It’s time to talk about the feedback @MCPS received about the @TheLeaderinMe, which is the current (very expensive) SEL program for the district. Data is from here 🧵 ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sh… First, it’s probably useful to talk about what the @TheLeaderinMe is. It is a SEL program based on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This book, originally published in 1989, is a self help book designed to help people succeed. That’s right, it’s pop psychology.

We have hit the three year mark since @MontgomeryCoMD started pandemic restrictions on March 12, 2020. Here’s a few notable events in Montgomery county during the pandemic restrictions Let’s start with sports. Private gyms were able to open in June 2020. But many youth sports remained closed. Some outdoor sports were permitted to run with restrictions.

So I have fallen down the rabbit hole of the privacy policies of online mental after looking into @betterhelp and seeing that @hazelhealthinc “assumes” consumers consent to collecting and sharing information.

I started looking into @LyraHealth. And it looks good. 🧵 Lyra is an online mental health platform. I know a few Lyra providers and they enjoy working with Lyra and feel their clients’ information is well protected.

I took a look at their privacy policies and I’m impressed.

Content warning: stillbirth

I was pregnant at the beginning of March 2015. On March 8, 2015, I called my OB because I hadn’t felt our second son, move in awhile. He was normally active so this was a change. My OB was calm but direct, telling me that there is a chance there may be an issue and we may need to deliver our son that day.

We need to talk about why children were more impacted by the pandemic and its response than adults have been. It’s been getting more noticeable as we are shifting back to 2019 norms.

This is a bit of a repost for me, with updates. I posted something similar about 3 months ago 🧵 We are nearing the 3 year anniversary of the March 2020 lockdowns. We have been living with Covid for more than 3 years.

Let’s talk about why youth sports are so important.

🧵 This infographic explains it well.
Kids who play sports have
Lower stress
Less anxiety/depression
Are less likely to use drugs
Are less likely to attempt suicide
Have higher self esteem

Data from health.gov/sites/default/…

The @CDCgov suicide data for 2021 is out. Let’s review.

cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7… So deaths by suicide dropped in 2019 and 2020. But they rose in 2021 and are almost up to the peak in 2018. There were 14.1 deaths by suicide per 100,000 in 2021 (the rate was 14.2 per 100,000 in 2018)

More data on youth and suicide, this time coming from @Evernorth

evernorth.com/articles/youth… According to their data, there was a significant increase in suicidal ideation in children and adolescents between 2020 and 2021

There is some discussion about the causes of the learning loss and mental health catastrophe related to the pandemic and its response. However, there is also the narrative that is really downplaying it.

A 🧵 about why we don’t want to talk about the issues we caused I’m going to be blunt: no one wants to admit they were wrong. The data from the impact of the pandemic and its response is going out and it’s not pretty. The mental health crisis was had in 2019 is now a mental health catastrophe. Learning loss is a thing.

.@ClinpsychLucy makes an excellent point here

Often, distress is a sign something is going awry in the environment. Our focus has been to treat the surface level (the experience of distress), but what if we actually treated the underlying causes?

A short thread 🧵

https://twitter.com/clinpsychlucy/status/1584086668151525378

Mental health professionals can do a lot. We can help people work through trauma. We help people alter patterns of behavior, thinking, and emotions that no longer serve as appropriate coping mechanisms. And we give hope.

What we can’t do is talk away poverty, housing issues, etc

We need to talk about why children were more impacted by the pandemic and its response than adults have been. It’s been getting more noticeable as we are shifting back to 2019 norms.

Short 🧵 The pandemic has been the past 2.5ish years. So for a 45 year old, it’s been about 6% of their life.

For a 10 year old on the other hand, 25% of their life has been during a pandemic.

5 year old: 50%

You get the picture.

For anyone interested, all of the Educational Due Process Decisions for the 2021-2022 school year are available here: marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Pages…

Almost all of the hearings were with @MCPS Quarter 1: 4 hearings, 4 MCPS (100%)
Quarter 2: 9 hearings, 7 MCPS (78%)
Quarter 3: 2 hearings, 1 MCPS (50%)
Quarter 4: 1 hearing, 1 MCPS (100%)

Total: 16 hearings, 13 MCPS (81%)

Why is it that two weeks after BCC has an incident @mcps is working on adjusting crisis communications but they did not move this quickly after the Magruder incident, where a student was shot? Maybe it’s worthwhile to look at some of the differences between the schools 🧵

https://twitter.com/ksglassman/status/1575267718378430464

First there is the obvious difference: BCC is down county (in the beltway) while Magruder is mid county. But if we take a look at the schools at a glance data, we can see other obvious differences between the schools.

Candidate interview thread!

I have been interviewing candidates who are running in @MontgomeryCoMD on my podcast, Practically Mental.

Here is a list of people I've interviewed and the links. There's more coming!

Practically Mental is here: buzzsprout.com/1938471/ Board of Education At Large: @michaeljfryar

Buzzsprout: buzzsprout.com/1938471/105383…

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/202…

iHeartRadio: iheart.com/podcast/269-pr…

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1vVADv…

We need to take a broader view of mental health treatment and look beyond the medical model.

We’ve been stuck in an individualized treatment model. For a crisis this large and pervasive, we need to look beyond traditional psychological and psychiatric training. 🧵/rant

https://twitter.com/michaelfulwiler/status/1525447924288724992

Traditionally, mental health treatment is highly individualized. You meet with a prescriber. They prescribe medicine to adjust your individual mood and symptoms. There’s no change to the environment. The change is helping you adjust to an environment that does not meet your needs

It's time for the @BethesdaBeat virtual CE democratic candidate forum! I'll be live tweeting and doing my best to keep up. @CmHucker @hansriemer Peter James, @MontCoExec @DavidTBlair

We are about to start & @hansriemer just showed up (7:33am). I'm enjoying looking at what the candidates chose for backgrounds. @hansriemer has a guitar and an Obama poster, Peter James is drinking coffee (respect), @DavidTBlair has a campaign sign in the background, @CmHucker has a plant, and @MontCoExec has a blurred background

Never assume someone is coping well because they have not asked for help.

🧵/rant follows In much of the US, asking for help is seen as a sign of weakness. There’s a reason we, as mental health professionals, tend not to see people when the depression is just starting or people are a little anxious. We are the last resort.

“Anyone who knows anything about trauma knows it manifests itself in a variety of ways at any time. So, if anybody needs anything at all, all they need to do is reach out to a trusted adult.” From @MCPS

https://twitter.com/bethesdabeat/status/1506736715188350993

I want to unpack this a bit. @MCPS is asking students to ask for help. Adults struggle to ask for help, and yet we are asking teenagers to self advocate for help after a series of significant stressors?

Can we talk about the mental health needs of the student body @MCPS?

The students will be asking for help today at the @mocoboe meeting. They’ve been asking for awhile. Why aren’t we listening?

Here’s a few points: 1. Services need to be accessible.

I promised a discussion of some of the anxiety (and denial of anxiety) I’ve be seeing in practice. This definitely isn’t everything. Here’s a thread: 1- Fear of getting sick. It’s not just Covid. For some, the fear has generalized to any illness. I’ve seen people go to extremes to avoid illness and have developed agoraphobic type symptoms as a result. If the don’t leave their house or interact with anyone, they can’t get sick

In our meeting with @albornoz_gabe and @MCDHHSDirector, we discussed the importance of advocacy and #stoppingthestigma with mental health. I figure it’s worthwhile to discuss ways to reduce the stigma around mental health. Short 🧵 1- Talk about it.

This is the easiest way to talk about mental health. Talk about it. Normalize discussing anxiety, depression, distress, etc., especially now. There’s a lot of uncertainty and that can yield anxiety. It’s ok to feel anxious and to talk about it.