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Created in 2011 by Black and Hispanic social workers at the nonprofit organization Youth Guidance, Working on Womenhood’s (WOW) goal is to build a healthy sense of self-awareness, confidence, and resilience in a population that is often underserved by mental health programs.

Youth Guidance offers WOW to about 350 students in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60, which serves an industrial town of about 88,000 located about 30 miles north of Chicago. Just over 93 percent of the district’s 13,600 students are Black or Hispanic, and about 67 percent come from families classified as low income.

Compared to other students, Black and Hispanic students have a harder time getting mental health support in school. In-school mental health support targeted to girls, especially evidence-based, sustained programs like WOW, is scarce or nonexistent in many public schools.

Despite some of these implementation challenges, WOW leaders and counselors consider the Waukegan WOW program a success.

Read more at HechingerReport.org.

VA has said that ending veteran suicide is its top clinical priority, and a White House fact sheet ahead of President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address called suicide among veterans a “public health and national security crisis.”

Nearly 50,000 veterans and former service members received free emergency suicide prevention care in 2023 in the first year of a new Department of Veterans Affairs program.

The initiative is designed to help those in “acute suicidal crisis” access emergency services at VA and non-VA facilities and saved the former service members at least $64 million in health-care costs, according to VA. The policy covers 30 days of inpatient or crisis residential care, 90 days of outpatient care and related transportation costs.

Homelessness among veterans also increased by 7.4 percent in 2023, according to VA, with more than 35,000 veterans recorded in last year’s count by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Read more at WashingtonPost.com.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Whole Systems Learning has been selected as the Partner of the Month for February in celebration of Black History Month.

Whole Systems Learning works with Black youth and individuals in the community to provide them with the resources and support needed to establish new pathways in life. They believe that through creativity, education, and support systems, previously incarcerated citizens will have greater opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Emotional Awareness Training
• Hip Hop Heals
• Housing Services
• Coping Skills Development

Learn more about Whole Systems Learning and their mission to provide African American male youth and all returning citizens a support system for a pathway to purpose through creativity, careers, culture, and health.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

According to a report by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates for youth and young adults have increased 60% in the U.S. since 2011. We spoke with Dr. Daniel Castellanos, Founding Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, and Professor of Psychiatry at Creighton University School of Medicine, about the issue.

Historically, Latinos have faced additional barriers when seeking mental health services compared to non-Latinos, and cultural dynamics contribute to Latinos not seeking support.

“Depression rates have gone up,” Dr. Castellanos said. “We also know that Latinos and Latino youth kind of have a whole wealth of health disparities dealt with by teens and their families, such as things like poverty, sub-optimal education, issues with access to appropriate healthcare and mental health services.”

“Asking about thoughts of death and or suicide because that’s a myth. The myth is, people say ‘Oh, if I inquire about it, it’ll put the thought in the teen’s mind,’ and that’s not true. It’s a way of understanding and assessing and hopefully intervening, if that individual is suffering.”

Read more at AZPBS.org.

In the wake of a new report that shows the ratio of students to counselors in the nation’s public schools hit its lowest point in at least 36 years, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris recently announced an additional $285 million in funding for schools to hire and train mental health counselors.

Based on the American School Counselor Association’s analysis of federal data, schools across the country had an average of 408 students for every counselor last school year, “lower than the 424 to 1 ratio pre-pandemic, but still significantly higher than the 250 to 1 recommended by the counselors’ group.”

“While not the optimal ratio, it’s still good news,” ASCA Executive Director Jill Cook observed.

According to ASCA, lower average caseloads mean counselors can commit more time to every student. However, the organization maintains that “the pattern remains uneven across states and that focusing too heavily on national or statewide statistics can obscure stark disparities between districts and the true accessibility of counselors at individual schools.”

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act allocated funds to hire and train counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals. It also represents “the single largest investment in student mental health in history and will help to hire and train more than 14,000 school mental health professionals throughout America.”

“In the United States of America today, the No. 1 killer of our children is gun violence…and when we take the time to consider what this means, let us understand how many people in our country, including our children, are experiencing profound trauma that manifests itself in so many ways,” Vice President Harris explained in a speech announcing the funding windfall in Charlotte, N.C. “We are here today to talk about many things including the need for reasonable gun safety laws, but also the trauma and what we must do to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of it. For all of those reasons, I am proud to be here to share that we are announcing $285 million as part of our administration’s initiative to hire and train mental health counselors in schools.”

Vice President Harris also announced more than $6 million for community violence intervention. The Department of Education will manage the funding earmarked for seven school districts across the country as part of the Project Prevent grant program, “which will support community- and school-based strategies to help prevent and mitigate the impacts of community violence on students, including exposure to gun violence.”

Read more at Psychiatrist.com.

As one of the few Chinese Americans in his New York City neighborhood, Ben Chan recalled facing “all kinds of discrimination” as he grew up. The microaggressions, systemic racism, and physical and verbal violence he experienced began in elementary school, lasting all the way through college and beyond.

These experiences left a deep impression on him. Yet he had no idea this wasn’t normal, and how much it affected him, until he found the right therapist to process his trauma.

“A lot of these experiences I didn’t really have a place to talk about, or anybody really to talk to about,” says Chan to AsAmNews. “It’s really in the last few years that I’ve been working with a therapist that specializes in racial trauma that I’ve been unpacking these things.”

For Chan, and many other Asian Americans nationwide, culturally competent therapists are critical for mental healthcare. Yet these therapists remain difficult to find. As more Asian Americans reach out for mental health treatment, this lack of therapists is a block to getting the help they need.

There is a nationwide shortage of therapists that serve the Asian American community. In 2021, less than 4% of psychologists identified as Asian American or Asian Pacific American, compared with 80% who identified as White. On top of that, not all of those psychologists are trained in culturally competent care.

As a result, it can be especially difficult for Asian Americans to find the right psychologist. For Chan, finding a therapist who could treat racial trauma was a difficult process.

Read more as AsAmNews.com.