Noelle Swan

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The Costs of Coal

In Climate Change, Healthcare on August 5, 2013 at 11:55 am

This article first was published by Spare Change News on August 9, 2013.

coalCamilo Viviero grew up in Somerset, Mass., in the shadow of two coal-fired power plants. “For years growing up, you would hear around midnight this air horn. That’s when they would send out the plumes of toxins. In the middle of the night, while we were sleeping,” he says.

One of those plants was decommissioned in 2007. The second plant, Brayton Point Power Station, still provides electricity to over a million homes in Mass. Last month, protesters from area environmental organizations rallied in front of Brayton Point as part of a series of protests across the nation by the environmental advocacy group 350.org. [Editor’s note: See “Turning Up the Heat on Coal Power in Massachusetts,” on page 8 of his issue, for more about this protest.]

At a fundraiser in Cambridge held a week before the protest, seasoned activist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben made the global case for reducing fossil fuel emissions.

“The science is troubling in the extreme. Last year was the hottest year on record in the United States, and we just came through the second hottest June in the history of the planet. . . . Things continue to fall apart,” McKibben told a crowd of around 150 activists gathered at the First Parish Cambridge Unitarian-Universalist Church.

For Viviero and other residents living in communities at the foot of coal-fired power plants, the issue is personal.

When Viviero watches his nieces pause during a soccer game to use their rescue inhalers, he wonders if pollution from the power plants could have caused or exacerbated their asthma. As a child, he knew several children with leukemia and heard adults speculate that the town could be part of a cancer cluster. Every time he hears of a neighbor suffering from a stroke or a heart attack, he wonders if the plants could be to blame.

Many residents in communities around Holyoke and the 50-year-old Mount Tom Power Station are asking the same questions, says Claire Miller, a community organizer for Toxic Action Center, a grassroots environmental justice advocacy organization.

Asthma rates in Holyoke are nearly twice the state average, according to the Asthma Regional Council’s 2009 assessment of the state’s asthma burden commissioned by the Governor Deval Patrick’s administration.

“We have to close down these power plants, not just because of climate change, which is roaring down on us, but because people are sick today,” Miller said.

While there is no conclusive evidence that power plant pollution directly causes asthma, there is robust evidence that it exacerbates the disease, says Jonathan Levy, an environmental health professor at Boston University with expertise in air pollution from power generation.

“If you have asthma, you are more likely to suffer from an acute attack or to be hospitalized if exposed to pollutants emitted by coal-fired power plants,” he said.

There is also a definitive link between cardiovascular disease and risk of heart attacks, he said.

The combustion of coal produces a variety of air pollutants that can be harmful to human health. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) react with molecules in the air to create atmospheric ozone, which can burn lung tissue and cause respiratory problems. Sulfur oxides (SOx) contribute to the formation of fine acidic particulates that can penetrate the lining of the lungs and absorb into the bloodstream. Particles of soot or “fly ash” can lead to chronic bronchitis. Heavy metal particles can cause brain damage and heart problems.

State and federal legislators have imposed regulations on the power industry to upgrade facilities in ways that will reduce these emissions.

The media office for Dominion Energy, which currently owns the Brayto Point Power Station, issued a public statement in response to last month’s protest. “The Brayton Point Power Station—capable of powering up to 1.6 million homes—is one of the cleanest electricity generators of its kind and is in compliance with all environmental regulations. More that $1 billion has been invested in recent years to reduce its impact on the air and water significantly.”

However, incremental improvements are little consolation to Viviero and his neighbors.

“There have been scrubbers added and pollutants have decreased, but the more insidious forms of pollution, the small particulate matter still exists. There is still soot . . . . There are still toxins seeping out that are getting into our children’s lungs and into our senior citizens’ lungs,” he said.

Levy agrees that upgrades to existing plants can only bring a degree of improvement. While he acknowledges that emissions have gone down at Brayton Point, he points out that the facility is still the highest-emitting power plant in New England.

Just a few years ago, there were four coal-fired power plants in the commonwealth: Brayton Point Power Station and Somerset Power Generating Station in Somerset, Mount Tom Power Station in Holyoke, and Salem Harbor Power Station. Somerset closed in 2010 to avoid costly upgrades required by state and federal regulations. Salem Harbor is scheduled to close in 2014.

While residents and environmentalists in the communities surrounding Salem harbor are celebrating the closing of the plant, the town of Salem is left scrambling to make up the loss of its largest taxpayer, reports Salem Patch.

Power plants are often situated in low-income and minority communities where jobs are scarce and the tax base is small.

When both Somerset plants were operational, they provided the town with 40 percent of its tax base. However, the closing of the Somerset Power station three and a half years ago and a recent devaluation of Brayton Point have led to a $14 million reduction of in-tax revenue, according to The Spectator, a local newspaper serving Somerset and Swansea. This year, the town increased residential and business property taxes by 20 percent to make up some of the revenue loss.

“The owners of these facilities have a spin and they tell people to blame environmentalists,” Viviero said, but he believes that the issue is far more complicated than that.

Many residents of Somerset, including Viviero’s family, are immigrants from the Azores. His mother worked in the garment industry and his father worked in construction. While the textile industry once thrived in the area, the mills shut down decades ago.

Many people in Somerset and the surrounding communities depend on Brayton Point for employment.

This article first was published by Spare Change News on August 9, 2013.

coal“These are some of the only jobs in the area. They are union and good-paying jobs,” Viviero said. “But the jobs that are here are polluting our families and bringing toxins into our homes.”

Viviero sees this as an issue of environmental injustice; the pollution is disproportionately distributed to low-income and minority communities.

Last fall, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued Brayton Point a failing report card for environmental justice, ranking the plant fourteenth out of the 75 most egregious offenders.

Low-income and minority communities also tend to be more susceptible to resulting health risks, says Levy.

“Low income communities and communities of color tend to have higher rates of diabetes, asthma and things that make you more susceptible. People in these communities will feel greater health effects [from pollution],” Levy said.

Delaware seeks to fill persistent shortfall in child mental health services

In Healthcare on August 5, 2013 at 11:10 am

WDDE graphicThe state of Delaware has seen slow progress so far in its efforts to bring specialized child and adolescent psychiatric care to Sussex and Kent counties, despite a devastating string of 11 teen suicides and 116 suicide attempts in southern Delaware last year.

Many of the suicides occurred while a special task force was examining unmet child and adolescent mental health needs following the arrest and conviction of Earl B. Bradley for sexually abusing more than 100 patients in his pediatric practice, which left Kent and Sussex County mental health providers scrambling to find skilled support for the victims.

In March 2012, the task force issued a series of recommendations for expanding care in southern Delaware, including a top-priority charge to attract at least two psychiatrists trained to work with adolescents and children to establish a private practice in Sussex County.

That recommendation has proved difficult to fulfill, according to state officials.

“I think they are a significant way down the road to getting one, which would be 50 percent of the target, but it’s been a significant challenge,” said Lt. Governor Matt Denn. “As far back as anyone can remember, there’s been a shortage in Sussex County primarily but also in parts of Kent County.”

– See more at: https://web.archive.org/web/20130824095848/http://www.wdde.org/47717-delaware-child-mental-health-services

Chronic National Shortage of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists Takes Heaviest Toll on Low Income Families

In Healthcare on July 21, 2013 at 11:39 am

This article first was published by Spare Change News on Friday, July 12, 2013.

teen mental health 2

(c) photl.com

“I don’t know exactly what happened to drive that young man in Aurora to shoot those people, but I do know that many people like him suffer while undiagnosed and untreated,” said Jess Shatkin, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University.

July 20 marks one year since James Eagan Holmes massacred 12 people and injured 70 more inside an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Since then, Adam Lanza opened fire in a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school; a 20-year-old college student killed four people in Orange County, California during a drive-by shooting; and a 19-year-old in New Orleans opened fire on a Mother’s Day parade.

In each of these tragedies, images of isolated and despondent young male perpetrators have emerged in the aftermath. And after each tragedy, the nation vowed to launch a national discussion of mental health.

In fact, millions of young people in America are suffering from untreated mental illness, and the American healthcare system is not equipped to care for them, according to experts in child and adolescent psychiatry. The U.S. Surgeon General’s office estimates that only 20 percent of emotionally disturbed children receive mental health services.

Those children do not automatically shed their emotional problems on their 18th birthday. They become adults with mental illness. Some find treatment as adults; some turn to drugs and alcohol to manage their symptoms; and some lose control.

The American Medical Association estimates that there are 15 million American children in need of psychiatric care and just 7,000 child and adolescent psychiatrists to treat them.

This discrepancy can leave families waiting months for their children see a therapist, which can take a toll on individual families and the community, said Christopher Thomas, the director of child psychiatry residency training at the University of Texas, Galveston.

Untreated adolescents who struggle with emotional problems can fall behind in school, develop substance abuse problems and engage in dangerous and risky behavior, Thomas said.

“Well over 80 percent of youth in juvenile justice placement have a substance abuse problem. More than half likely have a mental disorder,” Thomas said. “The juvenile justice system is becoming the de facto mental health provider for a large number of these youths, sadly.”

Thomas has spent over a decade studying the shortage and distribution of child and adolescent psychiatrists in the U.S. His 1999 paper in the Journal of the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists (AACAP) spurred the AACAP to launch a task force on workforce issues, which aims to recruit medical students into the specialty.

Both Shatkin—the current chair of the AACAP Workforce Issues Committee—and Thomas said that recruiting new students into the field continues to be an uphill battle more than a decade later.

The specialty requires an additional two years of training beyond the three years of general psychiatry studies. The extra time and student loans discourage potential students, Shatkin says.

“The best we can hope for is staying pretty much in the situation that we are already in, but I fear that we might actually be falling further behind,” Thomas said.

Meanwhile, children around the country wait months for the necessary care.

While the number of untreated children varies around the country, the AACAP has found a shortage of providers in every state.

Even Massachusetts, which has the highest per-capita ratio of child and adolescent psychiatrists, falls short of meeting the need in many communities, says Stuart Goldman, senior associate in psychiatry and co-director of the Mood Disorder Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

That shortage is compounded by an unequal distribution along socioeconomic lines, with the majority of child and adolescent psychiatrists practicing in affluent communities, Goldman said.

While many wealthy neighborhoods of Boston have an abundance of private practice and outpatient hospital physicians, areas like South Boston, Dorchester, and Roxbury do not have many local providers.

“One of the issues [exacerbating the problem] is that kids who are living in poverty have higher mental health problem rates,” said Goldman. “Just the problem of being poor is a challenge, but they also live in communities with lower property taxes and lower housing costs, which typically translate to poorer schools and fewer community services”

These disparities persist throughout the country. The communities most in need tend to have the least access to mental health services. The problem becomes self-perpetuating.

Many doctors who start out in a clinic setting quickly become overwhelmed by the heavy caseload, Shatkin says.

As part of his residency training, Shatkin worked in an Arkansas clinic where he says he routinely saw 15 patients a day, 10 new patients a week, and still had a six-month waiting list.

In medical school, child and adolescent psychiatrists are taught to take time to get to know patients and to reach out to the various caregivers in their lives to learn how they function in the real world, Shatkin said.

“We all started with the best intentions, but it becomes very difficult to practice psychiatry the way you know you should practice psychiatry when you are so crammed with patients,” he explained.

In the end, many practitioners opt to leave the clinic setting. Instead they open up private practices where patients can afford to pay service-based fees.

“Everybody gets sick and needs care, so it’s not like you’re doing the wrong thing treating these people. They need help, too, and they are able to pay for the time. To be honest, treating people when you have the time is a delight,” Shatkin said.

That is of little comfort to the low-income families struggling to cope with their children’s emotional issues. The current economic climate has deepened the problem, as it has placed added strain on both family budgets and social services.

Thirty years ago, community mental health centers provided local counseling services to residents in their own neighborhoods, Goldman recalls. “Many dried up in the 1990s, and more dried up in the economic downturn of the last five years,” he said.

“While we want to be a society that protects and cares for the least fortunate . . . in tough budget times, the services for indigent care and for child care suffer,” Goldman said.

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Beachgoers beware: Local study shows potential risks of playing in surf

In Healthcare on July 3, 2013 at 8:45 am

This article was first published by WDDE.org, the online arm of Delaware’s NPR News Station on July 2, 2013.

1024px-Rehoboth_Beach_at_Delaware_Avenue“Never turn your back on the ocean. It’s the equivalent of closing your eyes and running across four lanes of traffic,” says Paul Cowan, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Beebe Medical Center in Lewes.

More than 1,000 patients have sought emergency medical treatment for blunt trauma injuries sustained while cooling off in the Southern Delaware surf since 2010, according to an ongoing study conducted by Beebe Medical Center and the University of Delaware Sea Grant College Program.

“Every person who rides a motorcycle knows that they are engaging in a dangerous activity; but not every person that gets injured in the surf has any idea that what they were doing was any more dangerous than just walking on the sand or walking on the boardwalk,” he adds.

Most beachgoers know to look out for stinging jellyfish, to slather on sunscreen, and to keep a close eye on young children in the surf; however, few are aware how easily a wave can knock adults off their feet.

Continue reading on WDDE.org.

Risky Business: Turning to Sex for Survival

In Healthcare on July 2, 2013 at 9:18 am

This article first was published by Spare Change News on Friday, June 28, 2013.

RiskWhen Travis turned his first trick, he still had an apartment in Roslindale and a job as a retail clerk.

He was doing “well enough” financially until January 2010, when his shifts were cut to just five hours per week. His housemate helped him pay his rent for as long as she could.

He looked for additional work, but with youth unemployment at the highest rate seen in decades, he came up empty-handed. And while the fractured job market has driven many young people back to their family home, this was not an option for Travis.

He has not felt welcome at home since coming out to his family as gay.

Travis had heard that an acquaintance had made a fair amount of money by selling sex to older men. The idea seemed risky, but he was facing the possibility of becoming homeless within the month and felt desperate. Hesitantly, he went with this acquaintance to meet two men willing to pay for sex in a motel room. He made some money, but not enough to pay his rent. He soon landed on the street.

“The number of times that I have slept outside while it was snowing is just too many for anyone. Nobody should have to sleep outside in the snow,” he said.

The idea of getting to sleep in a motel bed and earning some cash by having sex with a stranger became more appealing, he says.

He added his email address and phone number to a loosely organized network of sex workers around the city and spent several months engaging in sex work.

For many young people living on the street, sex for money or lodging can be a means to survival.

Every year, 500 young adults seek help at Youth On Fire (YOF), a drop-in center in Cambridge that serves homeless street-youth between the ages of 18 and 24. One-fifth of the young adults that check into YOF disclose that they have exchanged sex for money, drugs, or a place to stay, says Ayala Livny, YOF program manager. 

“What we know is that young people do what they need to do to survive, and part of surviving is having a safe place to sleep. If we can provide a safe place to sleep, hopefully they will be less likely to engage in behaviors such as survival sex that compromise their health and safety,” Livny says.

However, connecting youth like Travis to a safe bed is easier said than done. 

General population shelters can be dangerous places for young adults. Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people experience special challenges around victimization and violence, Livny says.

Travis tried staying at a shelter geared toward young adults. As a gay young man, he specifically sought out a center that had a reputation for being welcoming to young LGBT individuals.

 Once there however, he says was repeatedly the victim of homophobic slurs by both clients and staff members. He witnessed altercations between shelter residents that had begun with similar slurs before they escalated to violence, he says.

Fearing for his own safety, he opted to take his chances on the streets. On a good night, he slept on someone’s couch. More often, he slept outside on benches or in a tent on the beach.

Travis’s experience is all too common, says Jessica Flaherty, program director for the Boston Alliance for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth (BAGLY).

The use of homophobic slurs in a shelter raises alarm bells to homeless LGBT people. It signifies a culture in which in tolerance is the norm and warns that violence may follow.

“The history of their lives has taught them that they can expect to be beaten by somebody that calls them a faggot,” Flaherty said.

Comparatively, going home with someone, “tricking,” or doing sex work for a place to stay can seem like a safer option.

Of course, sex work comes with its own risks.

While Travis was able to set a few boundaries for himself, such as not traveling outside the Boston area and not working with men over 60, he quickly learned that he was at the mercy of the men who hired him.

He had no say in setting the pricing for his services. Sometimes he would make $200 or more. Other times he would make next to nothing. He had been warned that turning down an offer because of the price could get him blacklisted by the network.

Some clients scoffed at his request to use a condom, and he usually gave in for fear of developing a bad reputation within the network. 

Every three months, he headed to the doctor’s office and anxiously waited for the results of sexually transmitted disease and infection tests. Miraculously, he remained healthy. 

“I am a very, very, very, lucky person,” he said gravely.

Flaherty says that she frequently hears from individuals engaging in sex work that clients offer a higher price to have sex without a condom.

Both Flaherty and Livny say that the majority of the young people that they work with are well aware of the potential risks of contracting both short-term and chronic infections and diseases, including HIV.

 “People are making choices, and they are informed choices, but if you are starving and need a place to stay, you are definitely going to choose the option that better meets your immediate needs. People are going to make the choices that are going to keep them alive for the night and worry about the rest of their lives later,” Flaherty said.

 Staff members at Youth On Fire, BAGLY, and a handful of other area organizations try to help individuals in this situation to reduce this risk.

“At intake we ask directly, ‘Have you ever exchanged sex for drugs, for money, or for a place to stay?’ We ask it, we hope, in ways that are open and non-judgmental so that they can begin having these honest conversations without fear of being judged or denied services,” Livny said.

Livny has found that the young adults that come to YOF are eager to talk about their situation when given the opportunity. 

Staff members talk with them about ways to reduce their level of risk by making sure they have access to condoms and lubricant. They connect them to doctors at Fenway Health for testing for STIs and inform them about new prophylactic treatments that are available for both pre and post-exposure.

“We also know that most folks that are engaging in survival sex are often using substances to cope with the emotional ramifications, so we talk about the dangers of sharing needles and the risk for overdose,” Livny said.

All of YOF staff members are trained in risk reduction and substance abuse. In addition, a clinician comes into the center twice a week and welcomes kids in need of a supportive ear or specialized counseling on a walk-in basis.

While BAGLY and YOF cannot solve all these kids’ problems, they help meet their immediate needs, refer them to agencies that can help connect them to more permanent services, and advocate for them at the local and state level.

Travis first turned to Youth On Fire during his last days in his apartment for food assistance. For four years, YOF has been a consistent place where he can take a shower, eat a hot meal, wash his clothes, and breathe freely. 

This month, Travis moved into an apartment with the help of a friend, but he still heads to Youth On Fire each day.

“The staff at Youth on Fire is like having a family who cares about me and will help me like a family should care about you,” Travis said.

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Sibling bullying: How to be sure normal tangles are not actually damaging

In Uncategorized on July 1, 2013 at 9:12 am

This article first appeared online as a guest post for The Christian Science Monitor blog Modern Parenthood on Friday, June 28, 2013.

Photo Credit Ken Wilcox

Photo Credit Ken Wilcox

There’s a common parental refrain, “If you’re not bleeding, I don’t want to hear it! Figure out how to work it out!”

Siblings fight. It’s part of how kids learn to resolve conflict. Parents expect it, shrug it off, and tell their kids that, one day, they will be best friends.

However, aggressive behavior between siblings can have an impact on kids’ mental health, says a new study from the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, published in the July issue of the medical journal “Pediatrics.”

Study authors indicated that victimization among siblings could be just as harmful as peer bullying.

This is startling news for parents, who see the sibling dynamic as the ideal relationship for practicing independent conflict resolution.

How can parents set the stage for this kind of learning without opening the door for one sibling to victimize the other?

Parents should start while the kids are young, suggests Lauren Bondy, a licensed social worker and founder of Parenting Perspectives, an Illinois consulting agency offering workshops, courses, and counseling services to families.

“Parents can do a lot of things when kids are younger than four to teach them the skills to work conflict out on their own,” Ms. Bondy says.

Young children need to be taught about the effects of their behavior in firm but kind ways, she says. She cautions parents to avoid making young children feel bad about their actions because they are still learning how to deal with their own emotions and how to interpret others’ feelings.

Bondy encourages parents to “respond in a loving, teaching way” and to remember that “harshness breeds harshness.”

As children grow older, parents can talk with kids during calm, neutral moments about ways to resolve conflicts, including walking away, ignoring unwanted behavior, and establishing a compromise.

Once kids have these tools, parents should allow them to freely explore them, because jumping into conflicts and resolving them for kids can actually promote a bully-victim dynamic, Bondy says.

“Frequently parents jump in with their own perception of who is right or wrong and lecture and punish them.

They often expect more from the older child and feel they need to rescue the other one. In actuality, this is setting up a victim mentality; the older child feels bad about who he is and the younger child ends up feeling incapable,” Bondy says.

Parents do need to intervene if a child loses control and begins to hysterically kick, scream, and throw things, she says. In that state, she says kids are not capable of hearing anything. The only thing to do is remove the child somewhere she cannot harm herself or anyone else and let her calm down. Teaching kids self-calming strategies can facilitate this process.

Parents also need to be on the lookout for intentional, repeated victimization between siblings, Bondy says.

While conflict is developmentally appropriate, an imbalance of power in the relationship can be harmful.

While many siblings have aggressive relationships and feel that it is a fair fight, the difference in ages can set the stage for an imbalance of power, says Timothy Davis, a Massachusetts child and family psychotherapist and author of “Challenging Boys.”

“Aggression between siblings, especially younger ones, is normal, but some measure of it, particularly if there is an element of fear and intimidation or harassment, becomes really worrisome,” Dr. Davis says.

Parents should pay close attention to signs that one child is feeling frightened or intimidated, Davis says.

“I think the main clues about bullying are anxiety and regression in functioning of the kid who is the victim,” he said.

While Davis cautions against taking sides in sibling conflict, he encourages parents to focus their attention on supporting the victim rather than punishing the bully.

“If you focus on responding to the aggressor you reinforce the aggression. That might have even been part of the motivation for the aggression,” he said.

Parents should also be aware that a child who brings bullying into the home, might be experiencing bullying somewhere else or might need help dealing with stress, Davis says.

Parents don’t have to have all of the answers. Parenting programs and counseling can be a useful forum for parents to explore ways to support their children.

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How to talk about obesity and weight loss with your teen

In Healthcare on June 25, 2013 at 8:25 pm

This article was first appeared as a guest post for The Christian Science Monitor blog Modern Parenthood.

Photo Credit: Peggy Greb, US Department of Agriculture

Photo Credit: Peggy Greb, US Department of Agriculture

Wondering how to talk to your teen about weight? Tread carefully, suggests a new study from the University of Minnesota published this week in the medical journal “Pediatrics.”

Talking about weight loss and obesity might do more harm than good, the researchers found.

A survey of more than 2,000 adolescents and their parents revealed that while discussions of healthy eating and lifestyle can promote healthy choices, talking about it in terms of weight loss and obesity can drive kids to try dangerous methods of weight control, including diet pills, laxatives, fasting, and purging.

Adolescence is marked by intense peer pressure, and can involve anxiety over self-image and emotional extremes. As tough and independent as teens may insist they are, their self-esteem can be fragile. Many endure bullying from peers about their weight. All are bombarded by an onslaught of images depicting the “perfect body” in magazines, billboards, advertisements, and on television. If parents jump into the fray with even gentle cajoling about their waistline, or nagging about their weight, they run the risk of pushing teens to explore extreme methods of weight control.

That does not mean that parents should avoid the subject entirely. With teen obesity rates at 18 percent, nearly three times the rates seen 30 years ago, promoting healthy eating may be more important now than ever.

The good news is that opening up the dialogue with teens about healthy eating practices can have a positive impact “regardless of the size of your adolescent,” says study author Jerica Berge, a professor of family and community medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

So how can parents spark conversations about healthy eating without pushing kids to a dangerous extreme?

“The more positive the message the better,” Ms. Berge says.

As every parent knows, very few things are more enticing to teenagers than the things they have been told to avoid. Instead of focusing on what they shouldnot be eating, parents can talk about how fruits and vegetables will make their teens strong and healthy.

There are many advertising campaigns out there promoting foods that can lead to weight gain. The more messages teens receive from adults in their life promoting healthier foods, the better, Berge says. The study found that for teens living in two-parent families, hearing about healthy eating from both parents had a more positive impact than in families where one parent remained silent on the issue.

Parents can turn to pediatricians for additional support in having these conversations. While health care providers probably already are tuned into this issue and most often include discussion of weight and body mass index (BMI) as a routine part of office visits, Berge says that calling pediatricians before the appointment and mentioning that they would like some help discussing healthy eating could be helpful.

Regardless of when parents bring up the topic, Berge emphasizes that parents frame the discussion in as positive a way as possible.

Urban College Offers Hope to Some Unlikely Students

In Social Issues on June 14, 2013 at 12:24 pm

This article was first published by Spare Change News on June 14, 2012.

UntitledBOSTON, Massachusetts—When Cecelia Young enrolled in her first course at Urban College of Boston (UBC), she didn’t know who would watch her youngest son while she was in class.

Young was homeless at the time.

Each night, she had been piling her 12- and 15-year-old boys into the car and driving to a friend or family member’s home to spend the night. They moved from house to house frequently, so as not to overstay their welcome and overburden their hosts.

In the middle of that crisis, Young made a decision that she believes saved her life.

She decided to go back to school.

At UCB graduation earlier this month, Young shared her story with 100 fellow graduates and enough friends and family to fill the Emerson College Majestic Theater. Through tears, she read the essay that earned her UCB’s Jill Alexander Award for Excellence. (Full disclosure: I briefly attended UCB from 2003-2004.)

“In 2010, my sons and I were faced with homelessness. When my life was going from bad to worse, I made the most important decision of my life. In the middle of a severe crisis that caused me such hardship, I chose to become a student at Urban College of Boston,” said Young. “I felt defeated and full of dismay. However, the thought of taking my own life was just a dark thought, but attending Urban College was a necessity.”

Three years later, Young has found her way to the other side of the dark. She has an apartment of her own in Randolph, a fulfilling job working as an emergency department assistant at Beth Israel Hospital, and as of this June an associate’s degree in Human Services from UCB.

This year, UCB celebrates its 20th anniversary as an accredited, two-year post-secondary college offering low to moderate-income students the opportunity to pursue their associate’s degrees in Early Childhood Education, Human Services, and General Studies as well as several professional certifications.

The majority of UCB students live in Boston’s traditionally underserved neighborhoods of Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and Hyde Park. Nearly all students work full time while taking classes at night. Many are immigrants; many are single mothers. All are considered “non-traditional” students.

There are more than 50 colleges and universities in the Boston area and many of them welcome non-traditional students. However, only UCB offers a non-traditional education that actively supports the whole student, says Dean of Academic Affairs Nancy Daniel.

Many students come to UCB with heavy burdens on their back. Helping these students reach academic success takes a great deal of additional support, Daniel said. “If we don’t look at [students] holistically, it’s not going to be a successful journey for them,” she said.

Instructors try to prevent failure by spending time at the beginning of every course getting to know each student through writing assignments and group discussions, said Daniel. While most universities expect students to check their personal lives at the door, UCB faculty encourages students to share their experiences. What hardships have they endured? What barriers may make it difficult for them to complete the course?

Whenever possible, faculty and staff at UCB offer to help shoulder some of students’ burdens so that they can focus on their coursework.

Faculty may work directly with students to help plan how they will manage the course load. They may refer them to UCB’s caseworker or connect them with UCB’s parent organization, Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) which provides homelessness prevention services, fuel assistance and childcare vouchers.

“There are times when people need clothes; they need books but they can’t order online because they don’t have a credit card; they need a place to cry; they need five bucks to get home; they are hungry and they need food,” Daniel said. Whatever it is, she finds a way to help her students get what they need.

It seems that the faculty and staff at UCB will do anything to help their students succeed, as Young described in her essay.

“Through the course of three years, I have discovered that Urban College of Boston is not just an institute for higher learning, but a place where the faculty show compassion, sympathy, and provide alternative solutions for their students,” explained Young. “The instructor [in my first class] taught me about essays, but most importantly, she spoke life into my broken soul.”

During a pre-graduation ceremony, it became apparent that students extend that same compassion and sympathy toward each other. Students squealed in congratulations and traded hugs and tears of joy as classmates collected awards and honors commendations.

At commencement, UCB President Michael Taylor told graduates, “In addition to acquiring an education here at Urban College, you acquired something else, a new family comprised of your fellow classmates, the faculty, and staff.”

As Taylor spoke, kids shuffled in their seats and a baby in the balcony began to cry, creating a symbolic soundtrack to the event. More than half of UCB students have children at home to care for while attending school and working full time, a feat that has garnered Taylor’s admiration.

“Not only do you have the courage to go to college while you’re working. You have the grit to stick with it for several years while you balanced all the other responsibilities in your life . . . caring for children, managing a full time job . . . helping your kids with their homework. You read, you typed, you researched . . . you attended class until 9 p.m. at night, then you went home, put the kids to bed, and learned some more,” Taylor said.

The payoff for all that hard work was evident as 105 supposedly unlikely graduates marched across the stage to accept their hard-won diplomas and certificates.

In Young’s words, “Through the education I have received at UCB, I am an educated, positive, and a professional woman. I can hold my head up high and be encouraged while encouraging someone else.”

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Not all Seaboard communities are battling cicada infestations, but what if yours is?

In Science Education, Wildlife and Ecology on June 7, 2013 at 12:10 pm

This article first was published as a guest post on The Christian Science Monitor blog Modern Parenthood on June 7, 2013.

Photo Credit: MorgueFile Dodgerton Skillhause

Photo Credit: MorgueFile Dodgerton Skillhause

For months now, East Coast residents between North Carolina and Connecticut have kept a watchful eye on the cicada forecast. Bug lovers eagerly awaited one of nature’s biggest—and arguably weirdest—coming out parties, while more squeamish residents dreaded the impending infestation.

It seems that many areas, such as Baltimore, Washington D.C. and parts of New Jersey have been spared, while others are positively overrun with the flying critters. It turns out that the cicadas have spent the last 17 years burrowing in rather sporadic clusters. If you have not seen any cicadas yet, chances are you won’t see them this time around, though it’s possible they may hit your area in 2021 when Brood X make their debut; this year’s crew is known as Brood II.

If your area is teeming with cicadas and the idea of a swarm of insects sends shivers down your spine, a little background knowledge can go a long way to take control of those emotions. Framing the event as a fascinating phenomenon for kids could help calm their fears and prevent lasting insect phobias.

So, what are cicadas anyway?

Cicadas are herbivorous, flying insects that grow to be about 0.75 to 2.25 inches long. There are over 1,500 species of cicadas around the world and more than 150 different species in North America. The particular species making headlines this spring is the periodical cicada, or Magicicada.

While many species of cicadas are present throughout the year, periodical cicadas spend the majority of their lives underground. This particular species surfaces only once every 17 years, for four to six weeks in a mad dash to mate. .

What’s all that racket?

Cicadas are best known for a high-pitched buzzing sound that males make trying to attract a mate. The din created by a swarm of cicada suitors can be highly distracting and downright annoying; however it can also be a useful prompt for families to explore the properties of sound.

Male cicadas have plate-like membranes on their abdomens that vibrate like the skins of drums. Young kids can experiment with vibration and sound by placing the palm of their hands on their throats while humming, plucking a rubber band, or rubbing a comb back and forth over different surfaces. Older children can explore how different vibrations produce different sounds.

Cicadas don’t initiate their telltale symphony right away. First they emerge from small holes in the ground, about 0.5 inches in diameter. Then they climb onto tree trunks and shed their exoskeleton before they are ready to mate. If the timing is right, you might witness a newly emerged cicada wriggle free from its old skin during its final stage of metamorphosis. If you miss it, don’t worry, you’ll likely find many discarded carapaces, for kids to collect and examine.

Adult cicadas take shelter in the treetops for about five days while they wait for their new skins to harden into protective exoskeletons. Then they begin their noisy mating rituals; and they are hard to miss. Having lived most of their lives underground, they are somewhat bumbling fliers and tend crash into people, windows, and other objects. If you get caught in a swarm of cicadas flitting about to find mates, it helps to remember—and remind kids—that they are harmless. If you can move indoors until they pass.

When no amount of humor can quell the annoyance factor, remember that cicadas play a vital role in the ecosystem. While living underground, they tunnel through the earth in search of plant roots to munch and help to aerate the soil. Their decomposing bodies and discarded exoskeletons help to replenish the natural nutrient cycle of the soil.

And if you just can’t take it anymore, remember that they’ll soon be gone for another 17 years.


Discussing Race: The pitfalls of racial ‘colorblindness’ and the importance of talk

In Social Issues on May 24, 2013 at 12:14 pm

This article first was published as a guest post on The Christian Science Monitor blog Modern Parenthood on May 24, 2013.

Photo Credit: Flickr user horizontal.integration

Photo Credit: Flickr user horizontal.integration

“Now, I don’t see race. People tell me I’m white and I believe them,” late night satirist Stephen Colbert frequently tells his guests. He isn’t the only one claiming to be racially “colorblind.” Since the days of the civil rights movement, many parents and teachers have adopted this approach with the hope that by simply refusing to point out differences to their children, racism, stereotyping, and bigotry would just fall away.

Instead, “in this supposed racial vacuum created by parents, the kids have been left to come up with their own conclusions based on who knows what. Their own observations? Heresay? Who knows?” said Janie Ward, Simmons College Professor and Department Chair of Africana Studies and author of The Skin We’re In: Teaching Our Teens to be Emotionally Strong, Socially Smart, and Spiritually Connected.

According to recent research, many of those conclusions have not been good.

Ward shared the results of a recent University of Texas study on racial attitudes with a group of parents and teachers gathered for a lunch, lecture, and book signing as part of The Boston Children’s Museum’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series this week.

UT researchers initially set out to assess the impact of multicultural characters in television programs on white children’s attitudes about race. They solicited hundreds of families to participate in the study and gave the children an initial racial attitude test. They asked the children questions like, “Are white people nice,” and “Are black people nice?” They followed up with additional questions and substituted the adjective “nice” with other adjectives, including “pretty,” “mean,” and “smart.” This was intended to be a base line measurement of children’s racial attitudes.

Then the researchers divided the families into three groups. They sent one group home with a video that included an episode of Sesame Street where the cast members visited a black family at home. They gave the second group the same video,  as well as a list of talking points for parents to use in discussing the video with their kids. The third group took home just the talking points.

However, the researchers soon realized that something was wrong.

Many parents balked at the idea of raising the discussion of race with their kids. Five parents refused to participate entirely. Several indicated that the idea of having such a discussion with their kids was scary. Others said they preferred to raise their children to be “colorblind.” So the researchers shifted the direction of the study to examine the effect of “colorblind” child rearing on children’s actual racial attitudes.

When the researchers returned to the results of the original study that they had already given the kids, they discovered that the children were forming their own ideas about race. When asked how many white people are mean, almost all of the kids responded “almost none.” When asked how many black people are mean, many answered “a lot.” When asked about their parents’ attitudes toward black people, 14 percent of kids said that their parents did not like black people and 38 percent of kids said they did not know how their parents felt. While the parents have been trying to impart “colorblindness,” the kids have still developed white biases, Ward said.

Similar studies where researchers have asked black children to point out which of two dolls — one white and one black — is nicer, smarter, prettier have shown that black children also harbor white biases. The first of these studies proved instrumental during the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court case that resulted in the desegregation of public schools. Many things have changed since then. However, many black kids still identify the black doll as “bad” and “mean” and label the while doll as “nice” and “pretty.”

That lack of ethnic pride is particularly troubling, Ward said. “Ethnic pride is about a whole lot more than just feeling good,” she said. In her research, Ward has found that children’s sense of ethnic pride can affect both their grades and their mental health. Further, she found that teenagers with a strong sense of ethnic pride were able to navigate social inequities more effectively than kids that harbor feelings of shame about their ethnicity.

Parents can start to foster ethnic pride at a very young age. Ward offered the example of one mother who used the opportunity of brushing her child’s hair to plant the seeds of ethnic pride. “Your hair is so beautiful. Other kids have different kinds of hair, but your hair is just like Mummy’s hair and grandma’s hair,” she would tell her daughter. Ward asked the mother why she felt this was so important. “As a black woman in this society I know what my daughter is going to be up against. I’m giving my daughter the tools now that she will need to do battle when she gets older,” the mother responded.

Ward urged parents to talk to their children about race throughout their childhood. “I know that this kind of conversation can be a scary conversation, but the more you talk, the better you get at it. It’s not just about one conversation, it’s about talking about these kinds of things over time and being on the lookout for teachable moments,” she said.