating their misbehaving children with a switch that the child had to cut himself, schools located miles from home where the only option was to walk, and teachers paddling students as a...

The daughter of an alcoholic, abusive father, Tamra Oman remembers trying to protect her mother from his violent outbursts, even though she was not yet in kindergarten. “I remember him choking her over the sink. Spitting out blood. Blood coming out all over the place and landing on me,” Oman said, recounting one incident in her early childhood in Crown Point, Indiana. “I remember going into this situation trying to save her. Trying to jump on top of him and save her. “I can remember what I...

I saw how infrequently people who are being helped are even asked, "What do you need or want?" by the people attempting to help.

Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) is the “emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another person.” Those who work in child welfare organization are at very high risk of developing STS, which when left untreated, can negatively affect their ability to continue their extremely important work. This factsheet provides on how STS manifests itself in child welfare, the kinds of staff who are at risk for STS, and strategies for prevention and...

This factsheet provides valuable information on cybersafety to caregivers of teens. Topics include “sexting”, app safety, parental monitoring, identity protection, and cyber-bullying.

My article “Faith and mental health: Creating a culture of encounter and friendship” has been published in the May issue of Review & Expositor: An International Baptist Journal. Article introduces the Mental Health and Faith Community Partnership which the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition helped launch with the American Psychiatric Association and focuses on how congregations and faith leaders can work with psychiatrists and the mental health community to reduce stigma and...

I have written before about a growing trend in education, mental health, social services, and health care that has now extended to ministry settings: becoming trauma-informed . Trauma results when we experience something as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening. A traumatic event, circumstance or series of events leaves a lasting effect on our ability to experience “life to the full” as Jesus intended (John 10:10). Adversity, and particularly traumatic stress in childhood,...

Since I came on board as communications manager at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, two and half years ago, I’ve been struggling to reconcile the language the foundation and its allies use to talk about mental health with my own notions about how we should be talking. I do my best thinking through writing, so in order to work through some of these tensions and questions, I wrote a long essay, which I ended up calling “ Too Human .” [For more of this story, written by Daniel...

Illinois, a state that gutted mental health funding by 31.7 percent between 2009 and 2012, will soon guarantee specialized mental health services for 11,000 prisoners . Under the terms of a final settlement recently approved by a federal judge, Illinois will spend $40 million on brand new mental health facilities at four state prisons, including one youth facility. Another $40 million will be spent on hiring 300 clinical staff and 400 security staff. With the additional funding and...