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Posts by Paul Costello1

A service year- Governor Moore

February 6, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Erin Cox Washington Post Feb 5th 2023

During the campaign, Moore proposed offering recent high school graduates a one-year opportunity to be paid for doing public service, either for the government or for another nonprofit. (The governor emphasized service during his first State of the State speech on Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to help him recruit the public into more volunteer work.)

His legislation would create a state agency to administer the program and broadly lays out how it would work: Young people work about 30 hours a week in a job focused on climate, education or health, earning $15 an hour and receiving a $3,000 stipend for completing the program, which would include a mentor who does career coaching and teaches financial literacy. Moore proposes to start with 200 participants in the first year and have 2,000 by the fourth.

Cost: $18 million, according to budget documents.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/04/wes-moore-legislative-agenda/

Can a counselor help a generation catch up on all the pandemic took?

February 6, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Katie Shepherd Washington Post February 5th 2023

Inside the gym at Paint Branch High School on a rainy Wednesday in January, hundreds of kids gathered during their lunch period in a distinctly pre-pandemic scene: Unmasked, they broke off into groups to play duck-duck-goose, musical chairs, jump rope and other playground games that they hadn’t experienced since the pandemic sent them home from middle school in March 2020.

The teens’ laughter boomed across the waxed floors and kids forgot about the ever-present cellphones in their pockets as they played. “This is our last year to be silly,” said Hanan Jazouli, a junior at the Montgomery County, Md., school, who bounced a rubber ball in a game of four square.

Letting kids be kids is one of the guiding sentiments for guidance counselor Felicia Kimmel, who spent the pandemic years worrying about how to help Hanan’s generation race to catch up on all they missed and cope with what they lost. The tension is taking its toll in Maryland and across the country as the number of teens who report feeling persistently sad or hopeless jumped to more than 44 percent, federal data shows.

Kimmel, 53, said her students have been struggling with resiliency, grit, persistence and perseverance. Teachers lightened workloads and let kids push deadlines during remote and hybrid learning, and students have since struggled to return to pre-pandemic demands of school work. But gradually increasing the workload and giving students academic leeway weren’t enough. She puzzled over what to do.

“Anything that’s hard, the kids seem to back down,” she said.

The crisis of student mental health is much vaster than we realize

The dark-haired woman with red glasses and an easy smile is a legacy educator and 17-year veteran of Paint Branch. She followed in the footsteps of her mother, who taught English at a middle school in New York City where she mentored an 11-year-old who would eventually grow up to be rap mogul Jay-Z.

Kimmel started her career as a teacher before becoming a counselor at Paint Branch, where nearly 60 percent of students are Black, 23 percent are Latino, and more than half qualified for the free and reduced meals servicein the 2021-2022 school year. Even before the pandemic began, students at Paint Branch High had stressful events to cope with. A student was shot while walking to school in 2018, and another brought a pellet gun to campus in January 2020. Since returning to campus, students have been in fights that end up posted to social media.

She described herself as “not always this hyper” as she speed-walked from one end of the gymnasium to the other and back again, watchful for any chance to help the kids keep the event running smoothly.

The stress-relieving recess was part of Kimmel’s ongoing wellness programming aimed at helping Paint Branch students readjust to full-time, in-person learning. Kimmel hosted occasional mindfulness programs before the pandemic, but she ramped up to weekly events this year to give kids a break from the sudden pressure of full-throttle classes and hopefully buck the increasing suicide and youth overdose rates that have been devastating communities across the country and in Montgomery County.

“I’m trying to give these kids coping strategies they may have lost during covid or may have never had,” she said. “If they can take them forward into the rest of their lives, I’ve done my small part.”

Every other Wednesday, she puts on a “coloring and tea” hour during lunch period so the teens can unwind and calm their minds. She has also organized opportunities for students to make “calming jars” filled with sequins, write about their favorite moments in gratitude journals, and spend time cuddling with Lila, a massive black-and-white Newfoundland trained as a therapy dog.

The tools are needed.One day in early 2020, Hanan, Aretha Were and Mistere Moges were working through their last semester of middle school and looking forward to the excitement of freshman year just around the corner. The next, they were sent home as the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools, businesses and other public spaces — not to return to a normal classroom for more than a year.

Now juniors at Paint Branch High School, the girls said this feels like their first real year of high school. They spent their entire freshman year in remote learning and endured hybrid classes for sophomore year at an unfamiliar campus that required constant masking and social distancing.

The adults are trying to figure out how to respond. Paint Branch High prominently features links to mental health resources on its homepage, as does Montgomery County Public Schools. Montgomery County last year allocated $8 million to launch an effort to create wellness centers at each high school in the county, and additional funds are set aside in the county executive’s proposed capital budget that is pending council approval.

Hanan, who loves her AP Chemistry class and wants to work in women’s health after college, said she feels like she is caught between still growing up — and in some ways catching up on the childhood moments she missed because of the pandemic — and starting to think about SATs, graduation, college and her looming future.

“We’re trying to figure things out in so little time,” she added.

Concerns about youths’ mental health predate the pandemic — data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that between 2009 and 2019 persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness among high school students significantly increased from about 26 percent to 37 percent. And a growing number of teens contemplated and attempted suicide during the decade before the coronavirus first emerged.

That mounting crisis rapidly accelerated in 2020 and 2021, as the isolation and stress of the pandemic weighed heavily on the shoulders of children and teens who were forced out of the classroom. Suicide rates among girls increased by more than 50 percent. And more than a third of high school students reported regularly experiencing poor mental health during the first year of the pandemic.

Many aspects of the pandemic negatively affected kids, according to researchers who identified fears related to covid-19, online learning difficulties, and increased conflict with parents as key drivers making mental health worse for young people.

Students also pointed to increased time on their phones scrolling through social media, less time socializing with peers and profoundly impaired confidence after being isolated from people outside their immediate families for so long. Not to mention the loss of more than a year that they would have spent making new friends and strengthening existing relationships if they had been in school.

“During the pandemic, you were home 24/7,” Hanan said, “it gives you a lot more time to look at yourself and just build on those insecurities that you might have already had before.”

Mistere, who plans to study biology and psychology in Maryland and eventually becoming a neonatologist, said she has noticed that her classmates seem more withdrawn and introverted now. After more than a year of finding connection through the internet, she said her peers are more likely to pull out a phone and scroll on social media when they could be spending time with friends

“It’s much easier to press a ‘friend’ button than to actually go out,” Mistere, 16, said.

Yale changes mental health policies for students in crisis

Aretha — who one day hopes to incorporate her blossoming Spanish language skills into her studies and career — said she has noticed a major shift in her teachers, who are now paying close attention to how students are coping at school. Before the pandemic, the 16-year-old said, she had never done a mental health-related activity at school. Now, she has access to counselors, social workers, and even her physics teacher does a mindfulness minute in every class.

“It seems like teachers care more now about mental health than they did before,” she said. “I think it’s a really good thing to see and I don’t want it to stop just because covid is dying down.”

Kimmel said she has already seen a new sense of community forming between the students who get a chance to meet kids outside of class and offline at her events.

During playground games in the gym, Kimmel flitted between groups of kids to make sure they had everything they needed to play unhindered. As the teens raced and jumped rope and bounced balls, even the adults supervising got swept up in the fun, joining in on games and laughing with the students.

“That’s what was so great today,” Kimmel said, “looking around and seeing the joy.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/03/maryland-teens-anxiety-counselor/

Montgomery County schools report another spate of antisemitic acts

February 6, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Nicole Asbury Washington Post Feb 6th 2023

Around the same time a vandal wrote “Jews Not Welcome” on Walt Whitman High School’s entrance sign in December, two students from the Bethesda high school’s debate team allegedly joked about using challah to lure Jewish people to the secluded Andaman Islands and burning them at the stake, according to a January email from students to the team’s parental governing board that was obtained by The Washington Post.F

Whitman’s administration investigated the incident, but Robert Dodd, the school’s principal, declined to share what the investigation found or what actions were taken, citing federal student privacy laws.

“We take every one of these incidents deeply seriously,” Dodd said in an interview. Members of the debate team and the parent board did not respond or declined to comment on the allegations described in the email.

The incident is among a raft of antisemitic events in Montgomery County’s school system in the last month. Officials from at least five schools have reported finding swastikas drawn on classroom desks. And outside of school, a Jewish man was recently assaulted at a Giant grocery store in Gaithersburg by a group of five young men, who allegedly shouted, “Yeah, do it for Kanye” — referencing rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who has repeatedly made antisemitic remarks.

School leaders warn of risingantisemitism among youth and say the incidents are affecting students’ classroom performance.

Montgomery students lament antisemitism surging in their schools

Data from the Montgomery County Police Department shows that incidents involving a bias against a religion, race or other identity are increasing. Last year, 156 incidents with a bias indicator were reported in the county, a 9 percent spike from the previous year. Race and religion were the most prevalent motivators, and most of the religious-based incidents targeted Judaism.

“It’s scary,” said Eliana Joftus, a 17-year-old Jewish student at Whitman and president of the school’s Jewish Student Union. “I think that it’s important for everyone to understand the severity of this, because it’s not just a problem that happens with one graffiti and then it goes away.”

Whitman High School became a focal point in December after its entrance sign was defaced the same week a group of Jewish students — which included Joftus — hosted a schoolwide lesson about antisemitism. Since the vandalism, Joftus said her peers have been more aware of the problem. Whitman hosted another schoolwide lesson on Jan. 18, instructingstudents on how toreport antisemitism and actively intervene when they see discrimination.

“There were definitely people who weren’t engaged at first but slowly became more interested,” said Joftus, who volunteered to help facilitate the lesson in one classroom.

No Whitman staff were present during the debate team incident, which occurred off campus,Dodd said. According to the email documenting the episode, the two students’ making the antisemitic commentsnamed specific Jewish people — including other members of the debate team — they’d burn. They included that they’d burn Jews at the stake “while playing Kanye and ‘mosque music’ at full volume,” according to the email.

Dodd, Whitman’s principal, said that in the school’s subsequent investigation, they did not find evidence that students were named as targets as alleged in the email.

“It may be an allegation, but we don’t have evidence of it,” he said. “We investigated an allegation that antisemitic statements were made about Jewish people, and that’s what we responded to in general.”

Dodd said that the two incidents that occurred at Whitman are a reflection of what’s unfolding in society at large. As principal, he has worked with the district’s restorative justice unit — which emphasizes conflict resolution and restoring positive relationships as an alternative to traditional disciplinary methods. He’s also brought in community partners — like the Jewish Community Relations Council and Anti-Defamation League — for sessions with students. He said discriminatory incidents make students feel anxious and unsafe in the classroom.

“Our responsibility as school leaders, as school staff, is to try to proactively build a strong, healthy school culture and climate,” said Dodd, who has been the principal at Whitman for five years.

School officials in Maryland strengthen requirements for Holocaust education

Since January, officials have found swastikas on desks at Tilden Middle School in Bethesda, Magruder High School in Rockville, Silver Creek Middle School in Kensington, Gaithersburg High School and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Also last month at Fallsmead Elementary School in Rockville, a fifth-grader asked a classmate if they were Jewish, and when the classmate responded yes, the fifth-grader “put his hand in the form of a weapon and made a verbal threat,” according to an email from a school administrator.

A survey published by the Anti-Defamation League in January found that 20 percent of Americans believe in six or more antisemitic tropes, which was nearly double the amount in 2019. Meredith R. Weisel, the regional director for the Anti-Defamation League’s D.C. region, said those views are spreading among youth across the United States.

Ignorance about the Jewish community has helped drive antisemitism in schools, she said. Social media has also exposed children to hate, such as comments made by Ye that praised Adolf Hitler and Nazis.

The Montgomery County school system has partnered with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington as a part of its effort to address the issue. Guila Franklin Siegel, JCRC’s associate director, said the organization has reviewedthe school district’s curriculum and protocols for addressing bias incidents. Last week, officials from both organizations held a webinar with a Holocaust survivor that had more than 500 attendees.

Schools superintendent Monifa B. McKnight and the school board condemned antisemitic acts and pledged to do more. In addition to the JCRC partnership, district schools have hosted community-wide conversations about antisemitic acts.

“As we fight these repeated acts of hate, we must challenge one another to learn and understand what antisemitism, hatred, and racism are and the harm they cause,” school leaders said in their joint statement in January.

County government leaders have also rolled out their own measures. On Monday, County Executive Marc Elrich (D) and the county council announced awarding roughly $800,000 in grants to 91 faith-based and nonprofit organizations that have experienced or are at a high-risk for hate crimes. The grants fund security personnel, training, new security cameras and other security measures for those organizations.

Council President Evan Glass (D-At Large) has also pitched forming an anti-hate task force made up of people from different racial and religious groups. The task force is focused on creating a more a inclusive community, possibly through new laws orfunding new programs, he said.

A gay politician pushed for pride events in a Maryland suburb — and was targeted by hate

“People are frightened and we have to act,” said Glass, who is Jewish and the first openly gay member elected on the county council. “We have to condemn hateful words and acts every time we see them.”

Adam Zimmerman, who teaches seventh-graders about the Holocaust at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, said children are attuned to what’s happening. His classroom lessons have often pivoted to conversations about the latest high-profile antisemitic event, like the graffiti at Whitman. The students have regularly talked about antisemitic rhetoric and tropes they’ve heard at school, like baseless claims that Jewish people control the media and the government.

“They’re seeing this every day; they’re looking at it on social media,” Zimmerman, 40, said. “For them, there’s no escaping this.”

Katie Shepherd contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/05/montgomery-county-schools-antisemitism/

Governor Moore on Service

February 2, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore emphasizes public service in speech | FOX8 WGHP

“It is also a state where there is no obstacle we cannot address, no challenge we cannot tackle,  if we are intentional, move in partnership, and commit to promoting service as a state ideal.

I only realized recently, Service, the word, comes from the Latin, servitium, which meant “slavery.” It is fitting as the first African American to deliver this speech, in a building that was built by the hands of enslaved people, that we are now putting “service” towards the good of all.

The irony is that it is service that will help save us.

On day one of my administration, I ordered the creation of the Department of Service and Civic Innovation. This was not a stunt. This was not because it sounded nice. This was because it is a fundamental part of who I am, and it’s in the DNA of this state.

Our order consolidates and elevates the agencies of state government that support service opportunities. We need to follow it with legislation, The Serve Act, that will create a Service Year Option. While our young people give back, they also lay the foundation for their future success through job training and mentorship programs, and create a lifelong habit of service to our state. Something we so desperately need.

Whether they’re preparing our state for climate change, tutoring our students, or caring for the sick, young people should have the option to perform important service today and build a foundation for our shared future.

This is the first effort of its kind in the nation, and Maryland will lead the way.

Some may ask, “Why is this important? Why should state government do this?”

Because, and you’ve heard me say this before, service is sticky.

Service, will save us.

It will save us money, through a more strategic plan and better use of resources.

Building a workforce of dedicated public servants saves us the expense of costly contractors and external vendors, and if properly managed, delivers us better results.

Spending $100 million on inefficiencies and patchwork politics is not the way to run a government.

We have the assets, we need to harness them. That’s what my plan does.

It will save us time by adding urgency, because our people will be more involved in their state government and helping one another, expediting the changes we know we need.

And it will save one another.

At a time when civic bonds are frayed, where many feel more disconnected from their neighbors than ever before, service is the antidote to the epidemic of loneliness and otherness.

Service is how we re-engage our people in the project of forming a more perfect state.

It’s time we confront the demagoguery of false choices. The idea that if one group of people wins, another must lose. Or that when a political party loses an election, they are excluded from the process of governing for the next four years.

It is time for our state to be bold, but that doesn’t mean we are being reckless.

It is also a state where there is no obstacle we cannot address, no challenge we cannot tackle,  if we are intentional, move in partnership, and commit to promoting service as a state ideal.

I only realized recently, Service, the word, comes from the Latin, servitium, which meant “slavery.” It is fitting as the first African American to deliver this speech, in a building that was built by the hands of enslaved people, that we are now putting “service” towards the good of all.

The irony is that it is service that will help save us.

On day one of my administration, I ordered the creation of the Department of Service and Civic Innovation. This was not a stunt. This was not because it sounded nice. This was because it is a fundamental part of who I am, and it’s in the DNA of this state.

Our order consolidates and elevates the agencies of state government that support service opportunities. We need to follow it with legislation, The Serve Act, that will create a Service Year Option. While our young people give back, they also lay the foundation for their future success through job training and mentorship programs, and create a lifelong habit of service to our state. Something we so desperately need.

Whether they’re preparing our state for climate change, tutoring our students, or caring for the sick, young people should have the option to perform important service today and build a foundation for our shared future.

This is the first effort of its kind in the nation, and Maryland will lead the way.

Some may ask, “Why is this important? Why should state government do this?”

Because, and you’ve heard me say this before, service is sticky.

Service, will save us.

It will save us money, through a more strategic plan and better use of resources.

Building a workforce of dedicated public servants saves us the expense of costly contractors and external vendors, and if properly managed, delivers us better results.

Spending $100 million on inefficiencies and patchwork politics is not the way to run a government.

We have the assets, we need to harness them. That’s what my plan does.

It will save us time by adding urgency, because our people will be more involved in their state government and helping one another, expediting the changes we know we need.

And it will save one another.

At a time when civic bonds are frayed, where many feel more disconnected from their neighbors than ever before, service is the antidote to the epidemic of loneliness and otherness.

Service is how we re-engage our people in the project of forming a more perfect state.

It’s time we confront the demagoguery of false choices. The idea that if one group of people wins, another must lose. Or that when a political party loses an election, they are excluded from the process of governing for the next four years.

It is time for our state to be bold, but that doesn’t mean we are being reckless.

“It is also a state where there is no obstacle we cannot address, no challenge we cannot tackle,  if we are intentional, move in partnership, and commit to promoting service as a state ideal.

I only realized recently, Service, the word, comes from the Latin, servitium, which meant “slavery.” It is fitting as the first African American to deliver this speech, in a building that was built by the hands of enslaved people, that we are now putting “service” towards the good of all.

The irony is that it is service that will help save us.

On day one of my administration, I ordered the creation of the Department of Service and Civic Innovation. This was not a stunt. This was not because it sounded nice. This was because it is a fundamental part of who I am, and it’s in the DNA of this state.

Our order consolidates and elevates the agencies of state government that support service opportunities. We need to follow it with legislation, The Serve Act, that will create a Service Year Option. While our young people give back, they also lay the foundation for their future success through job training and mentorship programs, and create a lifelong habit of service to our state. Something we so desperately need.

Whether they’re preparing our state for climate change, tutoring our students, or caring for the sick, young people should have the option to perform important service today and build a foundation for our shared future.

This is the first effort of its kind in the nation, and Maryland will lead the way.

Some may ask, “Why is this important? Why should state government do this?”

Because, and you’ve heard me say this before, service is sticky.

Service, will save us.

It will save us money, through a more strategic plan and better use of resources.

Building a workforce of dedicated public servants saves us the expense of costly contractors and external vendors, and if properly managed, delivers us better results.

Spending $100 million on inefficiencies and patchwork politics is not the way to run a government.

We have the assets, we need to harness them. That’s what my plan does.

It will save us time by adding urgency, because our people will be more involved in their state government and helping one another, expediting the changes we know we need.

And it will save one another.

At a time when civic bonds are frayed, where many feel more disconnected from their neighbors than ever before, service is the antidote to the epidemic of loneliness and otherness.

Service is how we re-engage our people in the project of forming a more perfect state.

It’s time we confront the demagoguery of false choices. The idea that if one group of people wins, another must lose. Or that when a political party loses an election, they are excluded from the process of governing for the next four years.

It is time for our state to be bold, but that doesn’t mean we are being reckless…..

Service, public service, is what will help our state reach its full potential.

…Tens of thousands of government workers throughout our state serve our people. They do so despite the fact the pay, could be better, the incoming complaints, could be fewer, the challenges, could be easier.

They do it, because, like you and I, they love our state.

Mindfulness exercises can be as effective as anxiety drugs, study shows

February 2, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Breathing and body exercises helped relieve anxiety as effectively as medications over an eight-week study of 208 people

By Amanda Morris  Washington Post January 31st 2023 E5

Practicing mindfulness to relieve anxiety can be just as effective as medication, new research shows.

A recent study published in JAMA Psychiatry showed that people who received eight weeks of mindfulness-based interventions experienced a decrease in anxiety that matched those who were prescribed escitalopram, a common anti-anxiety medication that is often prescribed under the brand name Lexapro.

A seven-point scale was used to assess anxiety among 208 participants, with a score of seven representing extreme anxiety and a score of one being normal. In both the medication and the mindfulness groups, the average score after treatment dropped from a moderate level of anxiety to a mild level of anxiety.

Both groups began the study with similar baseline scores (4.44 in the mindfulness group and 4.51 in the medication group.) By the end of the study, anxiety scores in both groups had declined to an average of 3.09 on the anxiety scale, a statistically similar change that showed the treatments to be equally effective.

Mindfulness practices such as breathing exercises have been used to treat anxiety for a long time, but this is the first study showing how effective they can be in comparison with standard treatments for anxiety disorders, said the study’s lead author, Elizabeth Hoge, who is a psychiatrist and director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Program at Georgetown University.

She believes the findings help support the use of mindfulness as a viable intervention that may be better than traditional treatments for some people, such as those who aren’t comfortable seeing a psychiatrist or who experience negative side effects from medication.

“We can’t yet predict who will do better with which type of treatment,” Hoge said. “But there’s nothing that says you couldn’t do both at the same time.”P

More health and wellness stories

Breathing, body scans and mindful movement

Mindfulness treatments used in the study included breath awareness exercises, which involve paying attention to your breath as you allow thoughts to rise, then pass through your mind before letting them go. Importantly, the practice isn’t about trying to change your breath, Hoge said, but about focusing on your breath as a way to ground yourself if any anxious thoughts arise.

Participants also completed exercises such as a body scan, which involves paying attention to different parts of the body, and mindful movement, which includes stretching the body into different positions and noticing how each movement feels.

Those who received the eight-week mindfulness intervention attended a weekly 2.5-hour-long class with a mindfulness teacher, completed daily at-home exercises for 45 minutes, and attended a one-day mindfulness retreat five or six weeks into the course.

When anxiety becomes a habit

The reason mindfulness may help with anxiety is that it can interrupt a negative feedback loop in the brain, said Jud Brewer, director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and chief medical officer at Sharecare, a digital health company. Brewer believes that anxiety is a habit driven by negative reinforcement in the brain.

When we have a situation orthought that triggers our anxiety, worrying about it can feel rewarding in the brain, he said. “It can give people a sense of control even though they don’t have any more control than if they didn’t worry,” Brewer said.

Trying to stop worrying using willpower doesn’t work, he said, because it doesn’t change the way your brain works. But mindfulness can help train your brain to have new habits because it helps you to recognize that worrying is not rewarding and provides an alternative sense of control that feels better than worrying, Brewer said. He helped develop an app for mindfulness training called Unwinding Anxiety and in a small, randomized study, showed that using the app significantly reduced people’s anxiety.

How mindfulness can change the brain

Other studies have shown that practicing mindfulness can rewire the brain, leading to long-term changes in behavior and thinking, said Sara Lazar, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

In people who worry a lot, a part of the brain called the default mode network can become overactive, causing their minds to wander toward negative or anxious thoughts more often, Lazar said. But research shows that meditation and mindfulness exercises can help turn off this part of the brain and make it less active by training people to refocus, she explained.

Mindfulness training also has been shown to reduce activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that helps regulate fear, stress and other emotions, she said. And, her research suggests that these types of changes can be long lasting.

“People who go through these programs, even if they discontinue, continue to report benefits months later,” Lazar said. “It’s like learning to ride a bike, even if you stop, you can do it again.”

Gripped by anxious thoughts

Julie Rose, 48, of Provo, Utah, decided to try mindfulness in 2018 when she realized that while medications helped with her anxiety, she needed additional coping strategies. She was finding it hard to focus at her job as a podcast host and had trouble sleeping. Her anxious thoughts “gripped” her, she said, and trying to control them by ignoring them or redirecting her anxious energy wasn’t helping.

She signed up for eight weeks of mindfulness classes. At first, she didn’t feel like the breathing or bodily awareness exercises were working — she still had anxious thoughts and felt like she couldn’t quiet them.

Then after a few weeks, she realized that though she couldn’t stop her anxious thoughts, with meditation, she could acknowledge them in a way that they passedmore easily and quickly. On days that she meditated, she slept better and felt better overall, she said.

“I used to think this was stupid but it really works,” she said. “It allows the anxiety to keep on moving right on through me.”

How to practice mindfulness for anxiety

The more someone practices mindfulness, the more they will benefit, but even doing a few short exercises a few times a week can lessen anxiety, said Katherine Cullen, a licensed psychotherapist at Juniper Therapeutic Services in New York. While many studies on mindfulness involve a more significant time investment ofover eight weeks, Cullen often suggests her patients start small with a simple breathing exercise for two minutes a few times a week.

She said that, at first, mindfulness exercises may feel uncomfortable, because people aren’t used to dealing with their emotions or anxious thoughts.

“Think of it like exercise. You might go for a walk after being inactive for a while and it might feel uncomfortable,” she said. “The key, like with exercise, is to be consistent about it.”

If someone is interested in trying mindfulness exercises, she advised they shouldn’t change their medications without consulting their prescribing physician or psychiatrist, and they should look for a practitioner or coach who is certified in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which is an evidence-based form of mindfulness training. People can also try searching for centers affiliated with the nonprofit, Buddhist organization Insight Meditation Society, many of which offer donation-based mindfulness classes.

“If you’re new to mindfulness and have never done it before, I would strongly encourage you to do it with someone else,” Cullen said. “It’s really helpful to have someone there to actively guide you through it and answer any questions you might have.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/01/23/mindfulness-meditation-anxiety-medication/


Facts for Black History Month

February 2, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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W. E. B. Du Bois - Wikipedia

(1) E.B. DuBois was the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard University and Carter G. Woodson was the second to get a PhD from Harvard. DuBois got his in 1895 and
Woodson got his in 1912. Woodson is also known as the father of Black History Month.

2) That in 1951 Althea Gibson was the first African American female to play at Wimbledon and in 1957 she won the Wimbledon singles & doubles championship, also in 1957 she won the US Open and the French Open in 1958 thus becoming the first African American
female to win all three.

3) That by the age of ten, Katherine Johnson was in high school. In 1961 she calculated the trajectory of NASA”s first trip into space. She was so consistently accurate that when NASA began to use computers, they had her to check the calculations to make sure they were correct.  Taraji P. Henson  played her in the movie Hidden Figures.

4) Cuba Gooding, Jr. made history as the youngest African American male actor to win an Oscar at age 29 for the movie Jerry Maguire.

5) Jim Carrey said: “Brilliant Black minds gave me a shot in Hollywood when none of the white guys thought I could connect or be a leading man”. I got my first starring role because of “In Living Color” and Ivory & Damon Wayans.

6) That James Wormley Jones was appointed as the first African American FBI special agent in November of 1919. Strange but true. He served as a special agent for the FBI from 1919 to 1923. He also served as a Washington DC Metropolitan Policeman from 1905 to 1917 when he joined the Army and fought in WWI with the rank of captain. He fought under the French flag due to racial segregation in America. Before the FBI became the FBI it was called the Bureau of Investigation and was under the leadership of its director A. Bruce Bielaski.  J. Edgar Hoover was Mr. Jones supervisor and when J. Edgar became director of the FBI in 1923, Mr. Jones left. I wonder why Mr. Jones left.

7) That since 1989 when Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders made Art Shell the head coach, Shell became the first African American head coach in modern NFL history.  And since then, out of 197 hirings only 24 have been African Americans and 3 were Hispanic. In (2022) there are only three African American head coaches in the NFL. In contrast, in basketball as of today there are 30 teams in the NBA and a little over half of the head coaches are African American in the NBA (National Basketball Asso.). Ron Rivera is the lone Latino NFL coach in2022. Tom Floreswas the first Latino head football coach in the NFL. Like Shell he coached the Raiders

8) That Tom Flores was the first Latino quarterback in the NFL, (he was in the AFL) and played for the Raiders. He issued also one of only two men in professional football to play in a Superbowl, be an assistant coach in a Superbowl, and be the head coach in a Superbowl. And he was the first Latino NFL coach to win a Superbowl.

9) That Jim Plunkett was the first Latino to win a Superbowl as a quarterback and the first and only Latino to be named MVP of a Superbowl. He was also the first minority to play quarterback in a Superbowl and win along with being Latino.

10) Doug Williams was the first African American quarterback to start in a
Superbowl and win when he took the Washington Redskins to victory in Superbowl XXII and was named MVP also.

11) Former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt was the first African American woman to serve as mayor of a major American city.

Packed session offers advice and a lifesaving giveaway as local overdoses rise

January 30, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Laura Meckler and  Tara Bahrampour

Hundreds of parents, students and school staff filled the cafeteria of Clarksburg High School in Montgomery County on Saturday morning to learn about the spiraling fentanyl crisis and receive training on how to administer a lifesaving treatment that can reverse the effect of an opioid overdose.

“This is a call to action,” said Patricia Kapunan, medical officer for Montgomery County Public Schools.

The number of youth drug overdoses has spiked, she said, even as overdose incidents in the county overall have fallen. The reason: fentanyl, a deadly compound 50 times as powerful as heroin and 100 times as powerful as morphine. It is increasingly present in other drugs.

“The availability of this powerful illicit drug is what is driving these incidents,” she said.

Youth overdoses, which include victims under the age of 21, rose by 77 percent in Montgomery County last year. The county tallied 48 youth overdoses last year, including 11 that were fatal, according to Montgomery County Police Department data.

Attendees on Saturday ranged from those who didn’t know much about the crisis and wanted to learn more, to at least one parent who said her son is actively using fentanyl and wanted information about how to help him.

Theresa Kliever said she was at a loss for how to help her 15-year-old son. She had watched him break down in tears in her bathroom, saying he wanted to change, but she has also chased him down at a motel, where he was buying or using drugs.

“I literally banged on the Motel 6 room,” she said.

Fentanyl’s deadly surge: From Mexican labs to U.S. streets, a lethal pipeline

“He’s out all day long doing I don’t know what,” she said. Her efforts to get him help have so far not worked, she said.

Kliever, 48, left the forum still unsure of how to help her son but with one safeguard in her bag: a two-pack of Narcan, a nasal spray that blocks the effects of opioids and helps restore breathing. The forum ended with a training on how to administer the treatment, which involves pushing the spray into either nostril, waiting for it to take effect and, if necessary, administering a second dose. Attendees lined up for the Narcan packs.

Kliever said she was happy to have the Narcan, known generically as naloxone, “just in case.” Whether she’ll need to use it some day: “I hope not,” she said. “I hope not.”

Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Among children, fatal drug overdoses had been steady for about a decade at around 500 per year. Then, in just two years, they more than doubled, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the rise was due to fentanyl, which was identified in 84 percent of adolescent overdose deaths from 2019 to 2021.

Users often start by taking a quarter of a pill of the powerful opioid; as their body adjusts to the drug, they might increase to four or five pills a day, said Sivabalaji Kaliamurthy, a child and adolescent addiction psychiatrist at Children’s National Hospital. He added that addiction happens faster with fentanyl than with heroin.

Schools in Montgomery County and the District have Narcan on hand to administer in cases of overdose, and families should too, Kaliamurthy said.

“To me it’s like having a fire extinguisher at home — you hope to never need it, but if you do, you’re glad that you have it,” he said.

Montgomery County youth overdoses increased 77% in 2022

The District’s Department of Health distributes Narcan free at some locations, he said. In Montgomery County one can walk into a fire station and request it. In Virginia, he said, it is available at pharmacies.

Saturday’s event included a session in which officials from schools, police and community organizations answered questions. Most of the questions were posed by high school students, many of whom wanted to know what was being done to combat the problem and how to make sure the message about the dangers was getting to people who need to hear it.

One student asked what the county was doing about the supply of drugs to students, including the fact that students are sometimes getting them from one another.

Nicholas Picerno, director of the county police’s special investigations division, replied by making clear that students who report an overdose are not at risk of arrest, even if they are at the scene with illegal drugs.

“My detectives have no interest in arresting and prosecuting high school-age students, youth, for possessing a drug,” he said. “Our investigative resources are always going to be spent on source supply.”

Picerno also detailed some of the many hazards presented by fentanyl. Some are manufactured in rainbow colors to look like candy and appeal to young people, he said. “Youth are being targeted.”

He also warned that if 10 random pills were taken and analyzed in a lab, some may be found to not have any fentanyl at all, some would have “just enough to get you high,” and some would have so much drug that one single dose will kill.

“That’s what’s really scary about this problem,” he said.

Another teen asked the panel about a personal situation: “How can I help support my friend while her parent is going through this right now?” Panelists replied with resources including Al-Anon, a support group for relatives and friends of people with addiction.

“I just want to commend you for being a great friend,” added Henok Solomon, program director at the Landing, an adolescent recovery program at Sheppard Pratt.

Five down in Apt. 307: Mass fentanyl deaths test a Colorado prosecutor

Many of the parents at Saturday’s forum had no experience with the drug but wanted to learn more.

“As a parent, you’re going to be nervous,” said Sreeni Talasila, whose son is in middle school. “The fact that my kid might not even know he’s taking fentanyl” is terrifying. He recalled the officer’s description of the rainbow-colored pills. “Which kid can resist candy?”

He said that on a scale of one to 10, his nervousness was at about an eight.

Laura Francois attended the forum because she is concerned by the trends in the community. After learning more, she said she planned to broach the subject with her 15-year-old nephew.

“I will bring up drug use — very carefully,” she said. “Teenagers tend to shut down. They see us as old fogies. I have to be very careful how I approach that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/28/fentanyl-child-student-overdose-montgomery-county-mcps/

Cyberbullying affects almost half of American teens. Parents may be unaware.

January 27, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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By Elizabeth Chang.    washington post january 19th 2023

A new survey about teens and social media shows that nearly half of teens say they have been cyberbullied. In a separate survey administered to a parent of each teen, the adults ranked cyberbullying as sixth out of eight concerns about social media. Their top concern was their child being exposed to explicit content.

The survey results, released by Pew this week, aren’t surprising, said Devorah Heitner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World.” “There’s just so much online aggression — aggression because of online disinhibition and the ways that we forget there’s another human being on the other end of the screen.”

Parents might be more aware of the fact that pornography is widely available online than of the explicit harassment that some kids are facing, she said, which could account for the fact that only 29 percent said they were extremely or very concerned about their child being harassed or bullied.

The teen survey found that 46 percent of kids ages 13 to 17 had experienced at least one of six cyberbullying behaviors, while 28 percent have experienced multiple types. The behaviors and the percentages of teens experiencing them were:

  • Offensive name-calling (32 percent).
  • Spreading of false rumors about them (22 percent).
  • Receiving explicit images they didn’t ask for (17 percent).
  • Constantly being asked where they are, what they’re doing or who they’re with by someone other than a parent (15 percent).
  • Physical threats (10 percent).
  • Having explicit images of them shared without their consent (7 percent).

The report noted that “15- to 17-year-old girls stand out for being particularly likely to have faced any cyberbullying, compared with younger teen girls and teen boys of any age. Some 54% of girls ages 15 to 17 have experienced at least one of the six cyberbullying behaviors, while 44% of 15- to 17-year-old boys and 41% of boys and girls ages 13 to 14 say the same.”

The survey of 1,316 teens, conducted April 14 to May 4, cannot be compared with the last Pew report on this subject, released in 2018, because the methodology and sampling practices were changed for this year’s survey, according to Pew researchers Emily Vogels and Monica Anderson. That means the organization cannot say whether 2022 results reflect an increase or decrease in cyberbullying since 2018.

Heitner thinks the report can be helpful for parents in that it lays out a range of behaviors that some parents might not have been aware of or might not have thought of as cyberbullying. And, she said, all parents should be alert to cyberbullying, even if they think their child is not a victim or a perpetrator, because teens who observe these behaviors can still be affected by them.

“If your kid is on a group text and some other kid is being called a slur, a homophobic slur or a racist slur, your kid is still going to be affected by it,” she said. It’s important for parents to talk to their kids about the climate of the social media sites or group chats they frequent, she added. If a child is going on a new YouTube channel or following someone new on TikTok, parents can ask questions such as: “What is the vibe like?” “Are the comments mean?” “Are the comments racist?”

The fact that name-calling is the No. 1 kind of cyberbullying is not unexpected, “because there’s so much of that going on in our culture,” Heitner said. She also said that younger teens in particular may be confused about what terms are appropriated, because “there’s so much re-appropriation of historically offensive names, whether by the queer community or the Black community or other communities.”

Parents “need to let their own kids know that they can be very accountable for things that they say, that anything you say to someone, even if you feel like you’re joking, could be screenshotted” and shared with others and with authorities. “If in doubt, don’t say it. Don’t share it if you think it could be hurtful, if it’s unsubstantiated, certainly if you don’t have consent to share a picture, don’t share it. And if it’s explicit, don’t share it. Even if you do have consent, just don’t share explicit pictures.”

What parents are getting wrong about teens and sexting

In a separate questionnaire administered to a parent of the teens surveyed, the parents ranked their top concerns as:

  • Being exposed to explicit content (46 percent).
  • Wasting too much time on social media (42 percent).
  • Being distracted from completing homework (38 percent).
  • Sharing too much about their personal life (34 percent).
  • Feeling pressured to act a certain way (32 percent).
  • Being harassed or bullied by others (29 percent).
  • Experiencing problems with anxiety or depression (28 percent).
  • Experiencing lower self-esteem (27 percent).

A majority of the parents — 57 percent — said they at least sometimes checked their teens’ social media activities, with 49 percent saying they often or sometimes set limits for social media use. Black parents were more likely than Hispanic or White parents to check their teens’ social media activity.

New school mental health days? How parents can make them work for kids.

Heitner suggested that parents who are worried about the time their children are spending on social media implement a no-double-screen rule, meaning kids can’t have their phones with them while working on homework. She also suggested checking in with a child who seems glued to their phone, to make sure they aren’t being targeted. Most important, however, is making sure that kids unplug at night, even if it means shutting off the WiFi for kids up to the age of high school seniors.

It’s difficult for teens to regulate themselves if they have a connected device in their bedroom, which could affect their sleep. “And if they’re not getting sleep,” she said, “that’s going to hit their mental health. That’s going to hit their physical health, that’s going to hit their school performance or their athletic performance and nothing good ever happens.”

Teens do think their parents are doing a good job in one way: combating online abuse. “What we saw is that 66 percent of teens said that how their parents were handling online harassment, they were doing an excellent or very good job,” said Pew’s Vogels. The percentages of adults that kids thought were doing an excellent or good job at handling online harassment went down from there: teachers (40 percent), law enforcement (37 percent), social media sites (25 percent) and elected officials (18 percent).

Vogels said the team asked several new questions in this survey. “We asked the reasons that teens thought that they may have been targeted for harassment. And … physical appearance topped the list,” at 15 percent. Other reasons were gender (10 percent), race or ethnicity (9 percent), sexual orientation (5 percent) and political views (5 percent). Black teens were more likely than Hispanic or White teens to say their race made them a target.

“We also asked about a couple different tactics that teens thought … would be effective or not in combating harassment online,” Vogels said. “Half of teens thought that criminal charges would be an extremely effective tactic for curbing harassment they might face online. Half also thought that permanently banning users who harass others from their accounts would also help.”

Forty-two percent of teens think that monitoring and deleting posts also would be highly effective. But, Heitner noted, several major social media companies are laying off content moderators. “So we know that things are about to get bad, if they weren’t already.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/16/cyberbullying-teens-social-media-pew/

ChatGPT Turns Lincoln to Poetry

January 26, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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May be an image of 3 people

Asking the AI ChatGPT to be creative like turn the Gettysberg address into a Shakespearian sonnet and this is what we got

Four score and seven years before this day,
Our fathers brought forth on this continent
A new nation, born of Liberty’s own say,
And dedicated to the firmament
That all men are created equal,
which we Now test in civil war that rages on.
We come here to this battlefield to lay
The bodies of those fallen, who were gone
So that this nation might live on. But we
Cannot consecrate this ground in any way,
For it is hallowed by the bravery
Of those who fought and died here. The world may
Forget the words we speak, but never the deeds
Of those who fought and died with noble creeds.




Wes Moore is serious about service

January 26, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Ask what you can do for your country!

Opinion by David Gergen, CNN Senior Political Analyst January 26th 2023 Erie News

Traveling across the country in recent years, I discovered a sure way to fire up an audience: issue a call to young people for a year of service to others.

“It’s called national service,” I tell people. “Sometime between the ages of 18 to 24 or so, we offer you an option to spend a year helping others — assisting teachers in classrooms, volunteering in a local hospital, reducing global warming and the like. For every year of service, you will receive not only a base salary, but you will also earn a scholarship to reduce future education debt.”

Audiences clap loudly. They know from experience that spending a year or more in a military uniform often stiffens a spine and focuses the mind. It is obvious to most folks that a year of domestic service can have a similar impact.

Polling shows that Americans support national service. A 2017 Harvard Institute of Politics poll found that more than 60% of young Democrats and Republicans favored “a national service program for Americans under the age of 25 that would be linked to student loan forgiveness or other relevant incentives.”

Around the world, dozens of countries require some form of service — a list that includes Denmark, South Korea and Israel.

Yet, it has been nearly impossible to translate support for service into large-scale programs here in the United States. Presidents from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama have spoken warmly of service years but have never come close to implementing what other nations have pulled together.

Every White House has had higher priorities. Partisanship gets in the way, idealism dims. Service years seem just out of reach.

Until now!

From the day of his massive election victory this past November, Wes Moore has emerged at the age of 44 to be one of the most promising young leaders in the country.

He is not only the first Black man to be elected governor of Maryland; he is the only third to be elected governor of any state in US history. More to the point, he is inspirational, recalling the early days of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

During his recent campaign, Moore often talked about the importance of service to others but it’s hard during any campaign to evaluate how sincerely committed a candidate will be once in office.

Well, Moore’s inaugural address last week settled it: he is hugely serious. While many details are still to be ironed out, he sent waves of excitement through social change agents as he has pledged three major advances.

  • First, he promises to ensure that every high school graduate in Maryland has an option to spend a year in service.
  • Second, students from other states who spend a year in service in Maryland can lower their public college tuition requirements to those of in-state students.
  • And third, by executive order, he has already created a new cabinet level Department of Service and Civic Innovation.

It is a myth, Moore argues, to believe that the only path to success and fulfillment is to study at an elite university. As Martin Luther King Jr. observed in a 1968 sermon, “Everybody can be great… because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve… You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”

It was in that same spirit of service that Wes Moore signed up for the US Army at 17 and went on to lead combat troops in Afghanistan in the famous 82nd Airborne. “My years of service transformed me,” he said in his inaugural . “My character was strengthened, my vistas were widened, my leadership was tested.”

“A year of service will prepare young people for their careers — and provide our state with future leaders: public servants we desperately need.”

No doubt, there will be distractions and disappointments ahead for the new governor, who is a Democrat. His incoming administration has a long and demanding agenda on several fronts. Maryland currently incarcerates more young Black men than any other state, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Justice Policy Institute, and has a racial wealth gap of nearly 8-1.

But make no mistake, coming off his rousing inaugural and working with Republicans like Larry Hogan, his popular predecessor, Wes Moore has the potential to do something very special: turning Maryland into a national model for service and leadership.

The-CNN-Wire
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https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/48240559/opinion-wes-moore-is-serious-about-service