Bernards Voices

On Monday evening, June 15th, the Healthy Outcomes Partnership of the Somerset Hills will host a panel discussion and community forum: “Who Pulled the Rug Out?  A Community Conversation About Economic Uncertainty and How it Affects Us All”, at Bernards High School, from 7:00 – 9:00 pm.  I am writing to tell you about my involvement in this new group, and to urge you to attend the event and to invite others as well.

The Healthy Outcomes Partnership is a new coalition of human service organizations and individuals concerned with public and mental health, youth and family development, adolescent medicine, community education and a variety of related areas of expertise.  Spearheaded by the Somerset Hills YMCA, the group was formed to address common barriers to healthy relationships — among them, stress, anxiety and depression, substance abuse, serious mental illness, and the manifestations of all — and to help people access the resources they need to address these problems and live healthier, happier lives.   Our long-term goal is to create a referral and resource center to do just that.

But, in our earliest meetings, we recognized that, right now, our community is facing a crisis caused by current economic turmoil, which by all reports has raised stress and anxiety levels to all-time highs.  The event on June 15 will feature several panelists who will talk about the impact of economic uncertainty from the global/financial markets, community and family/individual perspectives, but our primary objective for the event is to create a true “community conversation” – opening the floor to people who have been affected by the recession, to hear about their experiences and how they are trying to cope.   Most important, members of the Healthy Outcomes Partnership and other organizations will offer resources, contact information and direct assistance.  We are excited to have as our moderator for the evening Michael Aron, talk show host and senior political correspondent for NJN.

I hope you will consider coming to this important event and that you will forward this message to others who you believe would benefit or be interested.  I’ve attached a flyer that provides all the details, and which can be either sent electronically or reprinted and distributed.

Please contact me, Steering Committee Chair Lauren Luik (laurenl@mcspr.com) or Somerset Hills YMCA staff member Susan Kamins (skamins@somersethillsymca.org) if you have any questions.

Attached Flyer.

Wanted to pass along to you by an article Jillian Berman from today’s USA Today about the emphasis of federal funding on the consequences of substance abuse rather than its prevention.

Also, below, an article about a series of support groups/programs being conducted in Hunterdon by SAFE, an organization primarily focused on helping victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.  They’ve been in existence for 30 years, and we may want to look into their model, and certainly consider some of these programs for our resource/referrals database.

SAFE in Hunterdon is launching new therapy groups to offer the community information on healthy relationships and ways to effectively handle stress.

The second article from USA Today is a look at the increasing use of antipsychotic drugs among the ill elderly between 1996 and 2006 — the concerning factor here is that this increase in prescription drug use among is not paired with an increase in access to mental health specialists (who, ostensibly, would manage the medications and provide the psychotherapy/support that is needed for these meds to work in an optimal fashion).

Adults who say their activities are limited by mental illness were less likely to have contact with a mental health professional in 2006 than 1996, and the decrease was greatest for the elderly, dropping from 30% to 20%.

Seniors are most concerning to us,” Frank says. Traditionally, they’ve been the most under-treated. Now many are getting psychiatric medication, but, among the seriously impaired, access to specialists is dropping.

Looking forward to the May 11 meeting of the Healthy Outcomes Partnership, at which we will finalize our plans and program for the upcoming panel discussion-town hall forum on the affect of the recession on our “communal psyche” — as you recall, Michael Aron of NJN will be meeting with us to both tell us how he envisions his role in the event, but most important, to learn from us exactly what are our objectives for June 11. It should be a great meeting, and, as always, lunch will be served!

Regarding general mental health issues, I wanted to forward to you two articles from this week’s USA Today. The first, from today’s paper, concerns the increased risk of mental disorders among children who have experienced racism/racist remarks, especially relevant to us in HOP when considering the growing Hispanic population in our community.

The link between perceived racism and mental disorders is strong, he adds. For example, Hispanics who report racism are more than three times as likely as other children to have symptoms of depression; blacks are more than twice as likely; and those of “other” minority races have almost quadruple the odds.

Hispanics had the worst mental health effects, the study shows; perceptions of bias significantly increased their symptoms of all four disorders. About four out of five Hispanic children who felt prejudice had foreign-born parents. Black parents may buffer their children better, perhaps preparing them to expect some racism, Schuster speculates. 

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