At Children’s Health Council (CHC), we believe that every child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, and our ability to support families depends on a strong foundation of community engagement and philanthropy. That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome Bettina Kohlbrenner as CHC’s new Chief Development Officer! Read more ›
Children’s Health Council is pleased to announce two key new members of our leadership team: Carlina Ramirez Wheeler, PhD, has joined as our new Director of Training, effective July 8, and Tara Keith, MS, MA has been named Director of the Esther B. Clark schools, effective July 15. We are excited to welcome both of them to CHC.
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Children’s Health Council (CHC), a leading provider of mental health and learning difference services in the Bay Area, is pleased to announce the appointment of Garfield Byrd to succeed Terence Boyle as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Garfield brings exceptional experience to CHC, having served in financial leadership roles across prominent nonprofit institutions for over 20 years.
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Students and community leaders came together for a special event to raise awareness and funds for teen mental health. The Menlo Voices for Hope student committee presented Music for Mental Health, a benefit concert April 3, 2022, with performances, speakers and art at the Spieker Center on the campus of Menlo School. Read more ›
October is the month in which we highlight the need for depression awareness and accessible and affordable mental health screenings. Read more ›
In an interview withe the Nob Hill Gazette, CHC’s Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Ramsey Khasho, offers invaluable insight on what many children, young adults and families have been facing — and invites parents to take an active approach to their children’s mental health. Read more ›
CHC has been a hub for resources for youth mental health, learning differences, ADHD, anxiety, depression and autism. The year 2023 will mark 70 years since Peninsula-based pediatrician Dr. Esther B. Clark founded Children’s Health Council as “a place where kids come first,” with its clinical services, community clinic and the Sand Hill School and Esther B. Clark Schools. Numerous points of connection, including a podcast, blog, workshops, resource library and now, telehealth access, have expanded greatly over the last year to meet increased demand. Read more ›
PALO ALTO, Calif. February 11, 2021– Twitter and Square Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has awarded Children’s Health Council (CHC) $2.5 million to support the Bay Area agency’s COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Initiative to build capacity to respond to the mental health needs of children, teens, young adults and families that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Read more ›
Nine months into the global pandemic, Riley Capuano told a grid of faces on a Zoom screen why she and her peers needed schools to reopen.
“I’ve never seen this many students struggling with mental health,” the Los Altos High School junior said during a virtual school board meeting on Dec. 14. “Being cooped up in your home all day is really, really tough. Read more ›
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Mental Health month creates awareness about the unique experiences and struggles individuals who identify as BIPOC encounter with respect to mental health. Read more ›
Mental Health Awareness Month is an opportunity to educate the community about mental and behavioral health issues, promote access to care and treatment, and reduce the stigma associated with mental health challenges. Read more ›
On Wednesday, March 4, Reddit announce that is has joined forces with Crisis Text Line, a text message based crisis support hotline, to provide counseling to users who might be at risk of self harm. Anyone on Reddit can now flag a fellow user who they think might be struggling with self-harm or suicide based on something they post on the site. Read more ›
Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps is being honored as PRWeek’s Communicator of the Year in recognition of his work to reduce stigma around depression and mental health issues. Read more ›
A screening tool developed by Bay Area pediatricians to identify adverse childhood experiences, ranging from homelessness and food insecurity to physical and sexual abuse, will now help doctors statewide address trauma affecting patients’ health. Read more ›
The U.S. Department of Education announced $71.6 million in new funding to enhance safety in schools and improve student access to mental health resources. The Depart of Education made the awards under four grant programs, which support recommendations identified in the final report issued by the Federal Commission on School Safety. Read more ›
Mental Illness Awareness Week takes place from October 6 – 12, 2019. Every year during Mental Illness Awareness Week, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) works to educate the public, eliminate stigma and advocate for better access to mental health care. Read more ›
Mental Health America (MHA) released new state rankings in its most recent report, 2020 State of Mental Health in America. Read more ›
More than 80 clergy of diverse faiths unify to issue a proclamation to stand against hatred and to stand beside those with mental illness. Read more ›
After the most recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, American Psychological Association President Rosie Phillips Davis, PhD, issued a statement in which she asserted that guns, racism, bigotry and hatred are fueling a “public health crisis” in the United States.
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California high school and middle school students will have some lifesaving information at their fingertips as they go back to school this year. Read more ›
Sarah Pistorino saw a therapist through the end of her freshman year at Sacred Heart Preparatory School. Then summer came — and with it, the end of her academic stress and fatigue — so she pressed the pause button on her therapy. But when school started up again in the fall, she felt a decline in her mental health. She now continues therapy through the summer months. Read more ›
Has your child ever lived with a parent or caregiver who had mental health issues, such as depression? Witnessed a parent or caregiver being screamed at, insulted or humiliated by another adult? Been separated from their parent or caregiver due to foster care or immigration?
Those are some of the questions on a survey that California pediatricians will use to screen millions of children for traumatic experiences beginning Jan. 1, 2020. Read more ›
Some experts think that the rise in mental health problems in youth can be tied to an event in 2007: The introduction of the iPhone. Psychologist and author Jean M. Twenge wants us to believe that the “iGen”, the generation shaped by smartphones and social media use, born between 1995 and 2012 is “on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades.” Read more ›
Children’s Health Council (CHC) mental health services coordinator Divier Wallace understands the importance of supporting his community.
“As someone who grew up in East Palo Alto during the 1990s when times were very tough, I am so pleased to be able to come back and work with my community to provide services for families in need, in their language of choice,” said Wallace, speaking at the recent grand opening of the new East Palo Alto office and clinical space of the Ravenswood Initiative, a CHC project. Read more ›
Did you know that 1 in 5 teens between the ages of 13 and 18 have or will have a serious mental illness? Or that 50% of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14 and 75% by age 24?
May is Mental Health Month was started 70 years ago by Mental Health America, to raise awareness about mental health conditions and the importance of good mental health for everyone. Read more ›
The number of young people visiting U.S. emergency rooms with psychiatric problems is rising, driven largely by a surge in teens and minority youth seeking urgent help for mental illnesses, a new study suggests. Read more ›
Roughly in six U.S. kids have at least one mental health disorder, and only about half of them receive treatment from a mental health professional, a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics suggests. Read more ›
Youth mental health nonprofit Children’s Health Council has opened a new location in East Palo Alto with the ambitious goal of serving five times as many children as the organization currently does in that community.
Children’s Health Council, which has been providing mental health services at no cost to children and families for five years in East Palo Alto, parts of Menlo Park and Redwood City, can now do so out of a physical home at 1848 Bay Road. Read more ›
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows how the effects of childhood trauma persist and are linked to mental illness and addiction in adulthood. And, researchers say, it suggests that it might be more effective to approach trauma as a public health crisis than to limit treatment to individuals. Read more ›
Many members of Generation Z — young people between 15 and 21 — have taken more active roles in political activism this year, and a new survey indicates that the state of the nation is to blame for this generation’s stress levels. Read more ›
White people enrolled in Medi-Cal access mental health treatment at about twice the rate of other ethnic groups, even though they make up fewer than a quarter of plan enrollees, new state data suggests. Read more ›
The World Health Organization has added “gaming disorder” to the list of mental health conditions.
The addition will appear in the new version the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), the WHO’s standardized list of diseases and other medical conditions used by countries around the world. Read more ›
One in seven high school students reported misusing prescription opioids, one of several disturbing results in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationwide survey of teenagers that revealed a growing sense of fear and despair among youth in the United States.
The numbers of teenagers reporting “feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” suicidal thoughts, and days absent from school out of fear of violence or bullying have all risen since 2007. The increases were particularly pointed among lesbian, gay and bisexual high school students. Read more ›
“There is so much I wish someone had told you.”
This quote, from an anonymous teenager directed to her future self, is from a new book a group of local teenagers wrote to address their sense that there is a lack of guidance to help young people cope with mental health issues. An unfiltered view of the experiences of local teens, the book aims to help any reader, young or old, better understand mental illness. Read more ›
Suicide rates have increased in nearly every state over the past two decades, and half of the states have seen suicide rates go up more than 30 percent. Suicide is a major public health issue, accounting for nearly 45,000 deaths in 2016 alone. That is why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta decided to take a comprehensive look at suicides from 1999 to 2016. Read more ›
Kaiser Permanente and two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors have teamed up for a televised message about how mental resilience helps the NBA All-Star grow as a person and as a top-level athlete — and how it can help anyone overcome day-to-day hardships and excel. Read more ›
Every day in May, throughout National Mental Health Awareness Month, the Child Mind Institute will share stories from prominent individuals speaking to their younger selves about growing up with a mental health or learning disorder. Read more ›
Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and President of the Child Mind Institute has spoken out on the Parkland shooting and the urgent need to make mental health a priority for research and action. Read more ›
Tori Wardrip, an art teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Billings, Montana, wanted to explore the benefits of art more deeply while addressing some of the mental health issues she saw students experiencing. Read more ›
Just 38 percent of parents are very confident in schools’ ability to assist a student suspected of having a mental health problem, according to a new report from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at the University of Michigan.
Most parents (77 percent) are sure schools would be able to provide first aid for minor issues, such as bleeding from a cut. But parents are less confident about a school’s ability to respond to more complex health situations, such as an asthma attack or mental health problem. Read more ›
Since July 1, 2016, Contra Costa County lost five psychiatrists who serve the county’s at-risk youth — minors in foster care and juvenile hall and victims of child sexual exploitation and domestic violence — and they have yet to replace them.
At a Family and Human Services Committee hearing on Monday, county officials responded to a civil grand jury report claiming that there is on average a 1-to-310 ratio of psychiatrists to cases of children with moderate to severe mental health issues. Sometimes it’s even worse. Read more ›
An American Psychological Association survey in 2016 found less than half of working Americans say the climate in their workplace support employee well-being.
Madalyn Parker, 26, sent an email to her team at work saying she’d be out of office for a few days to focus on her mental health. The response she received from her company’s CEO has sparked a larger discussion about what is a rarely-talked topic in the workplace. Read more ›
Mental Health Matters, a program of the Mental Wellness Center, is in place in 35 classrooms in schools in Goleta, Santa Barbara, Montecito and Buellton, helping 11- and 12-year-old children learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of six major mental illnesses: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and stress disorders, major depression, bipolar disorders, eating disorders and schizophrenia.
Mental Health Matters is an innovative curricular unit designed for students approaching or in adolescence whereby they are taught basic facts about mental wellness. Two formats are available: one for sixth graders and one for ninth graders. Students learn to recognize symptoms of mental health disorders and that treatment is available. A secondary objective is to directly address the stigma too often associated with mental illness. The goal is to increase the students’ understanding of mental illness, reduce the associated stigma and share wellness practices.
But, does program actually work? Read more ›
Libby Craig, a Palo Alto native and Gunn High School graduate, spent four hours every Sunday night for several months this year as a volunteer crisis counselor for Crisis Text Line, a free, confidential, 24/7 support service accessible nationwide by simply texting the number 741741. Recently, she joined the nonprofit organization full time and is leading Crisis Text Line’s efforts to grow the service in the Bay Area, in part in response to the youth suicide clusters in her own hometown. Read more ›
In a potential crisis crossing demographic lines, one-third of California’s 11th-graders and one-quarter of seventh-graders reported feeling chronically sad or hopeless over the past 12 months, a survey released on July 18 showed.
Among the questions, students were asked if they felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more that it stopped them from doing usual activities — symptoms of depression. Their answers, compared with the previous survey two years ago, represented a 1 percentage-point increase for ninth-graders, and less than a percentage point increase for seventh and 11th-graders.
Facebook is rolling out worldwide tools aimed at preventing suicide, expanding its reach beyond the United States. Working with mental health groups such as Forefront, Lifeline and SAVE.org, Facebook started working on suicide prevention about a decade ago after a string of teen suicides in Palo Alto.
Since then, as Facebook has grown to 1.6 billion users worldwide, social media is playing a larger role in how people — especially teens — share their thoughts and lives with others. Read more ›
Katherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, launched “Young Minds Matter,” a new series designed to lead the conversation with children about mental and emotional health.
The Duchess of Cambridge serves as a guest editor for The Huffington Post – United Kingdom to discuss problems, causes and most importantly solutions to the stigma surrounding the UK’s mental health crisis among children. Read more ›
