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The National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) invites individuals to submit proposals for a presentation at the NCUIH Annual Leadership Conference being held in Arlington, VA, June 26-28, 2018. Proposals are due by January 22, 2018, via electronic submission.

This year’s conference theme is “20 Years: Continuing the Legacy to Build Strong, Healthy Native Communities” and will  provide key opportunities for urban and tribal leaders to learn, network, and build strategies for the benefit of Indian Country, through informative workshops, listening sessions, and expert speakers on health topics affecting the American Indian and Alaska Native community.

Presentation Topics
NCUIH offers participants an extensive program of sessions designed to provide practical, hands-on training and strategies that can be applied to the systems of care in their states, tribes, territories, and communities. As such, proposals must focus on approaches that are relevant, adaptable, and innovative in one of the following critical areas:

• Behavioral Health
• Indian Health Policy
• Public Health
• Innovation of health clinics
• Trauma-informed care
• Opioids
• Suicide Prevention
• Self-care for Healthcare professionals
• Youth Programming
• Maximizing social media
• Board training
• Health Information Technology
• Native Elder Health
• Maximizing Revenue
• Culturally competent programming
• Accreditation
• Other relevant topics in Indian Health

For questions regarding the Call for Proposals process, please contact Dr. Kimberly Fowler via email at KFowler@ncuih.org. If you experience technical challenges in submitting your proposal, please contact Kfowler@ncuih.org. You also can contact NCUIH by using the main phone line 202-544-0344.

Visit the NCUIH website to learn more about the conference and to submit a proposal.

The Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) would like to give a shout out to all the participants in the My Sister’s Keeper (MSK) Challenge!

Judging by the response, it’s clear that young women want and need to be heard. One of the issues that everyone is talking about today is sexual harassment. But, this problem is more than just what is seen in the headlines. Protection and healing from the devastating physical, mental and emotional impact of sexual harassment is what RJ is about.

For this reason, BWHI has decided to extend the MSK Challenge competition period until January 31, 2018, to allow everyone the opportunity to submit videos that speak to this extremely important and timely subject as part of the overall RJ initiative. There are few issues that impact women of color as much as Reproductive Justice.

It’s not just the right to birth control and a safe abortion, to have children and the right not to have children, RJ is also the right to raise our children in a safe and healthy environment. And that means:

• Racial Equality
• Gender Equity
• Sexual Wellness
• Access to Affordable and Quality Healthcare
• Protection From Intimate Partner Violence

Reproductive Justice impacts every facet of women’s health and women’s lives. That’s why the Black Women’s Health Imperative invites you to become part of the sisterhood speaking out and standing up for RJ, by joining them in the My Sisters Keeper Challenge.

Go to MSKChallenge.com and send BWHI a 1-2 minute video with your story about what RJ means to women, to our world, and to you personally, and you may win a $1,000 cash prize, as well as the chance to make your video into a short film that will be featured during a national film festival.

Learn more and submit your video at MSKCallenge.com.

Thirty-six percent. That was the high school graduation rate for youth in foster care in Seattle and King County, Washington, in 2010.

“We were shocked. I mean, tears flowed,” says Janis Avery. For more than two decades, she has led a nonprofit called Treehouse, dedicated to improving the lives of foster youth. In fact, Treehouse had been pushing for the state to break out educational data about kids in foster care. And the data, when it came for the first time, was a wake-up call.

“We thought we were doing a good job,” Avery recalls. “We realized it wasn’t making a difference at a population level.”

Foster youth struggle in school for many reasons. Being removed from your family is a trauma in itself, no matter why. Most children in foster care have mental health needs; many struggle with addiction and brushes with the law.

And then there are the systemic problems.

In Seattle’s King County, 1,500 foster kids are scattered among many different schools. The average youth shifts placements three times, sometimes moving out of the school district. Avery says that meant that no one school was focused on these students’ educations, and the district wasn’t either.

Foster parents often have their hands full with the basics. The state’s child welfare system, meanwhile, prioritizes safety and health, with school farther down the list. And the state’s care ends at an age when most middle-class kids are still dependent on their parents. (Half of states, including Washington State, have extended some foster care benefits until age 21; in other states kids “age out” at 18).

Until 2010, Treehouse had been providing foster youth with extras, like backpacks, school clothes, music lessons and summer camp. But when the news came about the terrible graduation rate, the organization decided it had to step up for these kids as students, too.

“We have to negotiate and advocate for those kids in school,” says Avery.

They set an ambitious goal: Raise the high school graduation rate for foster youth to be on par with the rest of the city’s kids. Starting in 2012, they gave themselves five years to do it. They did research to figure out the best practices from other organizations around the country. This included a strategy similar to the “graduation coaches” that NPR has previously reported on.

They recruited a team of “education specialists.” These folks work on-site in high schools around the city. Each works with around 20 students. Any student who has interacted with the foster care system while in middle or high school is eligible for the program. The jobs have good benefits and are comparatively well paid, because Treehouse wants its ed specialists to stay in the positions long enough to be a consistent presence in kids’ lives.

“We wear a lot of hats,” Tajiana Ellis, a Treehouse specialist says. “We’re a little bit of a teacher, a little bit of a mentor, a little bit of a parent, a little bit of a friend.”

Tajiana sits and checks in with students, generally once a week, focusing on the ABCs of graduation: Attendance, Behavior and Course Performance. She is able to log into the schools’ online grade book to see each assignment and grade. Part of Treehouse’s philosophy is something called “student-centered planning.” That means the student sets her own goals and takes ownership of them.

One of Treehouse’s organizational values is “fierce optimism.” That comes from Avery’s personal experience. She and her wife adopted their own two children, now young adults, from foster care. “It takes a lot of persistence,” she says, and maintaining hope when few others do.

Treehouse fights for every student’s success. That doesn’t mean sugarcoating the obstacles in their way. If you ask Avery why kids end up in the child welfare system, she is blunt.

“It really is racism and poverty,” she says. “Occasionally kids get abused, but well over 80 percent is neglect. And that’s an artifact of poverty, which could be solved with resources.” Rather than automatically assume there’s something wrong with these kids or their families, she says, “the real question is, why don’t we as an American culture support these families to succeed?”

Treehouse counts five-year graduation rates because youth in foster care typically miss out on learning time. Last year, 89 percent of their students made it across that extended finish line. That includes students who completed with the help of credit recovery, alternative schools and GED programs. It beats Washington State’s overall five-year graduation rate by 7 points.

Nationwide, meanwhile, around two-thirds of all foster youth graduate high school by age 21.

Treehouse’s success thus far has been with just several hundred students in high school. They expanded into two more counties this past school year, in part to keep serving some of their students who moved out of King County. Avery says the ultimate plan is to serve every foster youth in the state, through to college or vocational training. This includes students who are eventually adopted from foster care, like Mechelle, or reunited with their birth families. Treehouse has pledged to support these students until age 26.

“When we look at the youth who have the best experiences, it has a lot to do with the quality of the people surrounding them,” Avery says. “We’d like to take some of that randomness out of youth’s experience. So the system works for them, not just spectacular individuals.”

Read more on MPRNews.org.

During the holiday season, many of us feel pressure to find our loved ones the “perfect” gift. Why? Because gift-giving has long been considered a prime way to express love. However, recent research suggests that gestures don’t need to be large or have a hefty price tag to feel meaningful.

The study, published this summer in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, suggests that small acts of kindness, not grand overtures, make people feel most loved and supported. “Our research found that micro-moments of positivity, like a kind word, cuddling with a child, or receiving compassion make people feel most loved,” says Dr. Zita Oravecz, a professor in human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University and one of the study’s researchers.

Oravecz says the findings highlight the psychological benefits that intimate relationships can offer. In fact, study participants ranked human interaction as a more significant expression of love than receiving material items, like presents. Connecting with others was also rated more highly than getting positive feedback on the internet, indicating that people derive the most support from personal human contact. In fact, other studies suggest more time on social media leads to increased feelings of isolation.

Yet despite the findings that spending time with friends and family makes us feel good, during hectic times like the holidays, these social interactions can feel burdensome instead of fulfilling. Fatigued from an overload of shopping, spending, and travel, most Americans describe this time of year as stressful instead of magical. In fact, a telephone survey conducted by the American Psychological Association showed that compared to other times of the year, 44 percent of women and 31 percent of men (out of 786 individuals polled) feel more stress during the holidays. In addition, 51 percent of women and 42 percent of men said purchasing and giving gifts added to their distress.

Any kind of stress can strain relationships and cause us to withdraw from others, but small stressors can be just as trying as larger burdens. A 2015 research study found that daily hassles like working, running errands, and money troubles negatively impact romantic unions, causing people to feel less satisfied and more alone in their relationships. When we’re anxious and fatigued, it can also be more challenging to see someone else’s point of view, which might explain why family feuds seem more likely to arise during the holidays.

While prioritizing one’s self-care during the months of November and December may be difficult, adopting a mindset of being present in the moment may help lessen the stress of the season. “During the holidays, anxiety rises, making it harder to remain present with ourselves and others. However, the power of spending time with another person is a gift we can give at any moment,” says Dr. Carla Naumburg, a mindfulness coach and social worker in Newton, Mass.

Naumburg says we can cultivate presence by cutting back on social media (which helps limit distractions), getting plenty of rest, and taking a pause (and remembering to breathe).

Read more on NPR.org.

Check out these Holiday Season resources:

• How to Keep Holiday-included Stress Under Control from NBC News
• 6 Self-Care Tips For Surviving The Festivities With Less Stress, More Joy from Latin Times
• 9 Things Not To Say To Someone With A Mental Illness During The Holidays from Huffington Post
• A Peer Perspective on Health and the Holidays podcast from the Hogg Foundation
• What Kwanza Means for Black Americans from LA Times
• Minority Families Struggle To See Themselves In Holiday Cheer from International Business Times
• 5 Things You can do to Support your Trans Relatives this Holiday Season from GLAAD
• 5 Non-Christmas Holiday Movies to Watch from The Red & Black
• LGBTQ Films for the Holidays from NBC News
• Holiday Stress-Busting Tips and Activities from Health.com

The number of LGBTQ characters on U.S. television might be at record highs, but gulfs in representation still exist, particularly along racial, cultural and gender lines. According to “Still Invisible,” a recent report on LGBTQ representation in Spanish-language media published by GLAAD, LGBTQ identities and storylines are all but absent in media that caters to Latinx populations.

The report found just 3 percent of characters on scripted primetime Spanish-language television in the U.S. were LGBTQ, or 19 characters out of 698, and that 13 of those 19 were gay men. The report also noted 30 percent of LGBTQ characters were killed off.

Monica Trasandes, the director of Spanish-language and Latinx media and representation at GLAAD, and Janet Quezada, a campaign manager at the organization, co-authored the report. They said they hope the findings will help provide tangible metrics for diversity and inclusion.

“You can’t know there’s progress until you know where you are,” Trasandes told NBC News. “We know intuitively we are not represented in Spanish-speaking media, but let’s show the numbers.”

Quezada noted that in both English- and Spanish-language media, LGBTQ representation is often limited to gay men.”Some communities, like transgender men and bisexual men, aren’t represented at all in Spanish language media,” Quezada said. “That lack of representation is harmful. It impacts policy, because they don’t think there’s a problem.”

Other Latinx groups, like the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), are also calling out the lack of diversity in media. Beyond Spanish-language programs, Latinx representation, whether it is LGBTQ or not, remains scarce. “We are the largest minority group in the U.S., but you would never know it if you watch television or films,” Alex Nogales, executive director of NHMC told NBC News. “Latinos are the biggest moviegoers of all groups. The discrepancy between our numbers and our portrayals in front of camera is worse and worse.”

As for LGBTQ Latinx characters, Nogales was surprised GLAAD’s report found they made up as much as 3 percent of characters on Spanish-language programs in the U.S.

In concert with the release of the report, GLAAD initiated the #PantallaInclusiva campaign, or “inclusive screens” in English, advocating for more and better LGBTQ representation in Spanish-language media. Madam Secretary actor Sara Ramirez, who is bisexual, released a video for the campaign in which she spoke about the importance of representation.

“It would have meant so much to me growing up if my family and I could have seen meaningful LGBTQ stories on TV together,” Ramirez said. “Especially in Spanish, one of the languages we often spoke at home.”

Quezada stressed the importance of family acceptance for LGBTQ Latinx people and said popular media can inform whole families about LGBTQ people while entertaining them.

Learn more on NBCNews.com

You’re given a choice: Would you rather spend your day feeling happy versus happy interspersed with some moments of sadness, frustration, and anxiety? Most of us would choose the first option in a heartbeat. Psychologists, too, long championed the importance of cultivating positive emotions as one path towards optimizing well being, resilience to stressors, and salutary physical health outcomes. Not surprisingly, when people are asked what emotions they want to feel, we place a heavy emphasis on wanting to feel primarily positive emotions.

However, research suggests the choice may no longer be a straightforward one. Recent work by psychologists reveals the once hidden benefits of experiencing a diversity of emotions, both positive and negative. Just as physical environments flourish through a biodiversity of flora and fauna, this new work on ‘emodiversity’ likens the human mind to an abstract and internal psychological ecosystem that may also benefit from experiencing a wide diversity of emotions. Although still a new idea, the yield of emodiversity is apparent: adults who report experiencing a greater diversity of both positive and negative emotions report fewer symptoms of depression and fewer days spent in a hospital. This is consistent with what we have long known about emotions; namely, that emotions serve as a guidepost on the map of human experience, drawing our attention to the important markers in our environments—the warning signs, or things that need to be noticed, changed, or processed and understood. So the emotional ingredients underlying well-being might be more ‘diverse’ than just feeling good or positive emotions. In addition, adults who experience a wider range of positive emotions—for example, calm, amused, excited, and proud—exhibit lower markers of inflammation, suggesting that even happiness isn’t the only positive feeling that confers well-being benefits.

If having lots of different emotions is good for our health as adults, then shouldn’t we be fostering the experience of a diverse range of emotions in young children as well? And yet the research suggests we are not fostering emotional diversity from a young age, especially when it comes to raising young boys. As early as infancy, boys’ and girls’ emotional landscape differs. One study reported that when watching an infant being startled by a jack-in-the-box toy, adults who were told the infant was a boy versus a girl were more likely to perceive the infant as experiencing anger, regardless of whether the infant was actually a boy. Gender differences in the diversity of emotion words parents use in conversations with young boys and girls also emerge. Another study examining conversations between mothers and young children, mothers interacting with daughters employ emotion vocabulary of greater density and depth, whereas conversations with sons tended to focus primarily on a single emotion—you guessed it, anger. Regardless of whether gender differences in adult behavior arise from conscious or unconscious psychological processes, one thing is clear: boys grow up in a world inhabited by a narrower range of emotions, one in which their experiences of anger are noticed, inferred, and potentially even cultivated. This leaves other emotions—particularly the more vulnerable emotions—sorely ignored or missing in their growing minds.

This is all the more concerning given that research from Harvard Medical School shows that boys are in fact more emotionally expressive than girls. This begins as early as infancy and lasts through early childhood. So it is possible that boys might actually begin with at least comparable, if not more, intensity and range of emotional expressions. This suggests that something is happening in these early years, when children are the most receptive to messages their parents give them about emotion displays, that might very well have a longer-term impact on their emotional development.

Indeed, a lack of fostering emotional diversity in youth may have long-term problematic consequences. As early as elementary school, the avoidance of strong emotions (besides anger) results in academic underperformance in boys. Psychologists have found that children who deny emotional vulnerability are also more likely to become adolescents who engage in health-risk behaviors, such as substance use. Later in development, men suppress (i.e., do not openly express) their emotions more than women; and men, in turn experience greater depressive symptoms, and resort more often to physical violence. Scientists speculate that trouble regulating emotion may explain the link between restricted emotions and aggressive behavior towards others in men. This seems likely, given that the skills to regulate emotion are gained through practice, which boys may be less likely to have if they do not have permission to experience the full range of emotions.

Unfortunately, mens’ restriction in emotion expression extends to the home—men are also less likely to share their own vulnerable emotions with partners and are less open to these experiences in their partners, a point made clear by University of Houston social work professor BrenéBrown in her qualitative research on shame. And emotion suppression can have consequences for physical, as well as psychological and relational, health—these men may be at greater risk for stress-related cardiovascular problems in the long-run. A lack of emotional diversity is not just important for young boys but continues to be so as emotionally restricted young boys mature into adult men with more rigid emotional repertoires. Experiencing the full range of emotions may not only benefit young boys’ psychological health but have far-reaching benefits for society at large.

Read more on ScientificAmerican.com.