Webinar Recording: Community-Based Responses to Parental Depression 2/16

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 1:00-2:00pm ET

On this NNED Forum Call members of the NNED's Parental Depression Learning Cluster provided an understanding of the experience of parental depression, and share community-based interventions from Richmond, VA and New Orleans, LA that support parents in lower resourced communities living with a mental health condition.

To learn how you can begin to implement parent support groups and interventions in your local community view this NNED Forum Call.

Download the slides here.  Watch the recording.

Presenters:

• Larke Huang, NNED Project Director, SAMHSA
• Honorable Cynthia I. Newbille, Councilwoman, Richmond City Council
• Karen Wilson & Ms. Denise Wise, The East District Family Resource Center, Richmond, VA
• Kristina Gibson & Cheryl Bowie, Kingsley House, New Orleans, LA

 

Community-Based Responses to Parental Depression from Change Matrix LLC on Vimeo.

Inaugural Issue of the LGBTQI2-S National Workgroup’s Newsletter (posted 1/18)

Child, Adolescent and Family Branch’s National Workgroup to Address the Needs of Children and Youth Who Are LGBTQI2-S and Their Families has released the inaugural issue of their national newsletter.  This newsletter offers you and your community a tool to stay informed about what the workgroup is doing, new LGBTQI2-S resources, and upcoming events.  The workgroup will disseminate the newsletter four times annually.  You will be able to access the newsletter on the TA Partnership’s LGBTQI2-S Learning Community webpage.

The Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch (CAFB), Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has initiated the National Workgroup to Address the Needs of Children and Youth Who Are LGBTQI2-S and Their Families to support and enhance services for children and youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, or two-spirit (LGBTQI2-S). Workgroup members help identify specific strategies and interventions that can be applied within the system of care program, and throughout communities across the country.

Houston Chronicle Reports on Asian American Mental Illness (posted 1/17)

Early this month the Houston Chronicle reported on the growing mental health needs of Asian Americans.  The article highlights Asian American Family Services, the first social service agency in the Houston area to offer mental health services targeted to Asians.  According to a Ford Foundation report from 2003, Asian-American women have the highest rate of suicide among women 65 and older and the second-highest rate for women between 15 and 24.  Additionally, Chinese immigrants have a depression prevalence rate of 34 percent, compared with 9 percent in the general population, based on a 2006 study by Asian American Family Services. Yet, Asians are less likely than the general population to seek treatment for mental illness, studies show. The Houston Chronicle article states:

Cultural and language barriers are major factors that keep Asians from getting help. Add the lack of available and accessible mental health resources and the result is a woefully underserved community, mental experts said. "We have been grappling with the issues since day one," said Kim Szeto, a founder and director of Asian American Family Services, which began providing services in 1998.

...

"There is a misconception about mental illness in the community," said Dr. Venus Tsui, assistant director of Asian American Family Services. "Some Asian cultures associate mental illness with something bad a person did in a past life, like Karma. Public education is very important."

 

Read the full news article on the Houston Chronicle website.

New IOM Report Calls for National Strategy to Measure the Public’s Health (posted 1/17)

A new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) - commissioned Institute of Medicine (IOM) report reinforces the urgency to address health not just in the doctor’s office but where it starts — in our homes, schools, jobs and communities. The report, For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability, argues that one reason Americans live shorter, sicker lives than people in many other countries is this country’s lack of national coordination when it comes to gathering, analyzing and communicating health information that focuses on the underlying factors that contribute to poor health.

The report’s authors review current approaches to measuring the public’s health and make seven specific recommendations for a road map to improvement. Among those recommendations, the authors call on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop standards for health data that can be used on the national, state and local levels; urge an increased federal focus on the non-clinical factors that affect how healthy we are, such as access to affordable, healthy foods and safe places to exercise; and ask HHS to support the increased use of data-driven tools and models, such as health impact assessments, that can assess and predict potential health-related outcomes of policies, plans and projects.

For more information visit the RWJF website.

CDC Releases First Ever Disparities Report (posted 1/14)

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently released their first ever report analyzing health disparities on a broad array of health issues.  The publication is the first in a series of periodic reports aimed at increasing awareness about disparities and developing strategies to eliminate disparities.  The report complements the work of the National Plan for Action out of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Minority Health as well as Healthy People 2020.  It also complements the annual National Healthcare Disparities Report and the periodic reports related to Healthy People 2010. 

CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report - United States, 2011 provides analysis and reporting of the recent trends and ongoing variations in health disparities and inequalities in selected social and health indicators, both of which are important steps in encouraging actions and facilitating accountability to reduce modifiable disparities by using interventions that are effective and scalable.  The report includes sections on Social Determinants of Health, suicide, and substance abuse.

The New York Times reports:

The agency did not delve into why suffering is so disproportionate, other than to note the obvious: that the poor, the uninsured and the less educated tend to live shorter, sicker lives. (Some illnesses were also broken down by income level, region, age or sex, but the main focus was on racial differences.)  “Some of the figures, like the suicide rate for young American Indians, are just heartbreaking,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, who ordered the report compiled.

He acted, he said, after promising at his agency’s African American History Month celebration last February that he would do so.  “We wanted to shine a spotlight on the problem and some potential solutions,” he said.

To read the full article visit the New York Times website.

 

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