April 2017 MUST THE CHILDREN SUFFER? /AN EDITORIAL - NDSM/ HOPE FOR MANY On Friday, March 24th The Dallas Morning News ran, as part of the “Bridging Dallas’ North-South Gap” initiative, an editorial about the lack of mental health services for children in South Dallas. My immediate, defensive reaction was “why is this concern targeted only to South Dallas. What about the children NDSM serves, the children in North Dallas.” I remember the research done by NDSM in 1999 when we were determining whether we could and should open a medical clinic. Polling DISD persons, we learned that the two greatest health needs for the children in our area were dental care and mental health counseling. The following is an excerpted/modified version of the article – I have taken the liberty of deleting references to South Dallas or changing to refer to all of Dallas. I believe we can all be grateful that NDSM is wisely using its resources to collaborate with the Pastoral Counseling Center to make mental health services available to many of our clients and patients – both adults and children. The acute shortage of mental health services in Dallas shows up most profoundly in the lives – and the behavior – of the city’s schoolchildren. With many also struggling with the toxic stressors associated with poverty, these youngest and most vulnerable Dallas residents have too few places to turn for help. Just as the Dallas County Jail has become the de facto treatment facility for adults suffering from mental health problems, Dallas ISD serves as the only option for too many suffering children. And despite the district worthy response – student needs far outpace resources. So many students with mental health issues are also living in households struggling with lack of employment, income and education. The difficulty in getting mental health help can play out in all kinds of brain - altering trauma – from lack of parental involvement to lack of food, from domestic violence and sexual abuse to drug use by adults and teenage siblings. As if the intergenerational poverty that pervades so much of Dallas isn’t sufficiently damaging to a child’s mental health, neighborhood violence can dissolve any sense of safety. It should be no surprise that among the leading mental-health challenges DISD sees are anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Lynnie Smith, director of the DISD

youth and family centers says that mental health issues are among the most critical outside – the- classroom obstacles facing students. Consider that 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience some form of mental illness and that one half of those ailments begin by age 14. Major illnesses such as bipolar disorder rarely appear out of the blue; their first symptoms – as well as those of less serious mental conditions – are most often misdiagnosed in children as discipline problems. Because disruptive behavior may well be early warning of a mental health problem, it warrants not a trip to the principal’s office but a visit to a mental health professional. Sometimes it’s not that the child is mentally unwell, but rather that the child is living amid the confusion and chaos of a household where a family member is suffering. The best hope for these young people is a speedy referral to a quality resource located nearby. For NDSM clients and patients NDSM may be their best hope. Yet, it is probable that many of you still need an introduction to the PCC staff members serving at NDSM and a better understanding of our program and what your role can be. NDSM is paying the Pastoral Counseling Center for services of three persons for the collective 64 hours that they are at NDSM weekly. All are fully bilingual and have Master’s degrees. Two are licensed by the State of Texas as Clinicians and are thus certified to provide mental health assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions. The third person Jacqueline (Jackie) Boone, a recent Master’s of Social Work graduate awaiting certification as a Clinician, functions as a Mental Health Advocate responsible for screening, scheduling, client reminders and follow-up, case management, referrals, and administrative tasks. Jackie is most often found in the big counseling room in front of a computer. She is the initial contact and the person you should consult if you have a client or patient you wish to refer. She is also lovely, gentle, caring and bright. Viviana Triana is certified to provide Clinical Supervision and thus, as the lead clinician, provides support to the mental health team .She is trained in the treatments of choice for trauma (EMDR- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing* and TF-CBT Trauma Focus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Viviana is charged with overall responsibility, administration, and communication with other NDSM staff. She is currently supervising Erin, a Texas A&M MSW graduate student intern serving almost full-time at NDSM through December (Erin in also gaining direct client experience by serving as an EAC interviewer on Tuesdays). *NDSM’ Mental Health Counseling Program provides cutting edge treatment through the use of EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy. EMDR therapy is an empirically validated treatment for trauma. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience in a short period of time psychotherapy benefits that once took years to achieve. Research has indicated that EMDR therapy can effectively treat many problems that can affect psychological and physical health (trauma, depression, anxiety, complicated grief, pain disorders, and stress, sexual of physical abuse).

Viviana is also lovely, gentle, caring, and bright. She is an excellent and organized communicator, and I am extremely grateful for the rapport she and I share. Viviana is also very pregnant and will be out on maternity leave from April 26 until July 18 when she will work part time until August 29 when she returns to full time. Tabitha Corbin will serve in her absence. Please see staff schedule posted throughout NDSM. The second Clinician Jessica Esparza is a Licensed Marriage and Family Associate and is currently engaged in EMDR therapy training. Jessica is the third team member who is lovely, caring, gentle and caring. The majority of both Clinicians’ time is dedicated to one-on-one counseling sessions. Please make it a point to introduce yourselves to these three and to ask any questions, the answers to which you believe will make you better able to help our clients and patients. NEW VOLUNTEERS – NEW OPPORTUNITIES – HOW YOU CAN HELP As you are all aware, volunteer Ruth Ann Janson became in January NDSM’s first Director of Volunteers, and since then there have been not only new ideas but implementation of ideas. Critical on her list is updating volunteer information – it is particularly important that we have emergency contact information. Sherrie and I have spent a lot of fun, happy hours reviewing both our current Charity Master and Constant Contact lists of volunteers. Charity Master is the list we use, among other things, as our mailing list for our Appeal Letter, our Annual Report, etc. That program is populated with name, address, phone number, email, role(s) at NDSM, etc. We want/need every volunteer to be included in Charity Master. Constant Contact is the means by which we communicate with you more informally and frequently; the Volunteer Update is sent to your email via Constant Contact as is Ruth Ann’s shorter, to the point, more visually appealing and fun newsletter. It is the means to reach you in a timely fashion. To communicate with you by Constant Contact, we need your email. We have information for one or both programs for fewer than 400 volunteers. Please see Sherrie to check your status or add your information. This is very important. Very soon you will receive via Constant Contact an email from Ruth Ann with a brief, easy survey questionnaire to update your personal information. Please, please complete and submit. If you do not receive, contact Ruth Ann at Volunteer.Director@ndsm.org. I cannot overstress how important it is and how much we want to have as complete a list as possible of all who make NDSM possible. A second very recently created position is that of Director of Outreach. Jim Campbell a member of Lovers Lane UMC and a former pantry volunteer came to me about his desire to work with our Covenant Congregations to raise awareness of and participation in NDSM and work with them individually to enhance their mission focus as may be appropriate. Jim has already met

with about five congregations. On some occasions I have and will join him as will Ruth Ann. Please communicate with him at Outreach.Director@ndsm.org with any input you have regarding your Covenant Congregation or a congregation that might become a covenant congregation. We have become increasingly aware that our model for new volunteers may need some refinement. Flexibility is now more needed and wanted. Younger volunteers may wish to come in for a few hours in the middle of the day, for example. And we will happily embrace this. Think about this. VIEW POINT ON THE WORKING POOR AND DALLAS’ RESPONSE A March 31Dallas Morning News interview with Attorney Regina Montoya, who chairs the mayor's Task Force on Poverty also, has relevance for NDSM. Ms. Montoya said that the city of Dallas needs to rely less on its nonprofits to solve poverty and take the initiative to develop a comprehensive strategy that puts raising the median income of the working poor at the center of all city decisions. Among her key points were the following:

The foreign-born population is Dallas is 25 percent; 44 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home; a very large percentage of these are working poor.

About half of Dallas has a high school degree or less, a quarter has less than high school degree.

The Federal Reserve has pointed out that a faster way to improve the economic opportunities for those who are living in poverty is to speak English and to speak English better, even more so than having an education.

Another issue is transportation. What we have done in the city is cede a lot of that to DART. So when DART officials go about their regional mission, Dallas isn't their only focus.

We don't have advocates in the nonprofits saying, "We don't have bus service that is getting people to and from." Dallas County Community Colleges wonders why so many people in the Pleasant Grove area are going to El Centro when there is a beautiful facility there. Well, it is because it is easier for them to get to El Centro due to the way the bus service is set up. The city of Dallas should be saying "Maybe there is an issue here." The city could put a lot of pressure on DART to say that this is not providing service to Dallas.

Dallas’ demographics have changed.

Some people in Dallas still don't think there is a real crisis of the working poor. They don't realize that people who are mowing their lawns and serving them at the fast food restaurants or are taking care of their parents or their children are members of the working poor.