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May 1, 2023
In this issue ...
It’s been a rainy and cold spring so far, but we are seeing the reluctant buds beginning to bloom, and soon the season will be in full swing. Spring is a time of renewal after the long, dark months of winter, which makes May a fitting time for Mental Health Awareness Month. The second week of May, the 7-13, is Children’s Mental Health Acceptance Week. This week aims to spotlight children’s issues with the knowledge that awareness is a start, but it is not enough. Acceptance is advocating and acting to change attitudes, behaviors and systems. Where there is acceptance, there are openings for change in how children’s mental health is viewed.
In December 2021, the United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued an advisory on the urgency of addressing our nation’s youth mental health crisis. It’s been 18 months and this crisis continues. This month we need to take the time to renew our efforts and continue to approach this emergency with the attention, awareness and responsiveness that it deserves.
In our Child and Family Behavioral Health Unit (CFBH) we were able to meet in person at the end of March. We dug deep to further our work in addressing the important issues that face children and families, and how we can continue to meet them in community. More details are in the article below. We are pleased that we have successes with 988 and Mobile Response and Stabilization Services, and there is more work to be done. We remain committed to seeing real change in Oregon to end this crisis.
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The CFBH Unit had the pleasure of meeting in person and spent the morning identifying and discussing ways that the behavioral health profession has contributed to the birth to prison pipeline. In the afternoon this was followed by discussions, concrete ideas and strategies for interrupting those harms in our specific areas of work.
The birth to prison pipeline refers to the interconnected systems that disproportionately divert children and youth of color onto a path toward incarceration. The term, sometimes also called the Cradle to Prison Pipeline, was first coined by Marion Wright Edelman in her work with the Children’s Defense Fund in 2009.
We will continue to meet throughout the year to learn more about the birth to prison pipeline and implement strategies to reduce its impact from a behavioral health perspective.
During the CFBH recent retreat we had the opportunity to meet with Oregon Health Authority’s new Behavioral Health Director, Ebony Clarke. We shared updates about program areas along with successes, hopes and dreams for the future of our work. We created this word cloud reflecting the language used in the updates:
We are excited to continue working with Ebony as we move toward the goal of achieving health equity by 2030.
May’s Mental Health Awareness Month provides an opportunity to highlight mental health promotion and prevention activities and programs happening year-round across Oregon. These programs are funded at just over $2 million annually and represent 23 local public health, behavioral health, and mental health agencies, culturally specific community-based organizations and coordinated care organizations. The activities, programs and projects build awareness, normalize help-seeking behaviors, and lift up communities.
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Lifeways, Inc.'s outgoing Prevention Coordinator Judi Trask and incoming Prevention Supervisor Paula Olvera shared the needs of their communities in rural Malheur County. As they shared about the Spring Sign Rallies, their passion was immediately evident. Their priorities are clear: hope, healing, staying alive, and staying in recovery. They offer workshops, training, and classes to other various community connections. Serve Day is an annual event that takes place the last Saturday of April each year. This year it was April 29; where local volunteers complete projects around town, both for community property such as the park, and for residents who may be unable to paint their own house. Lifeways always has volunteers for these projects. Malheur County Prevention's role was to supply yard signs with positive messages, such as "You Matter," and "You Are Worthy of Love," to be placed at each project site.
Judi and Paula spoke about the early days of COVID-19 and how the lockdown isolated their community. “We had to do something, people were feeling depressed and there was a lack of human contact. We needed to do something with the restrictions.”
Paula remembered learning about a sign project from someone in Newberg who started putting up hopeful messages around her town. This would soon become known as the Don’t Give Up Project, which quickly garnered state and national attention. They ordered signs from the person in Newberg and started to show up at the busiest intersections holding up the signs in both English and Spanish.
The Don’t Give Up sign rallies brought about dozens of stories of connection to individuals and the community. People parked nearby and began picking up signs and, while socially distanced, stood alongside Judi and Paula. They also stopped to share their stories, and to say thank you! The impact was immediate, and signs can still be seen throughout Malheur County in neighborhoods, school campuses and local businesses.
In addition, Judi and Paula have a very busy schedule providing suicide prevention training in community spaces. They taught their first Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) class in 2020. They reflected, “We started out small with 12 people per class, keeping it small for social distancing, and now have trained 148 people.”
These examples are not inclusive of all the work Judi and Paula do as prevention coordinators. Malheur County Prevention sponsors the Malheur County Prevention Coalition which consists of representatives from 24 agencies including, but not limited to local public health, local behavioral and physical health, law enforcement, educators, and other community-based organizations. This allows for braiding of community partner and legislative funds supported by OHA, to promote activities prioritizing mental wellness and supports, programs, and training to prevent mental illness.
For more information, please contact Fran Pearson at fran.pearson@oha.oregon.gov.
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Join Oregon Family Support Network (OFSN) for Children's Mental Health Acceptance Day, Thursday, May 11 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The speeches and proclamation will be read between 9 and 10 a.m. at the Wilson Park Gazebo in the Oregon Capitol State Park. A legislative training and resource fair will be held at other Salem locations. Follow this link for more details and other event locations.
OFSN is an organization that focuses on families with children who experience mental or behavioral health challenges. Acceptance is found when people advocate and act to change attitudes, behaviors and systems.
Children's mental health matters, and OFSN is coming together with over 20 community partners to bring awareness and acceptance of children's mental health. Come recognize and celebrate the advocates of children's mental health and join them for this free event. The day includes guest speakers, children’s activities, raffle contest, legislative training session and lunch. Registration is required if you wish to receive a ticket for the free meal.
Register by following this link. OFSN is looking forward to seeing everyone!
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As part of OHA and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Grant, Oregon Firearm Safety Coalition (OFSC) has a survey request for Oregonians. Their goal is to prevent firearm suicide and unauthorized access to firearms. To help achieve this goal they are working to provide firearm owners with resources for secure firearm storage devices and offsite firearm storage.
They are putting together a list of community secure firearm storage device locations and firearm offsite storage locations across Oregon. This information will be uploaded onto a publicly available statewide map. Please help by letting them know about firearm offsite storage locations and firearm secure storage devices in your community by completing this short survey.
Please share the survey widely in your networks. If you have any questions, please contact Donna-Marie Drucker, OFSC Executive Director, at donnamarie.ofsc@gmail.com.
In 2014 OHA, Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the Oregon Pediatric Society collaborated to create Trauma Informed Oregon (TIO). TIO is a statewide collaborative aimed at preventing and lessening the impact of adverse experiences on children, adults, and families. TIO works with providers, individuals with lived experience, and families to promote and sustain trauma-informed policies and practices across physical, mental, and behavioral health systems and to disseminate promising strategies to support wellness and resilience.
TIO created a QR code that directs youth directly to their Youth Wellbeing Tools and Resources Page. This site offers solutions for youth who need help fast, including links, phone numbers, and chat options for a variety of crises that young people face. There is a mental health dictionary to help youth get started in understanding the complex world of medical terms for behavioral health, and there is a space for them to learn exercises in grounding techniques to help themselves and others in a crisis. Share widely and check out the other resources TIO offers.
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 As a part of sharing out the strategy work, we have developed a visual to describe the Roadmap and our journey toward a future where young people from all backgrounds are healthy, safe, learning and thriving at home and in their communities. It shows the three foundational pillars of health equity, youth and family voice and trauma-informed principles. These support the four strategic pathways that can be summarized as the continuum of care, youth and family engagement, data-driven decision making and cross-system collaboration. Full details are in our Roadmap. We will be working on our planned 2024 revisions in June.
Capacity monitoring for Intensive Treatment Services
Intensive Treatment Services capacity remains a critical concern to CFBH. Each week we receive data on capacity for acute care, sub-acute and psychiatric residential, as well as substance use disorder residential programs. OHA monitors these to understand patterns and to offer help in keeping programs operational. In May, the CFBH team will be discussing how to display the other data points collected, such as total referrals received, total weekly admissions, and total weekly discharges.
The graph below shows capacity over time. The top line represents the goal for the system established in 2020, of having 286 beds available for youth. The line below shows the highest possible capacity that could have been available, given full staffing and removal of all other barriers.
The bottom bar chart represents a monthly summary of reported weekly operational capacity, a combination of beds in use and open beds. In the last 12 months the largest impact on capacity has been the ongoing struggle to fill workforce vacancies and manage staffing levels.
Interdisciplinary Assessment Teams
As a result of meeting with community and system partners regarding Interdisciplinary Assessment Team (IAT), we have developed a program called Expedited Assessment Services for Youth (EASY). This new program will respond to most of the goals set out in Senate Bill 1 (2019), to provide rapid access to evaluation, assessment and stabilization services for youth — especially for those who are in child welfare custody and placed in temporary lodging — in emergency department boarding, in shelter care, in county juvenile facilities or in the custody of Oregon Youth Authority.
We are excited to announce that a demonstration project is about to launch in Multnomah County. EASY provides quick access to full psychological and assessment services within seven to 10 days of referral. It includes a full review of clinical documents, determination of need for testing, conducting of psychological testing, communication with current clinical providers and (where appropriate) coordination with local Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities intake screening departments. EASY can be mobile and meet the youth in the community, either in person or via telehealth as needed. In some situations, all that may be needed is a full psychological evaluation to help a youth and family get on the right path to the services they need.
If you are interested in this work, please contact John Linn at john.r.linn@oha.oregon.gov.
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Events, opportunities, trainings and resources may be found by following this link to the mid-monthly posting. Many of these trainings can also be found on our website. They will be sent out mid-month — Look for the next one in your inbox on May 15.
For feedback and suggestions for our newsletter and information: kids.team@oha.oregon.gov.
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