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Utah has become the 19th — and most conservative — state in the U.S. to ban “conversion therapy” for minors. The widely discredited practice, aimed at changing a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity, is now formally barred in the state after the new rule took effect.

A spokesperson for Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, who directed licensing regulators to make the change, confirmed the move to NPR.

“We want to thank Governor Herbert and his administration for not allowing this issue to be politicized,” Troy Williams, the executive director of Equality Utah, said at a Wednesday news conference celebrating the news. “He saw how polarizing this was becoming, and he made the decision to allow science to prevail over politics. He kept his word to the LGBTQ community, and we are deeply grateful to him.”

There are some key exceptions: The ban doesn’t apply to clergy, religious counselors, parents or grandparents, so long as they’re not acting as psychologists.

Still, the rule exists — a simple fact that, for a long time, was far from ensured.

An attempt to get a ban passed in the state legislature collapsed last year, after conservative lawmakers amended the bill so extensively that by the time it received committee approval, even its sponsor, Rep. Craig Hall, had effectively disowned it. The measure stalled in the state House of Representatives.

So Herbert requested that state regulators review and propose new rules concerning the practice.

“I certainly have concerns about some of the abuse that I’ve heard talked about, but I’m not a psychologist,” Herbert said during a news conference last June, when he announced his request. “This is not my background. I’m going to rely upon the experts to tell us what should be done, or not be done, or how it should be done.”

LGBTQ young people are already significantly more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. But according to researchers at San Francisco State University, rates of attempted suicide among LGBTQ youth more than double when parents try to change their sexual orientation. And those rates triple when parents and therapists and religious leaders try to do so.

For now, at least, the new rule vaults Utah into some unlikely company. Currently, 18 other states and the District of Columbia ban conversion therapy for minors — and the lawmaking bodies of all but a few have Democratic majorities. Utah is the only statewith such a ban where Republicans control the governor’s mansion and both houses of the state legislature.

Read more on NPR.org.

When Joe Delpino learned there were 119 veterans living on the streets of the Lowcountry, South Carolina it became personal.

“I’m humbled by what these guys do to serve our country and I want to try to help them as much as I can,” said Delpino, a retired Navy captain and past president of the Exchange Club of Daniel Island. “I went to the board of directors and said we’re going to drive that number to zero.”

Project ZERO is an initiative by the Exchange Club of Daniel Island to help house all the homeless veterans in the eight-county area around Charleston. It works in partnership with Veterans Matter, a national program that secures permanent housing for homeless veterans and their families.

“There are over 37,000 homeless veterans in our country and that is a complete travesty,” Delpino said.

Veterans Matter collaborates with the U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to identify homeless veterans and find them suitable housing. But when housing is found, there is often a funding gap because the veteran does not have the required money for the first month’s rent and deposit. Veterans Matter and Project ZERO provide the funding to fill that gap and secure immediate housing.

“The program has a 91% success rate of keeping them housed, which I think is phenomenal,” said Delpino. “HUD subsidizes the rent for the first year and the VA provides medical and mental health services along with job training and placement services that help the veterans get back on their feet. It’s such a positive thing.”

Nationally, Veterans Matter has housed more than 4,000 veterans and locally, Project ZERO has housed 43 of the 119 homeless veterans. Delpino estimates they need about $49,000 to secure shelter for the remaining 76 veterans. “It becomes very local, very personal,” he said. “Those guys are sitting in our streets … these are our people … let’s go fix that problem.”

Delpino said this is a particularly vulnerable time for our veterans. Homeless people are more susceptible to infectious diseases like COVID-19 and the pandemic has eliminated many fundraising activities for advocacy groups like Veterans Matter. Project ZERO’s primary source of funding so far has been the veteran’s dinner at the Daniel Island Club, where the initiative kicked off last year. But that dinner was canceled this year due to COVID-19, leaving Project ZERO with a funding shortfall.

“I would love to get them all housed for Christmas,” said Delpino. “These guys have suffered and done so much, it’s endearing their commitment to this nation and our freedoms.”

Read more on the DanielIslandNews.com.

On October 17th, The Trevor Project celebrated the official signing of The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act, which will allow Americans to simply dial ‘988’ to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, instead of the current ten-digit number (800-273-8255), starting in July 2022. Passed by the Senate in May and the House of Representatives in September, this is the first bill that is specifically LGBTQ-inclusive to pass Congress unanimously in history.

“The Trevor Project is thrilled to see the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act — the first explicitly LGBTQ-inclusive bill to ever pass Congress unanimously — officially signed into law. We will continue to work closely with SAMHSA and the FCC to ensure that the bill’s recommendation of specialized services for LGBTQ youth is formally incorporated into the 988 implementation plan and that this life-saving, three-digit number remains on-track to go live in July 2022,” said Sam Brinton (they/them pronouns), Vice President of Advocacy and Government Affairs for The Trevor Project.

The FCC’s formal approval of 988 in July set its two-year phase-in plan in motion, but the passage and signage of this legislation was a necessary, concurrent step as it authorizes the funding mechanisms needed for 988 to be successful and contains specialized services for high-risk groups like LGBTQ youth.

The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 in the U.S. seriously consider suicide each year and could benefit from our services. And according to the organization’s 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 40% of respondents seriously considered attempting suicide in the past twelve months, with more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth having seriously considered it.

Read more on the TrevorProject.org.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, Inc. has been selected as the Partner of the Month for November in celebration of National Native American Heritage Month. 

Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, Inc. (AAIHB) is an Indian-owned and operated nonprofit organization that serves tribal communities in New Mexico, southern Colorado, and west Texas. They offer diverse health promotion and prevention educations programs, as well as specialized public health services. Their goal is to positively impact the health and well-being of the communities they serve. 

The programs and services that are currently offered include: 

• Intergenerational Intertribal (I²) Positive Solutions for Native Health – This program aims to decrease suicide and substance misuse among American Indian youth, through age 24, who have been impacted by trauma.
• Southwest Tribal Institutional Review Board – The primary purpose of an institutional review board (IRB) is to protect the rights and welfare of people who participate in research activities. 
• STD/HIV/AIDS Prevention & Education Program – The intent of this program is to provide education, training services & technical assistance to the seven tribal communities to which AAIHB provides direct services. 
• The Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center – The Center provides technical support to all 27 Tribes in the Indian Health Service Albuquerque Area and offers various public health programs. 
• Audiology Program – This program provides hearing testing and hearing aid services to Tribal communities in New Mexico and Southern Colorado. 
• The Southwest Tribal Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH) – The Southwest Tribal NARCH supports partnerships between Southwest tribes/tribal organizations and academic institutions to conduct public health research. 

Learn more about the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, Inc. and the variety of programs they offer that advocate on behalf of American Indians through the delivery of quality health care services, which honor spiritual and cultural values. 

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Pacific Island System is unlike few other medical systems in the world.

Based in Hawaii, it spans approximately 2.6 million square miles and is responsible for all veterans of the U.S. armed forces residing in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Dr. Adam Robinson, the system’s new director, arrived this summer to take on the job amid a raging COVID-19 pandemic. The retired admiral, who served as the Navy’s 36th surgeon general, said his work cuts across three time zones and the international dateline.

Taking the helm of the VA’s Pacific Island System comes with both unique challenges and responsibilities. In a study of 2003 recruiting data Pacific Islanders at the time were over-represented in the U.S. Army by 249% proportionally to other ethnic groups. Pacific Islanders were also over-represented in rates of those killed and injured in Iraq.

The post-9/11 generation of veterans in particular has faced unique hurdles as they try to reintegrate into society even as war continues. For over two decades troops have continuously deployed to farflung conflict zones including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and other countries.

Today less than 1% of Americans serve in the military, in some cases leaving the burdens to intergenerational military families. Many younger veterans have reported feeling isolated from and forgotten by a civilian society. Even before the pandemic, unemployment among post-9/11 veterans was on the rise.

“When you send people to war, they have injuries of the body. And they also have injuries of the mind. They have injuries, also, of the spirit,” Robinson said. “Those are moral injuries of war that occur. And that is a real injury, and it really is something that we need to care for.”

Robinson said that the VA has come a long way in better differentiating the different causes of mental and emotional problems that veterans can face as they try to reintegrate into society. Stay home orders related to the pandemic have exacerbated feelings of isolation. 

But Robinson said that telemedicine and online tools can better reach people in their homes, whether it’s for mental health care or physical ailments.

Read more on CivilBeat.org.

A panel of experts in psychiatry, business, and leadership development discussed the complexities of supporting the mental health of young people of color in the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic at a School of Public Health event Tuesday.

The event, titled “Innovating in the Workplace: Supporting Mental Health of a Young People of Color During COVID-19 and Beyond,” marks the latest installment in the School of Public Health’s “Policy Controversies” series. The School of Public Health’s The Forum partnered with the Steve Fund and GBH News to host the online event.

Phillip W. Martin, a senior investigative reporter at the GBH News Center, moderated the event.

Panelists included Linda Akutagawa, president and CEO of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics; Damien A. Hooper-Campbell, the chief diversity officer at Zoom; Joan Steinberg, president of the Morgan Stanley Foundation; and Sarah Y. Vinson, founder of the Lorio Psych Group and associate professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Speaking about the data, Martin said that “according to the CDC, 30 percent of Black and 35 percent of Hispanic people polled reported experiencing symptoms of trauma and stress-related disorders like PTSD as a result of the pandemic.”

Vinson said employers can foster diversity by developing a specific mindset. She said they should be “thinking about the fact that it’s not just one box, but that each person brings these different categories and that there’s interplay between them.”

“In this time, there are already so many problems with our economic situation in terms of everyone entering the workforce, but students of color, of course, face particular challenges and inequities that are just exacerbated by the pandemic,” said Lisa Mirowitz, the Executive Producer and Director of the Leadership Studio at the School of Public Health, who helped organize the event.

In an interview before the event, Akutagawa discussed the importance of the panel’s topic.

“Mental health is an issue that is oftentimes not spoken about,” she said. “Relative to many other people, we find that particularly young adults of color are less likely to speak about mental health issues, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”

Read more on TheCrimson.com.