Latest news with #Tacoma-PierceCountyHealthDepartment
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump's anti-DEI push ‘politicizes' Pierce County teen mental health guidance
Amid the Trump administration's push to roll back programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion, terms like 'sexual assault' and 'gun violence' were removed from a national mental health program designed to train youth to identify and respond to signs of mental health crisis. Instructors who continue teaching previous guidance will lose their certifications starting in 2026, according to the nonprofit National Council for Wellbeing, which administers the program. The curricula changes, which Tacoma instructors say comes in contrast with evidence-based research, could undermine the program's success in Pierce County and nationally at a time when rates of anxiety, depression, suicide and violence are rising among youth. The Teen Mental Health First Aid program (tMHFA) is currently taught in many Pierce County schools and community organizations. Over several sessions students in the program learn how to identify, understand and respond to common mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, mood disorders, trauma, psychosis and substance use disorders. Youth also learn how to support others and how to get help from a safe, trusted adult. As of March, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department had trained more than 6,600 youth and 255 adults in the tMHFA program at 32 host sites since December 2022. In May, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing updated its tMHFA curriculum to remove several videos, including a series featuring a transgender youth's mental health journey and recovery. In addition, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing omitted words like 'sexual assault' as an example of trauma and any mention of 'gun violence' and 'school shootings.' The National Council for Mental Wellbeing told The News Tribune in a statement last week the organization 'remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing lifesaving legislation and strengthening the mental health and substance use safety net system across the country.' 'Public funding at both the federal and state levels is essential to that mission. Consequently, our organization and all those that implement Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) must adhere to all applicable federal and state guidelines, executive orders and mandates to ensure our curriculum remains compliant and our services widely accessible to help as many people as possible,' it said June 3. 'In response to recent changes in federal guidance and newly issued executive orders, we have updated our curricula. These updates do not alter the foundational elements of MHFA.' Irene Tung, with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, said via email June, 'While 'sexual assault,' 'gun violence' and 'mass shootings' were included in a long list of examples of trauma in our previous curriculum, we didn't teach about any of these topics in-depth, so we reframed the examples to be broader in the updated curriculum. For example, instead of 'gun violence,' we now say 'weapon.'' Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department communications director Kenny Via told The News Tribune in a June 4 email that the department remains 'committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of all Pierce County youth.' 'Our program in Pierce County is accredited through the National Council and our instructors are certified through the organization as well,' he said. 'As such, we have reviewed the changes and are working with our instructors and local partners to determine any areas of the curriculum we may need to supplement with additional resources.' Aran Myracle is a drop-in coordinator at the Oasis Youth Center in Tacoma and has been a tMHFA certified instructor teaching the course to LGBTQ+ youth in Pierce County for two years. Myracle said Friday it's not unheard of to see changes to the curricula, but these changes went farther than that. 'I wanted to cry when the changes came down. This is such an important curriculum to deliver to youth, and it's really frustrating to see it politicized and have the way we're delivering this curriculum to youth change, not because we've decided through evidence-based research that it would be better if we did it this way,' he said. 'It's someone's political agenda saying, 'We don't want sexuality and gender to be talked about, so we're going to take out any mentions of those.' 'We don't want guns to be demonized at school, so we're not going to talk about gun violence in schools anymore.'' Although the original curricula didn't dive into gun violence or mass shootings in depth, Myracle said, the training is highly interactive and often generated organic discussions about these topics among youth. 'I genuinely feel that youth are traumatized by going through gun violence drills at school, and it's something that is impacting their lives,' he said. 'The ability to talk about that openly, I think, is important [when] talking about youth mental health and first aid.' One of the most memorable parts of the training were several videos following 'Novak,' a real transgender teen who talked about his mental health journey, which included questioning his gender identity, withdrawing from his friends, being hospitalized for suicidality and recovering to a happy, healthy life, Myracle said. Those videos provided a positive message to teens, especially LGBTQ+ youth, to say that struggles 'could be part of your story, but it's not the end of your story,' he said. 'Removing Novak's videos removes a very important tool for reaching queer youth,' Myracle said. 'They don't see anyone like themselves in the curriculum anymore, and we know that it's very important for youth to see people who are like themselves represented when they're learning new skills and learning about new things.' Youth of color, LGBTQ+ youth and youth experiencing homelessness are more likely to experience sexual violence, and sexual assaults against youth often take place in the child's school, neighborhood or home, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, according to NSVRC. A vast majority of child sexual abuse (around 80%) is perpetrated by someone known to the child, said Carlyn Sampson, the executive director of the Rebuilding Hope sexual assault center in Tacoma. Sampson said she was 'really discouraged' and 'disappointed' to see the changes to the tMHFA guidance. Over the years Rebuilding Hope has sent providers to the trainings and found benefit in its guidance. Although none of its staff are required to complete the training or adhere to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing's guidance, Sampson said she would reconsider directing people to the guidance in the future. While some might write off the tMHFA changes as semantics, Sampson argued the impacts are far-reaching. Words and language 'names and frames' people's experiences and realities, and the term 'sexual assault' exists as its own very specific form of violence, she said. 'To take away those words is to erase those survivors themselves, to erase those experiences and to erase an entire field that has decades of history of moving the needle forward on better defining, creating policy changes, changes in the law about how sexual violence crimes, how sex crimes against children, against adults, get defined,' she said. Sampson said some human service organizations and nonprofits are finding themselves 'very much in conflicting spaces of not knowing what they are allowed to do' or how to fulfill their missions with new federal and state laws. 'I'm going to operate [on] an assumption that they are just as much caught in a place of conflict and confusion,' she said. 'If nothing else, maybe this story or any further discourse that is generated by this, helps them to pause and realize that there may also be an opportunity, if they have the resources, to stand in defiance of this national guidance.' Rebuilding Hope Sexual Assault Center provides services to any individual whose life has been impacted by sexual assault. Rebuilding Hope's 24/7 Helpline is 1-855-757-7273.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
It's supposed to bring medical care to the homeless. Why isn't it operational?
Nearly six months after being announced, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department's program to provide health care to those living unhoused in the region is still not up and running. Some people are worried and wonder if the program will ever become what was promised. In October 2024, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department (TPCHD) and the City of Tacoma announced the Street Medicine Pilot Program — funded by a $1 million grant from the Washington State Health Care Authority. According to an Oct. 22 news release announcing the program, the street medicine teams would be composed of medical and behavioral health professionals, including a medical provider, a behavioral health professional and a community health worker. 'This program will bring crucial healthcare services directly to people living unsheltered,' the release stated. 'The program will deploy specially trained Street Medicine Teams to provide care to individuals living in encampments, tent cities, vehicles, and other unsheltered locations.' During a Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness meeting on May 2, a representative from the department gave an update on the program. Bianca Shell, program manager for the street medicine program, said the department is working on hiring staff for the team. She was hired in March. Shell reported the program had hired two peer-support specialists, a homelessness liaison and a nurse with a behavioral health background. She said the department is in negotiations with a medical doctor and a nurse practitioner. Shell said the program likely would not be fully staffed until September 2025. She attributed the delay to an overall shortage in healthcare specialists following the pandemic and said the organization of Pierce County's street medicine team is different than in other places with similar programs. Shell said in other places teams are organized and operated directly by healthcare providers, such as hospitals or clinics. Pierce County's is being facilitated by the health department, which typically does not administer health care. 'I don't know the exact reasons as to why not, but that puts us at a disadvantage. Because you have a health department who is trying to stand up this team when the health department historically has not done this kind of work,' Shell told members of the coalition. 'So that also accounts for some of the delay.' By late June, Shell said she anticipates being able to deploy large vans in the community to distribute supplies and offer medical exams in some capacity. She said the program will have to form partnerships to be able to host the vans in parking lots and other areas with encampments. To date, the program has distributed hygiene kits and opioid overdose-reversing medicine around the community. She estimated the program has helped distribute supplies to more than 500 people. Sally Perkins is a local homeless advocate who does volunteer street outreach in Tacoma's Hilltop Neighborhood. During the May 2 meeting, Perkins expressed some of her frustrations with the rollout of the program. 'This is the first truthful presentation we have had on street medicine yet,' Perkins said following Shell's presentation. 'We've been gaslighted for months.' Perkins said the timeline and progress of the program has been 'obfuscated' by both the City of Tacoma and TPCHD. 'Fast forward to May 2025. Still not up and running,' Perkins wrote to The News Tribune in an email. 'Handing out supplies is something that random volunteers like ME can do … for free.' Perkins told The News Tribune she is concerned the street medicine team would not be what was promised — a program that brings health care 'directly' to those who need it. She said she did not like the plan to park a street medicine van in one location and require those living unhoused to find it, which she said could be difficult for sick and mobility-impared individuals. During the 2024 survey of those living unhoused in Pierce County, volunteers counted 2,661 people living unhoused in a single night. Of those surveyed, 25% reported having a chronic health condition, and 22% reported having a physical disability. 'This is not true street medicine and was not the intent of the original Legislative proviso, as I understand that proviso,' Perkins wrote to The News Tribune. 'And as far as I can see, there is no way for me, who is out talking to unsheltered people fairly regularly, to call this team directly and get them to show up when they are needed.'
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Planned schoolyard overhaul in Tacoma on pause with anticipated federal funding cut
Federal money awarded to a Tacoma public school for schoolyard upgrades appears to be among U.S. government cancellations of various grants issued during the Biden administration. On Friday, The News Tribune reported on the loss of a $1 million grant awarded from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department for wildfire prevention/education for portions of Pierce County. Also among the 10 Washington programs to receive funding in that 2023 EPA award cycle was Tacoma Public Schools. That $1 million grant was for a project described in the funding announcement as work 'to transform an outdated schoolyard at Larchmont Elementary into a vibrant green space.' Internal EPA documents released by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works include a list of about 400 grants totaling more than $1.7 billion targeted for elimination. The list included the Larchmont program, listed as 'Environmental Justice at Larchmont Elementary.' Kathryn McCarthy is assistant director of communications for Tacoma Public Schools. In response to questions from The News Tribune, McCarthy said via email that the district had not yet received any letter from the EPA regarding the Larchmont funding, 'but expect it is forthcoming.' Unlike other projects that received money at the time, McCarthy said the schools' project had not begun. 'Work was slated to start this spring and ramp up over the summer to minimize disruption to student learning,' she wrote. 'As work has not commenced, we have not accessed our grant funds.' McCarthy added, 'Given policy signals from EPA Administrator (Lee) Zeldin, volume of termination letters issued to other grantees, and the high number of grantees who have found their funds frozen mid-project, our project remains on pause.' The 10 projects in Washington state originally totaled $8.2 million and were described by the agency as environmental-justice projects, aimed to 'ensure disadvantaged communities that have historically suffered from underinvestment have access to clean air and water and climate resilience solutions.' The Trump administration has sought to roll back and cancel previous environmental-justice programs, with the current EPA labeling such spending as 'wasteful.' In a letter to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, the agency determined that its wildfire program 'no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.' Congressional Democrats have contended the terminations are unlawful, and various other grant cancellations are being challenged in court. In 2023, The News Tribune reported on how Larchmont was among five school sites in a pilot program that aimed to boost public green space settings in different areas of Tacoma to increase the percentage of Tacoma residents living within a 10-minute walk of a public park. Larchmont would be the last of five revamped community schoolyards. Sites at Helen B. Stafford Elementary and Jennie Reed Elementary are open, while Whitman Elementary and Mann Elementary are scheduled for openings this spring. According to the national nonprofit Trust for Public Land, a partner in the project, Tacoma has the largest park-access gap of any major city in Washington state. Its online page describing the project noted that the Larchmont project would benefit 370 students and that 1,102 residents live within a 10-minute walk of the site. Parks Tacoma, another project partner, describes the current schoolyard property on its website as 'a simple playground, a well-worn natural turf field, and vacant grassy area. The grassy area represents a multitude of opportunities to bring the community's vision to life for this play space.' In response to questions, Parks Tacoma said in a statement, 'We're disappointed at the prospect that this project may not move forward in such an underserved community. Larchmont Community Schoolyard would meet both a need for children to have a safe playground and for roughly 1,100 people to have a park within a 10-minute walk of their home.' With the Larchmont program paused, other sources for funding will need to be considered. 'We expect that we, with our partners Parks Tacoma and Trust for Public Land, will need to identify alternative funding sources to bring the Larchmont schoolyard park project to life,' McCarthy wrote. In the Spotlight is a News Tribune series that digs into the high-profile local issues that readers care most about. Story idea? Email newstips@
