Monthly Archives: February 2017

MHSA Three-Year Planning Launch

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Join behavioral health advocates, providers and clients and provide your input on the next 3 years of MHSA priorities.

MHSA Three-Year Planning Launch (Open to the Public)
Monday, March 13, 2017, 3-5pm
Health System Main Campus, Room 100
225 37th Ave. San Mateo, CA 94403

  • Learn about current MHSA funded programs
  • Share and discuss MHSA programs key successes, needs and evaluation findings
  •  Make recommendations on the MHSA 3-Year Plan development process
  • Identify and prioritize future strategies for consideration

All MHSA meetings are open to the public
Stipends are available for consumers/clients
Language interpretation is provided as needed*
Childcare is provided as needed*
Light refreshments will be provided

*Please contact Colin Hart, (650) 573-5062 or chart@smcgov.org, by March 6th to reserve interpretation and/or childcare services.

Black Lives Matter Photovoice

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Check out the photovoice projects created in our Black Lives Matter program. We will be showing them, as well as hosting a Q&A panel of the storytellers, at the “Mind, Body & Spirit Matters: Black History Month Health Fair” on February 25th. Click here for more details!

Supervisor David Canepa & Daly City Mayor support Immigration Health Forum

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Take the Health System Survey

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The San Mateo County Health System is conducting a research project called Perception 360. We are seeking input from staff, stakeholders, and community members to learn about impressions of our work and mission, positive and negative.

The goal is to gather as much honest information as we can from the people whose lives we touch every day. Learning more about how the Health System is perceived will allow us to improve how we communicate and deliver our services.

This link will take you to an online survey that can be completed in about five minutes: www.surveymonkey.com/r/SMCResidents. All responses are confidential. We value your opinion and hope that you will share it with us. Please complete this survey by Friday, February 24.  

If you are a partner who works with the Health System (including Behavioral Health and Recovery Services), please use this link instead www.surveymonkey.com/r/SMCHealthPartners.

See, Stop, Prevent Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse

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Increasing Shared Empowerment and Responsibility: My Quest as a Mental Health First Aider

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The week of January 29th was the first full week of classes at San Jose State University (SJSU). Personally, I was feeling scattered from trying to organize my life around balancing a full load of classes with my ODE internship and two other jobs. As I connected with my friends and new classmates, they spoke of experiencing similar stressors. Then suddenly the busy buzz within our campus atmosphere came to a standstill and was replaced with a feeling of somber eeriness. That Wednesday, everyone on campus received an alert stating our Martin Luther King, Jr. Library would be shut down for the rest of the day due to an investigation. Hours later we all were notified that the investigation because someone had completed suicide.

Our community’s emotions were stirred. This event marked the second suicide completion in our eight story study sanctuary. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Library is the heartbeat of Downtown San Jose and it has welcoming arms to the general Downtown San Jose neighborhoods, in addition to servicing students. The victim who completed suicide was a member of the general San Jose community. As my peers and I discussed our feelings regarding the event, I noticed that our campus community was experiencing a different and heightened sense of emotional vulnerability. It was a sense of helplessness.

However, in addition to feeling vulnerable, I felt frustrated because I realized that very few people I talked with knew how to identify signs of someone in crisis, despite the many supportive resources SJSU offers. Our campus has an amazing counseling and wellness center; our professors strongly advocate on behalf of those services, and our syllabi are required to state all of the ways students can get the support needed to overcome adversity. Still, I don’t believe many people on campus know what to do to help others.  Frankly, until I began my ODE internship I wouldn’t have known how to identify a person in crisis, either — let alone what I could do and say to help them. Being trained as a Mental Health First Aider within my first month of work really empowered me to understand how much of a difference I can make in my community’s life. So, in my conversations with others, I voiced my concerns and desire to create a change in our campus culture by breaking down the beliefs that only licensed professionals can impact the wellness of our campus community and neighborhoods. I voiced my desires to help publicize our campus need for Mental Health First Aid training for students and faculty.

Thanks to being a Mental Health First Aider, I feel empowered to fight for my community to increase its ability to prevent and intervene in suicidal acts on our campus. We owe it to both students and community members to create as many protective factors as possible.

To learn more about Mental Health First Aid trainings in San Mateo County, contact Natalie Andrade, Program Coordinator – Office of Diversity and Equity, nandrade@smcgov.org, or  visit https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/take-a-course/find-a-course/ .

Chenece Blackshear, ODE

 

Challenging the Cultural Responsibility of Scientific Research

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This past December, I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jonathan Flint (a current UCLA professor in psychiatry and behavioral science) speak about the correlation between genetics and depression. It was exciting for me because I often wonder if there is a biological reason why some cultural populations show a greater prevalence in a particular condition than others. Dr. Flint shared numerous research results from studies conducted in the UK and US. Some research revealed a discovery of genetic markers that could be linked to depression, while others found evidence that genetics — as well as other indicators — was a catalyst for depression. However’, the most stunning piece of knowledge Dr. Flint imparted was the following:  There is bias in the results of empirical research.

Specifically, there is an overlooked influence that creates an intense pressure for scientists to deliver positive results to their hypothesis: funding. To be transparent, this bias does not mean that the integrity of experiments and research is jeopardized; but this does begin to address one of the concerns regarding why similar researches conducted in completely different nations sometimes produce conflicting results. Essentially, Dr. Flint’s bottom line when discussing the analysis of DNA and its relation to depression is as follows: “The nice thing about genetics is that it is hypothesis free –make no assumption about what genes do — what we’re saying is the general effect; but the bad thing about genetics is that it doesn’t generate any hypothesis…you’re then forced with a lot of work trying to understand what the gene does.”

So, what should the key takeaway be for us in the behavioral health field?  Do your own research. But more, than this, take action by writing an op-ed to the prestigious scientific journals that publish the research producing positive results. Encouraging social responsibility is the goal, so questions that challenge the researcher’s’ choices of sample size and population demographics, as well as who has funded the research will go the distance in helping to improve cultural responsibility on a local and national scale.

Chenece Blackshear, ODE

Practicing Cultural Humility: The Golden Rule

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Growing up, I was always told, “Treat everyone like you want to be treated!” It’s quite a beautiful phrase because youth respond by treating eachother with respect: They act more curteous, they take turns, and they share their toys.

The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. It is a maxim of altruism seen in many religions and cultures.

Things change as we grow up. We learned a more specific version of respect from our parents. Should the guest help clean up after dinner? What if the guest offers to help and we say no, should they insist and help? Should guests make themselves at home once they enter your house, or must we invite them to sit down. Things might be different than what we’re used to, in another person’s home.

My grandma will always offer me food, and bring it to me after I say ‘no thank you’. This is a Persian norm called ‘Taarof’. She also won’t let me clean the table up. Other cultures are different. I’ve been to dinner at my friend’s house, who expects me to clean up, even if they say they don’t want help.

We need to broaden our  minds to transform “treat everyone like you want ot be treated,” to “make efforts to understand others the way you want to be understood”. This is the culturally humble version of the Golden Rule.

 

More Parent Project® Facilitators!

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The Office of Diversity and Equity’s (ODE) is excited to grow it’s capacity to offer the highly successful Parent Project ® in San Mateo County.  The Parent Project ® is a 12-week class that gives parents, grandparents, and caregivers the tools to build strong and healthy families.  Since 2013,  550 San Mateo County parents have graduated the program, impacting well over 1,000 children.

Parent Project ® Program Coordinator, Frances Lobos, and Mental Health Program Specialist, Nancy Chen, LMFT, completed a week-long training to become Parent Project® facilitators.

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Pictured above from left to right: Ralph Fry, Frances Lobos, Nancy Chen and Dr. Roger Morgan.

The training was offered by the creators of the curriculum themselves, Ralph “Bud” Fry and Dr. Roger Morgan. Bud is a retired Police Supervisor from Los Angeles County and has over 27 years of experience as a parent educator.  Dr. Morgan is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in Southern California and specializes in the treatment of children and adolescents with behavior problems.

Currently, ODE is coordinating 5 classes and will have a new schedule of classes for Summer 2017 and Fall 2017 coming out soon.  The Parent Project® is offered in English and Spanish.  Classes are free and dinner and childcare are provided.

For more information about The Parent Project ®, visit http://www.smchealth.org/ParentProject or contact Frances Lobos at flobos@smcgov.org,  650-372-3272.

Practicing Cultural Humility: Person First Language

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What’s wrong with saying, “a disabled person” or “the disabled”? We need to detach people from their experiences to say: people or a person “with disabilities.” Put the person first. A disability is what someone has, not what someone is. For instance, “mentally ill” is less respectful than “person with mental-health issues.”

Person-first language challenges the way that we attach meaning, or stigma, to peoples’ identities.

Last week, San Mateo County conducted its biennial “One Day Homeless Count”. There is a very important distinction we need to make: The people we want to help are not without a home — San Mateo is their home. What they are is “unhoused”, not “homeless”.

For many, the word “homeless” conjures up an array of negative sterotypes: someone who is shiftless, dishonest, and untrustworthy. I want all of us to challenge those stigmas and begin to say, “a person who is unhoused”, instead of “homeless people”.

This empowering shift will function to humanize an important and present part of our community, 1,722 of us, that is often treated otherwise.

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