Archive for » July 20th, 2012«

20 Jul 2012

Mental Health America Joins Americans in Mourning Loss of Life in Aurora …


ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 20, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
Statement of David Shern, Ph.D., President and CEO of Mental Health America: Mental Health America joins Americans in mourning the loss of those killed in the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and everyone who is affected by this horrific event and express our hope for the full recovery of those who were injured.

At this point, we do not know the motivation behind this senseless act.

We do know that events like this will impact families, the Denver community and the nation. Many may feel at risk and may experience feelings of anxiety and fear. Parents may be groping with how to discuss these and similar events with their children.

Mental Health America has developed guidelines to help Americans respond and cope with tragic events, which can be found at
www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/information/get-info/coping-with-disaster .

To guide discussions about the shooting, Mental Health America offers the following suggestions for parents as they communicate with young people in the area and across the nation:

Children sense the anxiety and tension in adults around them. And, like adults, children experience the same feelings of helplessness and lack of control that tragedy-related stress can bring about. Unlike adults, however, children have little experience to help them place their current situation into perspective.

Each child responds differently to tragedy, depending on his or her understanding and maturity, but it’s easy to see how an event like this can create a great deal of anxiety in children of all ages because they will interpret the tragedy as a personal danger to themselves and those they care about.

Whatever the child’s age or relationship to the damage caused by tragedy, it’s important that you be open about the consequences for your family, and that you encourage him or her to talk about it.

Mental Health America has prepared a fact sheet to help children cope with tragedy, which can be viewed at
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/information/get-info/coping-with-disaster/helping-children-handle-disaster-related-anxiety .

If you are worried about a young person’s reaction or have ongoing concerns about his/her behavior or emotions, contact a mental health professional at their school or at your community mental health center. Your local Mental Health America Affiliate can direct you to resources in your community.

Mental Health America (
www.mentalhealthamerica.net ) is the nation’s largest and oldest community-based network dedicated to helping all Americans achieve wellness by living mentally healthier lives. With our more than 300 affiliates across the country, we touch the lives of millions–Advocating for changes in mental health and wellness policy; Educating the public providing critical information; and delivering urgently needed mental health and wellness Programs and Services.

SOURCE Mental Health America

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved


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20 Jul 2012

Donations will send Ohio cancer patient to Disney

By By JOHN SEEWER
–
41 minutes ago 

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A 4-year-old cancer patient who was denied a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World by her father will get to go after all.

So many donations have poured in from around the world that the girl’s mother and grandmother will be able to pay for the trip in August themselves and give the rest to charity.

“We didn’t do this to get rich,” the girl’s grandmother, Lori Helppie, said Friday. “We did it to fulfill her dream, and people’s hearts just opened up.”

The young girl, McKenna May of Haskins, was set to go to Disney this summer, but her father refused to sign off on the trip because he said she was in remission and the Make-A-Wish trips should go to children who are sicker than his daughter.

The family said Make-A-Wish requires signatures from both parents if either have visitation rights or is listed on the birth certificate. McKenna’s parents never married or lived together, but her father recently received visitation rights.

Online donations topped $12,000 on Friday and more money was being collected at banks in northwest Ohio.

McKenna’s mother and grandmother said they decided to collect donations at local businesses to pay for the trip after the father wouldn’t go along with the plan. Once their story spread, money and other offers began overwhelming them. “I’ve been offered cars, vacation homes,” Helppie said.

They planned to shut down the online donations on Friday. They’re giving what they don’t need for the trip to Jamie’s Dream Team, a nonprofit group in White Oak, Pa., that is helping them get to Disney. The organization says on its website that it helps people who are disabled, terminally ill or suffering a serious medical condition.

The family twice postponed trips to Disney while McKenna was undergoing treatment for leukemia. Her last treatment was about a month ago.

She was diagnosed in April 2010, just before she turned two. Chemotherapy treatments affected her speech and immune system, and doctors told the family that it would be better to wait to go to Disney until McKenna was done with treatment, Helppie said.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


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20 Jul 2012

Ronald McDonald House Charities of NNY awards $21000 in grants

Before the fate of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northern New York is decided, it squeezed in another round of grant awards to local charities dealing with children.

Bonnie J. Corbin, McDonald’s marketing director, said that because franchise owner James L. O’Donnell decided to sell 10 McDonald’s restaurants throughout Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties, there will be a temporary hold on accepting grant applications. “We’re hoping it continues,” she said Thursday.

Earlier this week, seven local charities were awarded a total of $21,152.31 for children’s programs and activities. Because of the local transition, Mrs. Corbin said, there was no press conference announcing the awards; rather, agencies received a letter and a check in the mail.

The following organizations received grant awards:

■ $8,000 to the Northern New York FFA Leadership Training Foundation, Croghan, to replace the evaporator for a maple education program.

■ $5,000 to the Northern New York Rural Health Care Alliance, Watertown, to support a backpack program at Starbuck Elementary School that provides food for children throughout weekends.

■ $3,607 to Richville Free Library to purchase two pieces of equipment for the community playground.

■ $1,939 to New Day Children’s Center, Watertown, to purchase flooring and storage shelves for its large motor room.

■ $1,054.80 to Dexter Free Library to make Web-hosted electronic books available to its patrons.

■ $1,000 to Mountainview Prevention Services, Lowville, to sponsor a summer theater/musical production for high school students.

■ $551.51 to the Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, to host a children’s tea party.

“It’s always nice when we can help a wide variety, but it depends on the grants coming in,” Mrs. Corbin said. “We always like the down-home flavor request, like the backpack program. That’s nice because it’s thinking about children’s needs throughout the weekend.”

She said the agency received 10 applications for this summer. Ronald McDonald House Charities of NNY typically awards grants twice a year — in January and in July or August.

About $800,000 has been granted in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties since the local group’s inception in May 1997.

For more information, call Mrs. Corbin at 782-8102.


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20 Jul 2012

Mental health sufferers 'treated like Salem witches' says peer

“And it transmuted over the next few weeks into me going completely crackers
really and seeing things. And it was my first experience of what is very
loosely described as clinical depression.”


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20 Jul 2012

Anxiety disorders in poor moms likely to result from poverty, not mental illness


Judith C. Baer, an associate professor in the School of Social Work, and her team, in the study, “Is it Disorder or ? An Examination of Poor Mothers and Their Children,” published online in Child and Adolescent Social Work, argue that although high levels of stress over long periods can lead to psychological problems, there is no evidence that generalized anxiety disorder in poor mothers is because of an “internal malfunction.”

The findings confirm earlier studies that the poorest mothers have the greater odds of being classified as having . But Baer and her team wrote, “…there is no evidence for a malfunction of some internal mechanism. Rather, “there is a physical need in the real world that is unmet and produces anxiety.”

“The distinction is important because there are different ways to treat the problem,” Baer said. “While supportive therapy and parent skills-training are often helpful, sometimes the most appropriate intervention is financial aid and concrete services.”

Rutgers researchers argue that changing and broadening definitions for GAD have caused, in some cases, mental health experts to categorize the reactions of these mothers to the extreme conditions they face daily as symptoms of the anxiety disorder.

Baer’s team has been exploring relationships between poor mothers and their children and whether links between poverty and maternal anxiety might play a part in their offspring developing anxiety of their own.

The latest research by Baer and colleagues MiSung Kim, who completed her doctorate in May, and Bonnie Wilkenfeld, a doctoral candidate, analyzed data from the ongoing Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with 4,898 participants conducted at Princeton University, consisting of surveys and home observations when children were 3-years-old. It confirmed that the poorest mothers had greater odds of being classified as having GAD but that the path from anxiety to parenting stress was not supported.

“This suggests that mothers can be poor and anxious, but still provide positive parenting for their children,” Baer said.

Currently, psychiatric diagnoses are based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which uses symptom-based criteria to determine disorders. Recent versions do not consider context, such as poverty conditions, in determining diagnoses, Baer said.

“Our findings suggest that anxiety in poor mothers is usually not a psychiatric problem but a reaction to severe environmental deficits,” she continued. “Thus, assessment should include careful attention to contextual factors and environmental deficits as playing a role in the presentation of symptoms. Labeling an individual with a diagnosis, especially if it is inaccurate, has a serious social stigma.”

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20 Jul 2012

Daughter’s denied Disney trip back on thanks to donations


HOSKINS, Ohio –

A 4-year-old girl who went through two years of cancer treatments wasn’t being allowed to go on a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World because her father said she’s in remission and the trips should go to children who are sicker than his daughter.

But donations that poured in from around the world have allowed the trip to go on.

The young girl, McKenna May of Haskins, had the trip postponed twice while was undergoing treatment for leukemia and finally was set to go in August when the father refused to sign off on the trip, the girl’s mother and grandmother said Thursday.

The family said Make-A-Wish requires signatures from both parents if either have visitation rights or is listed on the birth certificate. McKenna’s parents never married or lived together. Her grandmother said the father only recently received visitation privileges.

McKenna’s mother and grandmother were collecting donations at local businesses to pay for the trip to Disney on their own.

“We’ve told her we’re still going to Disney, just not when she thought it was happening,” said her grandmother, Lori Helppie. “We don’t want her judge her father.”

Money poured in as their story spread beyond northwest Ohio, and the family told the Toledo Blade late Thursday that they had raised $8,500, more than double the $3,500 needed, and had stopped seeking donations.

Helppie also received a call from a nonprofit organization near Pittsburgh that was willing to bankroll the entire trip, the newspaper said.

Her father, William May of Toledo, said donations made to the organization should help those who are terminally ill.

“Spend the money on a child who this might be their last memory,” May said Thursday. “Kids who are only going to live a year or six months.”

The girl’s grandmother said that McKenna has had a rough two years and won’t be judged to be free of cancer until five years after her last treatment, which was last month.

McKenna was diagnosed with leukemia in April 2010, just before she turned two. Chemotherapy treatments affected her speech and immune system, and she had three extended stays in the hospital. She also broke her leg in a fall. Doctors told the family that it would better to wait to go to Disney until McKenna was done with treatment, Helppie said.

“She’s been through quite a bit,” Helppie said. “We have had quite the journey getting her back to being like every other 4-year-old.”

McKenna’s mother, Whitney Hughes, said she’s overwhelmed that so many people have reached out to help.  The trip is something McKenna has talked about for months, her mom said.

“She wants to go see Mickey and the princesses,” Hughes said.

Hughes told the paper she plans to donate some surplus funds to a Toledo Hospital charity and possibly set aside money for McKenna’s college education.


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20 Jul 2012

Why Lord Hodgson has got it wrong on charity collections

Current rules governing house-to-house clothing collections are far from perfect, and Lord Hodgson has made some sensible recommendations this week to try and improve them. But there is one proposal in his review of the Charities Act that risks huge damage to charities and should be dropped. That is the abolition of National Exemption Orders (NEOs).

Some of the country’s best-loved charities hold NEOs, including: the British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation, Oxfam and Cancer Research UK. Having an NEO means that a charity does not need to apply for a local authority licence every time it wants to undertake a house-to-house clothing collection for stock to sell in its shops. NEOs were introduced to recognise that some charities undertook larger scale collections, and that applying for so many licences would be extremely burdensome.

There are many charities conducting house-to-house collections that do not benefit from the advantages of holding an NEO. The Charity Retail Association represents 80% of charity shops in the UK, and our members are large and small. It is certainly true that smaller charities and those without NEOs often find the system inordinately bureaucratic, and very costly to administer. Local authorities apply rules differently in different areas – licensing periods start at various times of the year with varying lengths, and the paperwork is often confusing. In addition, charities applying for licences also have other hoops to jump through such as applying for collection badges from Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Some of our smaller members report spending three hours a week on licensing applications, and up to two hours a day at peak application times.

It’s quite right that this should be an area of concern for the review. But surely the logical response to the problems is to simplify the process for charities without NEOs, rather than increase the burden on those who are lucky enough to have them?

As part of its submission the Charity Retail Association put forward recommendations to reduce the regulatory burden for charities without NEOs. For example, a 12-month licensing period as standard, automatic renewal for collectors who have not received any complaints, and the abolition of collection badges. Regrettably, these practical suggestions – which could be implemented quickly and have an instant impact on smaller charities — don’t appear to have made it into the final report.

Unfairness with regard to smaller charities is the primary reason for abolishing NEOs given by Lord Hodgson, but not the only one. The review also raises concerns about how NEOs make it harder for local authorities to co-ordinate collections locally and that commercial organisations take advantage of NEOs.

These are both legitimate concerns, but let’s not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The number one problem for charity shops at present is getting hold of sufficient stock to sell, and the ability to conduct clothing collections easily is vitally important in generating income, especially at a time when grants and other funding are being cut. The British Heart Foundation has said that every 1% reduction in collections will cost them £400,000. Lord Hodgson even qualifies his recommendation with the caveat that the government will need to “minimise the regulatory burden for existing exemption holders”.

Lord Hodgson’s Review does, however, have several strengths. The fact that a private company collecting clothing for profit isn’t subject to any kind of regulation at all is completely absurd, and the report is quite right to recommend that the government should address this. He is also right to understand that tackling bogus collectors is about better enforcement rather than extra statutory regulation.

But the abolition of NEOs is a mistake. NEO holders are conducting thousands of collections every year – the administrative implications of applying for licences on such a scale are simply enormous. The truth of the matter is that this policy will have a direct impact on income as charities are forced to plough more money into the administration of licence applications. The government should not accept the introduction of extra cost and red tape into the regulatory system for NEO holders, and I hope it will reject this recommendation.

Warren Alexander is the chief executive of the Charity Retail Association

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20 Jul 2012

Task force's mental health review begins

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WOODSTOCK – A task force could spend up to a year looking for ways to help strengthen the safety net for people with mental health problems.

Or at least to come up with ways to prevent more social service agencies from collapsing, as Family Service and Community Mental Health Center did in June.

The Community Behavioral Health Safety Net Task Force met for the first time Thursday. Made up of members of the County Board, Mental Health Board, law enforcement, health care and community groups, it plans to investigate the impact of Family Service’s closure, the condition of the safety net, and make recommendations next year to improve it.

Mental Health Board Vice President Lee Ellis stated that the task force’s role is strictly advisory to assuage concerns voiced by providers about its intended reach.

“We need to start working together collaboratively to see how to strengthen these agencies together, and make sure the people are still served,” Ellis said.

Family Service closed June 30 because of financial issues. The 50-year-old agency said it had served about 6,000 clients a year with mental health issues. It had hoped to stay open through merging with North Central Behavioral Health Systems, but the deal fell through in May.

Contributing to Family Service’s closure was the fact that the state owed it more than $850,000 in back payments. Chronically late state payments are an issue with many not-for-profit service providers, and part of the task force’s mission will be to gauge their preparedness for tough financial times, County Administrator Peter Austin said.

“Are providers ready for this difficult road that’s coming ahead?” Austin said.

About half of the agencies responding to the mental health board said they are projecting having less than 30 days cash reserve at the end of the county fiscal year Nov. 30, board Executive Director Sandy Lewis said.

The task force likely will try to quantify the impact of the loss of Family Service, and the health of the safety net, by tracking over the next year statistics such as suicides, calls to the crisis line, inmates with mental health or substance abuse issues, and the number of homeless people in temporary housing programs.

Officials with the McHenry County Crisis Program have said that call volume has significantly increased since Family Service’s closing, but that it is too early to tell whether the two are related.

State shortfalls are nothing new, nor are efforts to address them, Sue Krause told the task force. Krause, executive director for Pioneer Center for Human Services, said social service agencies banded together in 2009 to form Human Service Advocates of McHenry County in order to keep pressure on lawmakers to support mental health funding and fight cuts.

Krause encouraged the task force to be considerate and not add to the administrative burden that agencies already are shouldering.

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20 Jul 2012

WA siege man’s mental health assessed

A man who triggered a lockdown of part of Perth’s Kings Park will undergo a mental health assessment.

David Charles Batty, 50, is alleged to have threatened police with a gas bottle and lighter for more than four hours in the standoff at Kings Park on Thursday.

In Perth Magistrates Court on Friday, Batty was charged with several offences including aggravated assault with intent to commit a crime, attempting to cause an explosion with intent to destroy or damage property, and deprivation of liberty.

The drama began about 1pm on Thursday when police became aware that Batty, who was parked in a carpark in a Hyundai hatchback, was in an agitated state, holding a barbecue gas bottle and a cigarette lighter.

His 79-year-old father, Frank, had been a hostage in the car, with his wrists bound by tape, but escaped from the vehicle before police arrived.

After four-and-a-half hours of attempting to negotiate with Batty while part of the park was cordoned off to the public, Tactical Response Group vehicles rammed his car into a garden bed when he started driving away.

Non-lethal bean bag rounds were fired at his vehicle during the short pursuit.

He was taken into custody and treated for minor injuries to his face before being questioned.

Batty wore a yellow T-shirt to court on Friday and tried to cover with his hands what appeared to be a bruise on his lower left cheek and chin.

The duty officer representing Batty told Magistrate Stephen Malley that he had made an application for legal aid.

A hospital order was made to assess Batty’s mental health at the Franklin Centre before further court proceedings.

Batty will remain in custody until his next court appearance on July 27.

AAP


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20 Jul 2012

Donations to reopen East Utica’s Buckley Pool

After a brief closure and uncertainty about repairs, Buckley Pool in East Utica will reopen.

The pool temporarily closed Tuesday due to a broken pump.

City officials were unsure as to whether or not they could afford to have the pump fixed and discussed closing the pool for the duration of the summer.

But thanks to private citizens and the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, the pool will reopen as early as Wednesday, said Mayor Robert Palmieri at a news conference Thursday.

“We went from a negative yesterday to a very positive today,” Palmieri said.

The Foundation and private citizens pledged to raise $15,000 for the repairs.

Electricians from local union IBEW 43 will donate time to help fix the pump and electrical issues.

City officials are working with local bus companies to see if routes can be altered so those who normally swim at Buckley Pool can get to other pools in the meantime, said City Youth Bureau Director Sean Brown.

“It’s beautiful, Utica coming together as usual,” Brown said.

The Addison Miller pool in West Utica and Seymour pool in North Utica pools remain open, as do sprayers at Wankel, Quinn and Pixley parks, he said.

Anthony Graham, 14, of Utica, said he’s glad to hear the pool will reopen. He uses Buckley Pool several times a week to cool off after playing basketball with friends at Thomas R. Proctor Park.

“It’s good,” he said.


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