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The Importance of Building Community and Family Support with Latina Teens at Risk of Suicide
Comunilife believes that health disparities affecting the Latinx and other communities of color can be mitigated through an increase of community defined services. Comunilife’s Life is Precious™ (LIP) program is the only program specifically designed to serve Latinx adolescents who have...
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Empowering Adults to Recognize and Respond to Youth in Suicidal Distress
The statistics regarding youth mental health are not only strikingly frightening but they point to the inexcusable reality that what is currently being done to address the problem is not working. According to the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), one in five teens and young adults live...
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Clergy and Faith Communities Perspective and Role in Suicide Prevention
At a time when the suicide rates continue to increase and more lives are lost every day, it is prudent to create more awareness among the many gatekeepers and stakeholders in the community. One of the more prominent among them are CLERGY and the many different communities they serve–focusing on...
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Strengthening Protective Factors to Prevent Bullying and Suicide on Staten Island
In recent years, Staten Island (SI) has taken up the nationwide call to action to address suicidal behaviors among youth. During a May 2018 roundtable discussion on mental health issues facing youth, hosted by local elected officials and attended by a multisectoral group of professionals from...
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A South Asian Perspective on COVID-19 Trauma: A Short Overview
On May 4th, 2020, The Washington Post published an article titled as follows, “The coronavirus pandemic is pushing America into a mental-health crisis.” It talks about the rise in the mental health needs of communities and the increased call for tele-mental health services while mental health...
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Talking with Teens in Residential Treatment During COVID-19: The Opportunity in The Crisis
Teenagers who make the bold decision to enter a residential treatment program for their mental health and substance use disorders are a unique subset of the adolescent population. They are a group of young people who have committed to temporarily separating from their families, schools, communities...
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We Are All Essential: Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Supportive Housing Agency
In early March 2020, NYC was on the cusp of true panic mode related to the Coronavirus, with calls for mass isolation and social distancing, a rush to buy vast quantities of toilet paper and supplies of hand sanitizer and masks rapidly exhausted. Very little guidance was in the public domain...
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Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Behavioral Health Effects of Social Distancing and the Social Safety Net
In communities across the United States, social distancing measures are in place to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This is necessary to flatten the curve for Coronavirus infection rates and not overburden our healthcare system as there is no effective treatment or a vaccine on the horizon....
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Healthcare Workers: Remember to Care for Yourself Too
The anxiety and fear resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic can be profound, and nowhere is that more evident than with front line healthcare workers. Working long hours in substandard conditions with patients who are often very ill and highly contagious, they fear for their personal health and that...
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Housing Is Healthcare: But Only If Our Housing Infrastructure Remains Healthy
An abundance of evidence now confirms what most behavioral health professionals have suspected for many years – safe and stable housing, coupled with appropriate health and social support services, reduces recipients’ reliance on costly emergency and institutional care services (Martinez &...
