By Julianne Hill and Hermes Falcon Urban Health Media Project As recently as 1973, homosexuality was considered a “sexual deviancy” and gay people were classified as mentally ill by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The LGBTQ+ community and its allies have activists such as Barbara Gittings and DC’s own Dr. Frank Kameny to thank for...
Tag: trauma
Missouri high school students recommend ways to improve school safety, student mental health
By Brie Zeltner and Malaya Mason St. Louis, MO - More licensed therapists on campus. Requiring parent or guardian participation in all school safety discussions. Implementing “calm rooms” where students can go to center themselves. Making every school inclusive and welcoming of students of all genders, sexual identities, races and abilities. These are just some...
Missouri high school students call for more mental health services in schools to increase feelings of safety
St. Louis, Missouri -- Feeling safe in school was a problem in Missouri even before the pandemic added the unprecedented element of fear and anxiety of being exposed to a potentially deadly virus. As schools moved to remote learning, many of the daily concerns about physical safety in schools-- from bullying to school shooters-- decreased....
Youth fight for racial justice, and take their convictions to the polls
By Alan Gomez and Pamela Rentz With the world gripped by a global pandemic and protests over police brutality raging across the U.S., young adults and teenagers played a significant role in the activism work that defined 2020. Generation Z and Millenials were heavily involved in protests, marches, social media campaigns and the November elections....
Jacksonville youth face rising rates of trauma, mental health issues
By Angely Pena Agramonte Teens today are under a lot of stress: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that the proportion of young people visiting an emergency department due to a mental health crisis climbed by 31 percent during the six months between April and October of 2020. And that’s amidst a...
Surviving Trauma: COVID-19 Deaths Only One Trauma Young People of Color Face
BY SAMARAH BENTLEYURBAN HEALTH MEDIA PROJECTNEW ORLEANS -- In one week, a patient of New Orleans clinical psychologist Dr. Baraka Perez lost three family members to COVID-19: Her father, brother and a nephew. "I'm seeing more of that than I care to," said Perez, who for 20 years has been helping children, adolescents and their parents...
Surviving Trauma: She Walks In Her Truth: Washington Woman Works to Help Other LGBTQ+ People of Color
BY VANESSA FALCON URBAN HEALTH MEDIA PROJECT WASHINGTON, D.C. — Heidi Ellis, 36, was taught to love reading, to love her culture, and to love herself. Ellis, who identifies as lesbian and came out at the age of 19, knows she was lucky — lucky to be loved for who she is. Still, as a...
Surviving Trauma: Intergenerational Violence Affects Many in Black Community
BY AJMAANIE ANDRE URBAN HEALTH MEDIA PROJECT MIAMI – Charlene Bouie felt different from other children from an early age. It was decades, though, before she fully understood why: She’d been sexually abused, multiple times, by the time she was a young teenager. Then as an adult, she was physically and verbally abused by her...
Surviving Trauma: Separating Siblings in Foster Care Can Be Cruel
BY IJEOMA OKERE URBAN HEALTH MEDIA PROJECT WASHINGTON, D.C. — Growing up in the city’s foster care system, Lisa Cohen bounced between 13 different families over 19 years. Now 52 and a former boxing champion and motivational speaker in northwest Washington, D.C., Cohen never had a birthday party as a child, and has almost no...
Surviving Trauma: Domestic Abuse, Dulos Killing Motivate Mothers’ Political Activism
BY GILLIAN LAMPHERE and SAMANTHA ROSENGARD URBAN HEALTH MEDIA PROJECT GREENWICH, CONN. – It was only in looking back that the southern Connecticut mother of two saw all the red flags in her marriage: her husband criticized her looks, their childrens’ looks, how she cleaned the house, even her cooking. He’d stand over her, watching...