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In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Vista Del Mar has been selected as the Partner of the Month for April in recognition of National Minority Health Month.

Vista Del Mar improves the mental health and well-being of children and families by providing specialized and therapeutic services. The organization is an innovative leader in educational, mental health, autism, adoptions and early intervention services.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Intensive Residential Treatment
• Counseling for Foster Care Youth
• Play Therapy
• Family Therapy
• Psycho-Educational Assessments
• Early Head Start Program

Learn more about Vista Del Mar and its mission to provide a trauma-responsive continuum of services to empower children, youth, and families in Southern California to lead fulfilling lives.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

A series of suicide attempts reported by detainees and officials at a single New Mexico immigration detention facility are underscoring concerns about mental health treatment outcomes in the system.

Craig Haney, a social psychologist and an expert on the impacts of isolation in detention, said American prisons and detention centers often use isolation as a response to inmate depression, self-harm and suicide attempts.

“This is a way to solve a short-term problem: ‘What do we do with this mentally ill detainee?’ But in a way that is very likely to be damaging to [detainees] in the long run. And that’s just not an equation that [detention centers] pay much attention to,” Haney said.

According to a 2021 study published in AIMS Public Health, a journal for peer-reviewed papers, the overall suicide rate per every 100,000 people admitted into ICE detention was 0.3 from 2010 to 2019. In 2020, that rate skyrocketed to 3.4 suicides per 100,000 admissions.

That study, authored by academics from Harvard and Stanford universities, theorized that a possible cause for the spike was “increasing lapses in mental health care in ICE detention,” based on a 2020 congressional report that found “major issues in mental health care inside detention centers” which “may result from chronic staffing shortages, as vacancy rates of 37–50% for psychiatrists and social workers have been previously reported in immigration detention.”

ICE’s manual describes in detail “suicide-resistant cells,” prohibits excessive deprivations for detainees in those cells, and mandates one-to-one observation and a medical treatment plan. Advocates, however, say the ICE manual’s regulations are often not followed.

Read more at TheHill.com.

It’s been three years since the COVID-19 virus was declared a global pandemic. In March, Two-Spirit elders reflected on the impact COVID has had on Two-Spirit communities over the last three years, remembering the many ways Indigiqueer relatives have stepped up to support each other.

“As a mental health provider, the impact I really saw on our Two Spirit and Native LGBTQ community was depression, anxiety, and isolation,” said Lenny Hayes. “Early in the pandemic I created a support group for Two Spirit and Native LGBTQ people along with a couple other people… The biggest thing I heard from participants in the groups I facilitated is if you were taking care of someone—because we know our Two Spirit community members, they’re caretakers—if you were taking care of someone you couldn’t talk about the impact of the pandemic on yourself with them. So this support group was for people to be able to come and talk about their experiences, to sit and cry, to worry about family members and cry, to grieve family members who passed away from COVID. We met every week. We had 10 to 25 people. I didn’t call it a mental health group, because that stigmatizes it. It was a support group. We wanted to create a safe space for our Two-spirit and Native LGBTQ+ relatives to be in community.”

“I don’t feel like I’m out of COVID,” said an anonymous elder. “I’m still there. I’m still worried about my grandchildren. I’m worried about my own stuff. I’m still scared. I think the hardest part of it was being determined that I’m going to protect myself even if other people aren’t protecting themselves. Some people I really cared about died, because they didn’t protect themselves. That was difficult. I still want to keep a distance from people. Hide out. It’s like living in this foggy cave. One of the thoughts that I had—that I still have—is that it’s no worse than what we’ve been through already.”

Read more at PathsRemembered.org.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, depression and PTSD are also among the most common mental health concerns for veterans. They estimate about 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD. They are also at a higher risk for addiction with roughly 20 percent believed to turn to drugs and alcohol within the first three months of returning home.

The Department of Veteran Affairs is hoping to make resources more available for people struggling with their mental health.

“Really it’s more about just education and more access to veterans, specifically when it comes to suicide prevention and veterans in crisis,” Johnathan Elliott from the Olin Teague VA Hospital in Temple said.

Starting January 2023, veterans now have access to free emergency mental health care at any VA hospital or clinic.

“A lot of times community hospitals, there were questions and different things along those lines,” Elliott explained. “Now it’s really just getting them in, assessed and able to move forward or at least on the right track.”

The department estimates of the roughly 18 million veterans living in America only half are enrolled in their benefits. This new policy will cover all veterans, even those who aren’t enrolled.

Read more at KXXV.com.

Mental health resources for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are essential today with the rise of hate and discrimination directed toward these communities. According to a report issued by Stop AAPI Hate, a group that works to track incidents of racially motivated harassment and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise.

Between March 19, 2020, and February 28, 2021, almost 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents were reported. These incidents included slurs, shunning, and physical assaults. More than twice as many attacks were directed toward Asian American women than toward Asian American men.

Such numbers represent acts of discrimination that have been reported—the actual numbers are likely much higher. This uptick in harassment and violence is largely attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and racist political rhetoric directed toward Asian people.

This discrimination, harassment, and violence have a serious impact on the mental health and well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. For example, one study found that 42% of those who had experienced discrimination had anxiety symptoms, 30% had depression symptoms, and 39% had symptoms of traumatic stress. Therefore, it is critical that these communities have access to appropriate mental health resources.

Read more at VeryWellMind.com.

During the 2021-2022 school year, the average student-to-counselor ratio was 408-to-1. The American School Counselor Association has recommended a ratio of 250-to-1 since 1965.

The added layers of stress, social isolation, and life disruption during the pandemic has led to dire mental health outcomes, with adolescents even showing accelerated brain aging. The “soaring rates of mental health challenges” among youth prompted a group of national health organizations to declare a national state of emergency in children’s mental health in October 2021, saying that the crisis was “inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19.”

The limited supply of mental health professionals has created significantly longer wait times for students — more than a year, in some cases, said Dr. Christine Crawford, associate medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“My overall concern is not about what’s happening, present day,” Crawford said. “I’m worried about the impact of the cumulative effects of all these delays in entering mental health care and how that’s going to alter the trajectory for a lot of these kids.”

The hurdles to providing adequate mental health services in schools are multifaceted, including insufficient staff to manage caseloads, lack of licensed professionals, and limited funding.

Read more at CapitalBNews.org.