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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. Dekalb County Youth Service Bureau, has been selected as the Partner of the Month for July in celebration of National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

The Dekalb County Youth Service Bureau (YSB) is a organization that provides individual, family, and group mental health counseling, as well as specialty services which are designed to keep families intact, keep youth out of the juvenile court system, and empower youth to achieve in Illinois.

YSB has been enriching the lives and relationships of youth ages 8 to 18 and their families for over 45 years. YSB became a separate agency in 1971 after being a City of DeKalb Department since 1969. YSB was one of three initial youth service bureaus in Illinois and since its inception, continues to respond to and meet the service needs of today’s youth and their families. YSB is a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) agency governed by a volunteer Board of Directors from throughout DeKalb County.

The some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Youth & Family Counseling –  Youth & Family Counseling (YFC) offers individual and family counseling to youth aged 8-18 and their families. YFC is designed to address the specific needs of those experiencing difficult situations in their lives. In addition, youth can be referred for a comprehensive assessment to determine if additional services are needed.
• Girls Empowerment Group – The Girls Empowerment Group encourages girls to seek and celebrate their “true selves” by giving them a safe space, encouragement, structure and support to embrace their important journey of self discovery. A strength based approach helps girls identify and apply their power and voice as individuals and as a group focusing on issues that are important in the lives of adolescent girls.
• Alcohol / Drug Early Intervention Programs – Early Intervention is designed to educate teens about alcohol, drug, and other substance related issues. A two-session screening assessment is used to gather drug/alcohol history and make recommendations for services. This program uses group education to provide accurate information regarding alcohol/drug use and exploration of the decision-making process involved in making healthy choices.
• Alternative to Suspension Program – Alternative to Suspension is for students from 6th-12th grade, to act as a gateway to mental health services for at-risk youth who are required to serve out-of-school suspension. While enrolled in the program, youth will receive a comprehensive mental health screening to determine potential risk factors that contributed to the youth being suspended.
• DeKalb County Youth Project – Youth Project is geared toward youth between the ages of 11 and 18. The program was developed for the purpose of equipping youth with the skills to identify, manage, and appropriately express anger and other intense emotions, in order to prevent aggressive and abusive tendencies, promote pro-social skills, improve anger control, and reduce the frequency of acting out behaviors. Youth can be referred for counseling or META (Managing Emotions, Thoughts, & Actions), an educational group that focus on three components: Anger Control (the Emotional component), Moral Reasoning (the Thoughts component), and Social Skills (the Actions component).

Learn more about Dekalb County Youth Service Bureau and their mission to assist youth as they build healthy lives and relationships with their families, friends, and community. YSB envisions a community where all young people know they are valued as important contributors, and know that YSB is here to support them so they can live up to their potential and achieve their personal goals.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

When I was 17 years old, I really did not want to be gay. I did not want to have a crush on my basketball teammate like I did. I wore heels and skirts out to parties, hoping they would disguise my tomboyish mannerisms. I truly believed I would be alone forever.

Fast-forward to a few days ago when I celebrated my 37th birthday with a group of friends who are diverse in race, profession, and sexual orientation, and who were invited by my fiancé, the most brilliant and beautiful woman I know. Moments like this one remind me that it does, and it did, get better.

For context, I am a Black, queer, masculine-presenting cis female who works as a psychiatrist. I am living my “dream,” technically. Yet, I continue to struggle with severe anxiety and depression despite consistent treatment with medication and therapy for over a decade. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to become a psychiatrist in the first place was to better understand my anxiety, which first manifested in high school in the form of panic attacks.

My reflections come on the heels of the results from The Trevor Project’s third annual National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. For those of you who may not know much about The Trevor Project, it’s a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth through 24/7 crisis services platforms.

As a psychiatrist, the results of this year’s report are unfortunately not surprising, but still deeply disturbing. Out of the nearly 35,000 LGBTQ youth who were surveyed, 42 percent of respondents between the ages of 13 and 24 had seriously considered attempting suicide within the past 12 months, with more than half identifying as trans or nonbinary youth.

Read more at Healthline.com.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a complex and often painful healthcare experience for many across the country, and in the Latinx community, that pain was defined as compounding social and health inequity and a need for a stronger social safety net, according to new survey data published in JAMA Network Open.

Specifically, the study showed that Latinx patients were likely to encounter COVID-19 misinformation and experience a lapse in the social safety net that may have led to even further inequity after an individual contracted the virus.

These findings come as experts grapple with the health disparities seen during the coronavirus pandemic. Latinx patients disproportionately carried the impact of the disease, with their share of COVID-19 cases exceeding their share of the total US population, the researchers said.

“Individuals also expressed a fear of eviction, despite a moratorium on evictions,” the research team added. “Programs that provide rent relief may offer households the economic ability to isolate without fear of unpaid rent.”

This finding demonstrates that fears about healthcare costs and immigration enforcement in healthcare settings are a strong and prevailing force that can dissuade care access, regardless of individual hospital policy.

Read more at PatientEngagementHIT.com.

The Philadelphia’s Office of Homeless Services is offering one year of rental assistance — worth around $400,000 — to landlords around the city to support the Way Home Project. By June, a total of 40 LGBTQ individuals who’ve been living on the street will have their own rooms in various buildings. As of this week, 12 people have been housed, and a waiting list is forming.

The project is operated by SELF Inc., the largest provider of emergency housing services to single adults in Philadelphia, in partnership with the William Way LGBT Community Center in Center City.

While Project HOME, the Philadelphia anti-homelessness agency, built the Gloria Casarez Residence for young LGBTQ people in North Philadelphia in 2019, “there’s never been a program like Way Home,” said OHS director Liz Hersh. “It’s innovative, cutting-edge stuff. It’s designed and tailored to connect LGBTQ people to landlord rental-assistance,” also known as rapid rehousing. “We will try to sustain it, grow it, replicate it, learn from it.”

Throughout the region, 40% or more of people aged 18 to 26 who experience homelessness identify as LGBTQ, said Chris Bartlett, executive director of William Way. Many have aged out of foster care. “A large proportion of these young people do not find support from their families or community,” he added. “I think this project may be model for other cities.”

Along with housing, formerly homeless LGBTQ tenants are receiving social services to help them adjust to life, including education, job training, and mental health support. Many LGBTQ people experience family rejection, discrimination, harassment, and violence, experts on homelessness say.

Read more at ThePhiladephiaEnquirer.com.

The online reporting center Stop AAPI Hate documented nearly 3,800 cases of anti-Asian hate between March of last year and February of this year. The increase in reported hate incidents ranging from verbal attacks to fatal assaults is leaving many on high alert. Experts say racism can create debilitating effects on mental health.

“Asians were not only fighting the pandemic but we were fighting racism,” said Dr. Carolee Tran, clinical psychologist and instructor at UC Davis. “It’s tragic and unacceptable that it took the events of Atlanta to really get the attention of the general public,” Tran said. “When we have these incidents, we watch them on TV, we watch on the news, we feel all these things in our body.”

A 2011 analysis of studies into racism and mental health among Asian Americans revealed significant relationships between discrimination and depression and anxiety.

“Awareness of racism and living in a scary, atmosphere causes one to be hypervigilant. It affects our prefrontal cortex, the amygdala,” Tran said. “These are the areas of the brain that impact affect and emotions. It can affect people’s concentration, attention, a sense of motivation even. You can feel more fatigue.”

Trauma, advocates say, that is collectively felt now by many Asian Americans.

Read more at KCRA.com.

A recovery home that opened in Bangor on Monday will help Indigenous men with substance use disorder as they seek to rehabilitate and transition. Male members of Maine’s Wabanaki tribes will be able to live at the Opportunity House at 123 Essex St. beginning around mid-May, pending the issuance of an occupancy permit from the city of Bangor, Wabanaki Healing and Recovery Interim Director Lisa Sockasbasin said. Seven people will be able to stay in the fully furnished building at one time.

The project has been years in the making, led by Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness with input from American Indigenous organizations and tribes across the state. The home will serve members of the five federally recognized tribes in Maine: the Penobscot Nation, Houlton Band of Maliseets, the Passamaquoddy tribes at Indian Township and Pleasant Point, and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

Native Americans suffer from one of the highest rates of substance use disorder, including alcoholism and addiction to other illicit drugs, of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. A survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that about 10 percent of Native American adults had a substance use disorder compared to about 8 percent for all American adults.

Maulian Dana, tribal ambassador for the Penobscot Nation, tied those historic issues with the oppression Native groups have long faced in the United States, ranging from being forced off their land by European settlers to the cultural destruction caused by forced attendance in boarding schools that discouraged Native customs.

“The intergenerational trauma, the historic oppression of our people, can be overwhelming,” Dana said. “And it really leads to those unhealthy behaviors and cycles of dysfunction.”

Read more at BangorDailyNews.com.