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In an effort to address high rates of youth suicide, the Anchorage school district is expanding its crisis response team. Made up of more than a dozen staff members, the team helps schools respond to traumatic events in their communities. Their crisis response protocol is based on the PREPaRE model, which was developed by the National Association of School Psychologists to prevent and respond to psychological trauma in schools. After a suicide death, the crisis response team is sent to the school to meet with faculty and students, identify and assist those in distress, and ensure that the necessary mental health services are available. The team tailors its response to the needs of the school, in collaboration with school principals, and works closely with school counselors and mental health staff, bringing in outside psychologists as needed. The Anchorage school district also provides suicide prevention education to middle school students, and has developed a handout for parents that include information on risk factors and warning signs for suicide.

Read more on AlaskaStar.com. Read more about PREPaRE.

Bringing down the rate of HIV infection in one of the United States’ great public health triumphs of the past quarter-century. Now, thanks to the opioid epidemic, some of those hard-won gains may be reversed.

Opioids, as well as being harmful on their own, also increase the risk of HIV outbreaks, as users sometimes inject the drugs using shared, infected syringes. That drove a clustered outbreak in Scott County, Indiana, where then-Governor Mike Pence declared a public health emergency in 2015 because of a spate of new HIV infections.

Hoping to prevent future outbreaks and to drive the HIV infection rate to zero, public health experts held a Capitol Hill summit Wednesday.

The summit’s organizer, the anti-HIV public health advocate amfAR, is rolling out a new website that assembles a wealth of data on the opioid epidemic and its relationship to HIV and other infectious diseases such as hepatitis C (HCV). This includes Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on the 220 opioid addiction-racked U.S. counties which are most vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks linked to injection drug use.

The vulnerable counties have high rates of poverty and unemployment, limiting their resources for providing services that can prevent or curtail outbreaks of infectious disease driven by injection drug abuse. Such services include syringe exchange programs and opioid agonist therapy with methadone or buprenorphine. 

Read more on WashingtonPost.com.

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR) and the Center for Children’s Law and Policy are accepting applications for the Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice Certificate Program to be held November 14-17, 2017, in Washington, DC. This training will focus on strategies for local jurisdictions to reduce overrepresentation and address racial and ethnic disparities in their juvenile justice systems. Deadline to apply is August 4, 2017.

Read more about the program. Apply now!

Rocsana Enriquez started thinking about yoga again when she was pregnant. She was 19 and in an abusive relationship.

When she was younger, Rocsana, whom the author had interviewed as part of her research, had taken part in a yoga program in a San Francisco Bay Area juvenile hall run by The Art of Yoga Project. She began using the skills she learned on the mat to slow herself down when she got angry and to pause before reacting. She remembered the breathing techniques and poses that made her feel better about herself. Now, seeking the same quietness she had been able to achieve in class back in juvenile hall, she reached out to the program, never expecting to hear back.

Childhood trauma has a devastating impact on both the mind and the body of children who experience it. But that mind-body connection also offers a path toward healing. A growing body of research demonstrates the effectiveness of addressing the mental and physical impact of trauma through yoga and other somatic, or body-based, programs.

The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, of which the author is executive director, released a first-of-its-kind report in April that synthesizes existing research, interviews with experts across the country and two original pilot studies focused on at-risk girls. Their conclusion: yoga and mindfulness programs can equip girls like Rocsana – especially those in the juvenile justice system – with tools that help them thrive.

Research shows that Rocsana is not alone in experiencing abuse as a young person. Children in the United States experience trauma at breathtakingly high rates. In the seminal Adverse Childhood Experiences survey of more than 17,000 participants, 21 percent reported experiencing sexual abuse as children; 26 percent reported physical abuse; and 14.8 percent reported emotional neglect. Youth in the juvenile justice system are the most vulnerable, reporting higher rates of trauma than their peers. These experiences take a long-term toll not only on their mental health, but their physical health as well. These children are more likely than others to experience depression and substance abuse as adults – and they exhibit higher rates of heart disease, cancer and liver disease.

Studies reveal that yoga programs designed specifically for victims of trauma – programs that include regulated breathing, controlled movement and mindfulness practices – can have far-ranging benefits for any participant. Improvements have been shown in mental health (self-regulation, self-esteem) and physical health (better sleep, a reduction in gastric symptoms and many other positive outcomes).

Read more on TheConversation.com.

While the percentage of American children living in poverty fell in 2015, many continue to live in high-poverty areas and gains in children’s well-being could be lost without continued investment, an annual report from the Annie. E. Casey Foundation finds.

According to the 2017 KIDS COUNT Data Book (pdf), 21 percent of all children in the United States lived in poverty in 2015, down slightly from 22 percent in 2014. The report also found that between 2010 and 2015, the percentage of children whose parent(s) did not have full-time year-round employment fell from 33 percent to 29 percent, while the percentage whose families struggled with a significant housing cost burden fell from 41 percent to 33 percent. Over the same period, the share of children living in high-poverty areas held steady at 14 percent, with higher rates in Southern and Southwestern states.

The report, which measured child well-being in four areas — economic well-being, education, health, and family and community — also found minimal gains in indicators of academic achievement. Although rates of high school completion and fourth-grade reading proficiency improved from 2010 to 2015, the percentage of children not attending pre-K classes has remained largely unchanged since 2009, while the eighth-grade math proficiency rate has gotten slightly worse.

The report did find progress in a number of health indicators, including the uninsured rate for children, which fell from 8 percent in 2010 to 5 percent in 2015; the share of teens who abuse alcohol or drugs, which fell  from 7 percent to 5 percent; and child and teen deaths, which was down from 26 per 100,000 to 25 per 100,000. At the state level, New Hampshire ranked first overall in child well-being, followed by Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, and Iowa, while Mississippi, New Mexico, Louisiana, Nevada, and Arizona ranked lowest.

Read more on PhilanthropyNewsDigest.org.

“Welcome to the Wild West of mental health care.” That’s how Stephanie,* a 40-something professional and Jackson Hole, Wyoming native, described the day she checked into the emergency department at St. John’s Medical Center a few years ago. She has struggled with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction, with some issues dating back to her teens. Her constellation of mental health challenges has meant several bouts of crippling depression, despite medication and therapy.

At the time, she was severely depressed and suicidal. She didn’t feel safe to be alone, so she called a friend to take her to the hospital. Because there is no other crisis facility in the valley for mental health patients, the hospital was Stephanie’s only option. And though the ER staff kept her from harming herself, the experience was less than optimal. 

Having grown up in the valley, Stephanie is not new to seeking mental health care from local providers. An intelligent, proactive woman, she is skilled at gleaning the best of what’s available in Jackson Hole. She is also all too familiar with the ramifications of a community in which physical health is exalted and mental health too often neglected until people reach a crisis.

When Stephanie was a teenager in the 1980s, the first time she sought mental health care was from her family doctor. No licensed psychiatrists were practicing in the valley at the time, so general practitioners were often patients’ first option for mental health care. That situation hasn’t changed much, and it’s not exclusive to Jackson. According to the Institute for Behavioral Health Integration, as many as 70 percent of all visits to primary care are the result of psychosocial issues.

Stephanie said she was lucky to have a doctor who understood the seriousness of her symptoms. “Had I not had that I would not be alive today,” she said.

While primary care providers play a crucial role in helping patients with mental health issues—whether in the ER or the doctor’s office—they only have so much expertise. A recent St. John’s Hospital Foundation study found that Jackson is in dire need of psychiatrists, with only two practicing in the valley. The search is on for ways to serve this need.

Read more on PlanetJH.com.