News

Digital platforms can help refugee children to better assimilate into a new society, helping with language and education, and also in addressing the mental health issues that inevitably accompany the traumas of escape.

A new study, from New York University, has looked at Syrian refugees children in Turkey. The children, sometimes with their families, have experienced the plight of fleeing a war-torn area and many experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Add to this, few of the children in refugee camps are receiving education, partly because of the language barrier. How can these problems be addressed?

One answer, according to the researchers, is with the use of digital technology. The researchers have devised a platform to both help children to learn and also to help to alleviate the stresses associated with the experiences of conflict and unsteady travel. Some of the ‘games’ within the platform were specially designed to address these concerns; others are modifications of standard applications such as Minecraft.

For the study, the New York University researchers worked with the City University of New York, and Turkey’s Bahcesehir University. The findings were presented to a special meeting at BAU International University in Washington, D.C. in June 2017. The study was called ‘Project Hope’.

The aim of the digital platform as a whole was to improve Turkish language proficiency, expand executive functions, and introduce coding skills. At the same time the package aimed to decrease the sense of despair faced by the children and to increase hope.

Read more on DigitalJournal.com. Read more on NYU.edu.

A new study from Florida Institute of Technology has found that criminal defendants who graduated from mental health court demonstrated substantially reduced re-arrest rates a full three years following their release, the longest period of post-program behavior examined in a published study involving mental health courts and the clearest indicator yet of the potential for diversionary programs to ease the burden on the nation’s overcrowded prison system.

Additionally, the study from Florida Tech’s Julie Costopoulos, an assistant professor in the university’s School of Psychology, and doctoral student Bethany Wellman found that for those who participated in mental health court, prior criminal behavior, no matter how serious, was not an indicator of post-release recidivism.

And even when they re-offended after failing to complete the full complement of treatment and support, participants committed less serious crimes in doing so, the study found, with the severity of offenses declining the longer they had remained in the mental health court.

“Jail doesn’t stop crimes by the mentally ill, treatment does. Yet jails and prisons are now the largest mental health treatment facilities in the United States,” Costopoulos said. “We know mental health court not only reduces jail overcrowding, it also helps participants find support to live independently and successfully while getting treatment. And now, with our study, we have shown that mental health courts also reduce arrests by the mentally ill, regardless of how much they have offended in the past.”

Read more on MedicalXpress.com. Read the abstract of the study.

In March, the Kind Clinic in Austin, Texas, launched a pilot program offering free and accessible gender-affirming care to the city’s transgender and gender nonconforming population.

At the time, the Kind Clinic was the first facility in Central Texas to offer a service that is often out of reach for transgender people. Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas followed suit a month later, offering gender-affirming hormone therapy at its North Austin Health Center, the second of its clinics in the state to do so.

The program at Planned Parenthood’s North Austin site has so far been a success, said clinician Heather Brand. “Patients have told us that they love the care we are providing, that we make them feel affirmed in their gender identity and safe in our care, and that they trust us as experts in the care we are providing them,” Brand told TheBody.com.

Discrimination, stigma and violence have a tremendous impact on a transgender person’s physical and mental health. Statistics have shown that abuse and harassment have kept transgender people from seeking medical care. Maltreatment has also contributed to exceedingly high rates of mental illness and suicide among the transgender population.

Advocates say that gender-affirming programs like the ones provided by the Kind Clinic and Planned Parenthood are vital to trans people’s wellbeing. Access to gender-affirming care allows transgender people to feel empowered, which benefits their mental and emotional health. And transgender people living with HIV who receive gender-affirming care are more likely to stay in treatment, which has massive implications for their overall wellbeing.

Read more on TheBody.com.

The epidemic of opioid addiction in the US, which has reached never before seen heights in the past two years, has put an immense strain on the already resource-starved US health care system. Among the most devastating consequences of this crisis has been the thousands of children who lose their parents to addiction every day. These children have flooded the foster care system, and their cases have exhausted social services.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2012, 397,000 U.S. children were in foster care. By 2015, that number had risen 8 percent, to 428,000. There is no concrete data yet for 2016; however, experts predict that the past two years—the height of the opioid epidemic so far—has increased that number dramatically.

A recent study published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that in 14 states the number of foster kids rose by more than a quarter between 2011 and 2015.

States that are experiencing a massive influx of children into protective custody all face similar problems, with varying degrees of severity. None are equipped with the resources to adequately deal with the crisis. Three of the hardest hit states have been Maine, Florida, and Ohio.

Read more on WSWS.org.

Disparities in mental health care are greater than in most other areas of healthcare services, especially in communities of color. Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, remain one of the highest health burdens for minorities. The social inequalities for risk appear to increase with age, and the social disadvantages of being Latino in the U.S. increase the risk for common mental disorders across a person’s lifespan.

While barriers to alleviate mental disorders exist for everyone, they are even more pronounced for minorities who might have fewer socioeconomic resources.

Despite the need for mental health services, minorities are not seeking medical care. Even when they do seek treatment, they are less likely to receive adequate mental health care and tend to drop out of treatment two to three times more frequently.

Compounding this problem are the physical health disparities that minorities face: They are 1.2 times more likely to be obese and 1.5 times more likely to have diabetes. Moreover, research shows they are more likely to be sedentary, and they are not pursuing changes in their physical activity. Mental illness often occurs with these chronic, physical illnesses, leading to a high degree of impairment and decreased quality of life.

Read more on MiamiHerald.com.

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR), in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) Center for Coordinated Assistance to States, has issued a request for applications for jurisdictions seeking to engage in system improvement efforts through the Multi-System Collaboration Training and Technical Assistance Program (MSC-TTA). This program supports jurisdictions that are interested in developing a sound infrastructure to promote multi-system approaches to serving at-risk and justice-involved youth and their families. CJJR will provide distance learning training and technical assistance at no cost to a cohort of as many as six jurisdictions to help them:

• identify gaps in policy and practice,
• enhance information sharing capacities,
• explore how key decision points impact the trajectory of the youth currently being served,
• develop an evaluation strategy for tracking system- and youth-level outcomes, and
• sustain long-term system change.

Deadline to apply is August 11, 2017.

Read more on CJJR.Georgetown.edu.