MENDED #9 | Rise in Rural Suicide
The Alliance of Mental Health Providers of Oklahoma represents the largest network of mental health providers in the state. We 📣 advocate for better mental health and substance abuse treatment.
🕵️ New Study Looks To Understand Opioid Addiction Recovery
EXCERPT: “A 2016 study found Oklahoma ranked in the top 10 for the highest rates of prescribing opioids and it's estimated that 43% of drug overdose deaths in the state involve opioids. The Laureate Institute for Brain Research is working on a 5-year study to better understand opioid addiction recovery. Dr. Martin Paulus is one of the investigators on the study and he joined News On 6 to explain how the recovery process works.”
💔 Hundreds More Unmarked Graves Found at Former Residential School in Canada
EXCERPT: “Now, a new discovery offers chilling evidence that many of the missing children may have died at these schools: The remains of as many as 751 people, mainly Indigenous children, were found at the site of a former school in the province of Saskatchewan, an Indigenous group said on Thursday.”
FYI: According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, between 1869 and 1978 hundreds of thousands of Native children were removed from their families and sent to residential boarding schools in 30 states. Most of those schools, 83, were in Oklahoma, followed by 51 in Arizona; 33 in Alaska and 26 in New Mexico. By 1926, nearly 83 percent of Indian school-age children were attending boarding schools, according to the organization. (Source)
👮 Grand Lake Mental Health Recognizes Officer-of-the-Year
EXCERPT: “He has often strengthened his department’s ability to support people with mental illness who have come to the attention of law enforcement,” Grand Lake Mental Health said of Harper.”
ℹ️ Mad in America
This is quite an interesting website.
🎒 The Bandana Project to Prevent Suicide
Learn about one Oklahoma swimmer’s work to heighten awareness of mental health issues and prevent suicide.
🦋 Climate change anxiety: How to stop spiraling and make a difference
EXCERPT: “We walked by each day, anticipating empty cocoons. But the days turned to weeks and the butterflies remained locked inside their husks. They would never emerge…The monarchs hanging delicately before us never had a shot.”
💉 Oklahoma Legalizes Clean Needle Exchange Program
EXCERPT: “Bush has spent the past two years working to pass legislation that allows needle exchange programs in Oklahoma. Her bills didn’t create state-sponsored programs, but instead built a legal framework for them, so that community partners such as treatment centers or churches can create them.”
🍀 Oklahoma 4-H Addressing Youth Mental Health
“Today’s youth have been facing unprecedented challenges for more than a year, including online learning, social isolation and just the stress of uncertainty,” said Morse, who is housed in the Oklahoma County OSU Extension office. “This is on top of issues they often were encountering on a daily basis before the pandemic, such as diversity, equity and inclusion. My role as a mental health specialist is to build a youth mental health education program that can be utilized by youth, Extension educators, parents and members of the community.” —Rachel Morse, Oklahoma State University Extension’s new youth mental health specialist, Oklahoma 4-H
🍀 Mental Health Trends Among 4-H Workshop Offerings
Parents and volunteers with the Oklahoma 4-H Youth Development program recently attended the 2021 Parent-Volunteer Conference. Among the workshops from which they could choose was mental health trends, another sign of the growing awareness of heightened interest and concern in youth mental health following the global pandemic.
🌾 Rise in Suicide in Rural Oklahoma
EXCERPT: “Shortly after Izaiah Fiedler died by suicide in Tahlequah, a mental health clinic that his mother had hoped would work her son into its schedule called to offer an appointment.”
Oklahoma Police Chief Charged for Allegedly Stealing Drugs, Weapons From Evidence Room
EXCERPT: “He also admitted to stealing methamphetamine from the department's evidence room, according to an arrest affidavit, and that he told investigators he used the drugs he stole.”
Should Your Company Provide Mental Health Apps to Employees?
EXCERPT: “Thanks to the pandemic, there is heightened interest in new effective options for preventing and treating anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric illnesses.”
🏫 School Counselor Corps Will Place Hundreds of Mental Health Workers Around Oklahoma
EXCERPT: Hundreds of school counselors and mental health professionals will be hired by schools across Oklahoma for the next few years thanks to $35.7 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan. The counselor corps will be made up of 222 counselors and almost 100 other student well-being workers in 181 Oklahoma school districts.
💊 How to help Oklahoma teens struggling with addiction, tips for prevention
EXCERPT: “Six percent of Oklahoma teens have addiction issues. That number doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that's about 20,000 kids, and also much higher than the nationwide average of around 4%.”
🎖️ Veterans + homelessness — Oklahoma nonprofits address root of the problem
EXCERPT: “The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded millions of dollars in grants to nonprofits across the country last month. Three of them are in Oklahoma: Community Service Council, Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma, and KI BOIS Community Action Foundation.”
🏳️🌈 Norman City Council Bans Conversion Therapy
EXCERPT: “The City of Norman is taking a big step by banning conversion therapy, which is the controversial practice of trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation. Now the question is, how will they enforce that ban?”
✨ Bringing A Positive Lens To Workplace Mental Health
Now more than ever, employees are craving connection.