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As the pandemic ravaged the country, deaths from drug overdoses surged by nearly 30%, climbing to a record high. The drug crisis has also diversified from an overwhelmingly white affliction to killing people of color with staggering speed. The death rate last year was highest among Native Americans, for whom COVID-19 piled yet more despair on communities already confronting generations of trauma, poverty, unemployment, and underfunded health systems.

It is no longer an opioid epidemic, but one in which people are dying from deadly cocktails of many drugs. Deaths involving methamphetamine have nearly tripled in recent years, with Native Americans 12 times more likely to die from it.

These deaths were a culmination of far more than that: Despite their resilience, Native Americans carry in their blood 500 years worth of pain from being robbed of their land, their language, their culture, their children. In living people’s memory, children were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools with the motto, “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

Amid all this death and dying, one of the most urgent questions Native American communities are facing is how to spare the next generations from starting the cycle anew.

Read more at CBSMinnesota.com.

Opioid overdose deaths among older adults in the U.S. have grown fastest among Black men, a new study shows, offering more evidence that a deadly drug crisis once seen as mostly affecting whites has been disproportionately harming people of color.

The research, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, found the annual rate of opioid overdose deaths increased approximately tenfold among adults 55 years of age and older, from 0.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999 to 10.7 per 100,000 in 2019. Over those two decades, nearly 80,000 U.S. residents 55 or older died due to an opioid overdose, with nearly 80% of those deaths occurring among those between the ages of 55 and 64 and more than 58% occurring among men, the study found.

Driving the overall increase has been a spike in overdose deaths among Black men, who since 2013 have had substantially higher death rates than the overall rate for people at least 55 years old. By 2019, the opioid overdose fatality rate among older Black men was approximately four times higher than the overall rate among older adults, at more than 40 deaths per 100,000 population.

The increase in opioid overdose deaths among older Black men is the latest evidence of the U.S. drug epidemic’s changing demographics. Notably, the early years of the opioid epidemic were fueled heavily by prescription pain medications, which white patients at least initially were more likely to receive than Black patients. Yet the racial divide has narrowed in recent years, with the opioid overdose death rate among Black individuals reaching 17.1 per 100,000 in 2019 compared with 19 per 100,000 among whites, the KFF figures show.

While Mason says the prevalence of fentanyl might be a factor in the increase in overdose deaths among older Black adults, she notes that Black patients are less likely to have health insurance, and her study cites separate research showing higher receipt of buprenorphine – a key medication used to treat opioid use disorder – among white patients than others.

“All of these things sort of coalesce to put Black people at a continued disadvantage,” Mason says.

Read more at USNews.com.

Switching between in-person and online learning, social distancing guidelines, and other unexpected changes from the COVID-19 pandemic have led to more pressure on students and an increase in demand for mental health services.

To meet the rising demand, schools across the state are in the process of hiring over 500 additional psychologists, social workers, counselors, and school nurses with the help of funds from the $17.1 billion state K-12 budget signed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer last year. It included $240 million for school districts to hire staff to support students dealing with mental and physical health issues driven by the coronavirus.

“The pandemic reminded us that school-based mental and physical health professionals are not luxuries. Healthy students — physically, mentally, and social-emotionally — are better learners,” Whitmer said in a statement. “Having skilled professionals in school buildings helps our kids get the supports they need so they can thrive in the classroom and beyond.”

“I think people are more stressed than ever before and I guess that does carry over to our population of students that are definitely not immune to the stressors around them,” said Michael Behrmann, superintendent of the Harbor Springs schools. “(We) have two full-time mental health therapists and one part-time therapist. We also have 2.5 school counselors that work in our schools as well and a facilitator supporting Native American students.”

Read more at PetoskeyNews.com.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. PEARLS For Teen Girls, has been selected as the Partner of the Month for March in celebration of Women’s History Month.

PEARLS began in 1993 as a volunteer effort to help girls in middle school develop social, emotional and practical skills that would prepare them to be empathetic, self-sufficient leaders. Now serving girls 5th through 12th grades, PEARLS supports girls as they wrestle with the upheavals of adolescence, interpersonal, educational and, in some cases, socioeconomic challenges.

PEARLS for Teen Girls believes in improving quality of life and strengthening the Milwaukee community one girl at a time by empowering young women with self-development tools, guidance and support to strive for better, brighter futures by living out the PEARLS values: Personal Responsibility, Empathy, Awareness, Respect, Leadership and Support.

The current programs:

• PEARLS Support Groups – Through the peer support groups for girls, their multigenerational facilitation teams provides girls a safe-space to bloom into themselves. With Social Emotional Learning embedded into there research-based curriculum, they open their eyes to new possibilities and support their version of success.
• College and Career Readiness – PEARLS offer girls guidance to recognize their own power: that they are responsible for their choices and they they have unique gifts they can use to create their own futures.
• One-on-One Coaching – Mentoring is a vital for youth so in addition to group support and college and career counseling, they connect high school girls with professional volunteers in the community. These volunteers support PEARLS girls with one-on-one support and build transformational personal relationships.

Learn more about PEARLS For Teen Girls and their mission for improving quality of lives one girl at a time by empowering young women with self-development tools, guidance and support to strive for better, brighter futures.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

Lawmakers in Tallahassee, FL are submitting appropriations hoping to get some funding for their districts. 35th District Representative Blaise Ingoglia, who covers Spring Hill and Brooksville in Hernando County, has nine bills he’s looking to get some funding for including the expansion of a mental health facility for veterans in the county.

K9 Partners for Patriots has grown tremendously since 2014. Organizers say they’ve doubled the number of veterans coming forward looking for some assistance within the past three years alone. That’s why Rep. Ingoglia backed a $175,000 appropriation in this year’s legislative session to expand the organization. K9 Partners helps veterans like Mark find their fur-ever friend that will give them a chance at a more stable and happy future.

“I guess just look at him as more than just a dog,” Mark Wing said about his dog, and that’s because everywhere you see Mark, you see his dog Chance. “He came in like two days prior from Louisiana, from a kill shelter, he wasn’t really responding to anybody,” Mark continued to say but now they are constant companions.

He added, “I had dogs when I was growing up, as a kid, but this is my first dog in a few years. My first service dog, too.”

Read more at BayNews9.com.

A new mental health resource just hit the Kansas City area, and it’s making mental wellness access easier for people of color. Two women who live in Kansas City saw a need and filled the gap – the best part is it’s free.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing said nearly half of all Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American people say they’ve experienced increased mental health challenges in the last year, but few have received treatment.

“I couldn’t keep up,” Brittany Talley, co-founder of the Color Collective Kansas City, said.

Talley, who is a licensed counselor, said the increase of clients began in 2020. Talley knew the importance of someone who truly understands what it feels like to be in your situation.

“I reached out to Megh Chakrabarti who is a social worker in our area and said, ‘Hey do you have any resources to get more people of color to therapists of color?’ Because those were the requests we were getting,” Talley said.

Through the Color Collective Kansas City, Chakrabarti and Talley have matched more than 200 people to therapists of color. Online, people can scroll through 40 therapists with different specialties and reach out to them to see if it’s a match.

“It really does help to have a non-white therapist, it can make the difference between life and death for some people,” Chakrabarti said.

Read more at KSHB.com.