Again, thank you for listening over the past six months. This site will be removed from libsyn within the next week or so. My audience never really grew beyond 60+ listeners per week; therefore, it's time for me to move on to other ventures. I'm not sure if there's another podcast out there like G News Central Podcast....hopefully, there is because I really felt this one filled a void for counselors--especially those working in a school setting. To everyone, I wish you good mental health!

The Final Show
I'd like to thank everyone for the support these past six months. I'm sad to say good-bye, but the podcast never really took off as I hope it would so, for now, it's time for me to bid adieu. Again, thanks to all of my long-term listeners for staying subscribed! I really do appreciate it. (It meant the world to me.) Until we meet again, I bid you good mental health.

United Press International: Long thought to fly above children's air space, psychiatric conditions such as depression have only in recent years started appearing on the pediatric radar. Anxiety disorders are now estimated to affect 13 in 100 children and adolescents ages 9 to 17, about half of whom also experience a second mental or behavioral ailment, such as social phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression. Others may suffer a co-existing physical malady that commands -- and confounds -- treatment, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

WWAY Channel 3 (Wilmington, NC): A volunteer hospital chaplain says he thinks there is a need for counseling of pet owners when their dogs and cats are being treated at the N.C. State University vet school clinic. Robert Gierka is a publications manager at N.C. State and wants to be a full-time chaplain at the vet school. The chaplain says pet owners view their pets as family members and suffer the same grief as people do when members of their human family are sick or dying. Michael Davidson is director of veterinary medical services at the school and is working to help secure grant money to pay for the chaplain's post.

Lawrence Journal World (Lawrence, KS): When a Lawrence public school student is suicidal, depressed because parents are fighting, or burdened with other weighty problems, a counselor is on hand to help. "Lawrence isn’t Lake Wobegon," said Charlie Kuszmaul, a program coordinator for Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, referring to the fictional locale where all children are above average. "We like to think it is, but it isn’t." But the money that funded the counseling program, which many consider essential to Lawrence schools, is drying up. "We need to come up with an alternate source of funding. If we don’t, the program will end or be reduced to a fraction of what it is now," Kuszmaul said. "I don’t know what we’d do without WRAP," said Carol Souders, a seventh-grade English teacher at Central Junior High. "I send kids to our WRAP worker all the time because they have issues I can’t handle," she said. "I have my hands full being a teacher. I’m not a social worker." To continue, WRAP needs about $800,000 annually. "It’ll go up on the big board with a lot of other things," said Lawrence public schools Supt. Randy Weseman. "It’ll all come down to setting priorities."
[Personal commentary: My hope is that their priorities will be the children, and that the WRAP program will receiving the needed funding.

Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH): The jobs of 11 teachers, 30 instructional aides, 21 kindergarten aides and 6 K-6 school counselors could be eliminated if the Milford School District loses its 7.9-mill levy vote in May. Superintendent John Frye outlined $4.2 million in proposed budget cuts for the 2006-07 school year at Thursday's school board meeting. The district's total budget is $52.8 million. More than 60 percent of the cuts would come from personnel. The district doesn't plan to lay off teachers, but would not fill 11 positions vacated by retirements and resignations. The district already made $2.2 million in cuts this year. "We did an awful lot of the non-personnel items to preserve the classroom as we know it," Frye said of this year's cuts. "If the levy fails, we're really going to get into what has made us successful in Milford, and that is our instructional support staff." [Personal comment: GET THIS! They plan to reassign the counselors "...to teaching positions that became vacant because of resignations or retirements..." because, of course, the job of a counselor = the job of a teacher and besides...the kids don't really need the counselors! I'm kidding, of course. We counselors always find ourselves on the chopping block, not matter what state at which you look. Yet, when a crisis occurs they wonder what to do and what could have been done? Well....for starters, stop cutting counselors and allows us to do what we're meant to do: prevention education in the classroom.]

Show Notes:
In Robeson County, grade are in but they're not lookin' so good....stick around to hear what I mean. And overseas in England, mental health service cuts are a buzz. Back here in the U.S., Petaluma, CA, residents are celebrating mentoring in a BIG way!
Bookmark of the Week
Tonight's closing music: The Core, Mobius Triplet

Minnesota Public Radio (Saint Paul, MN): Long before the Burnsville, MN killing, people began talking about how to respond to the litany of complaints aimed at the mental health care system. The complaints from patients and their advocates include long waits for treatment, not being believed when they describe symptoms, and confusing bureaucracies that control access to services. Many inside the system agree--and add their own criticisms that government and health insurance company reimbursement payments don't cover treatment costs. They also say that housing and jobs programs for people with mental illness are underfunded, and too many people still view mental illness as a character flaw rather than a disease. The criticisms have risen to a crescendo that has caught the attention of elected officials. When Minnesota lawmakers return to the Capitol in March, they'll be asked to make reforms.

Belleville News-Democrat (Belleville, IL): School District 189 Superintendent Theresa Saunders, concerned about the deaths of three boys in less than two weeks, announced Wednesday the district is revamping its counseling program. While believing the deaths are "a very tragic blip" and not a trend, Saunders said the district will press ahead this month with previously planned staff training on counseling students about how to handle bullies and "making the right decisions." Two of the boys died by hanging and one was shot to death. In the latest case, Jeffrey Chairs, 14, was identified as the victim found hanging from a bunk bed Tuesday night. St. Clair County Coroner called Jeffrey's death an apparent suicide. "If a child is depressed, we have to know how to work with that child to help them understand what to do," Saunders said. "If they don't have the money or the toy that another child has, we have to teach them that it's OK. We have counselors, social workers and psychologists on staff to work with students, but, we have not had a very coordinated effort," she said. "We didn't have any real structure so everybody would know what they need to do, where to do it and how to do it with everybody knowing what the result would be."
[Personal commentary: How can you NOT have a system in place where everybody knows what's going on, what their role is, what to do, etc? It sounds like chaos to me. It sounds like an overhaul of the system IS in order.

Petaluma Argus-Courier (Petaluma, CA): Middle-school and high-school students are among the most active users of the Internet, as well as the most likely to put themselves in harm's way. "Teens see themselves as invincible, so safety concerns don't cross their radar," said Nancy Sieck, library media teacher at Petaluma High School. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 87 percent of young people aged 12 to 17 use the Internet, and that more than half of them create online content which often includes personal information. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reported that between 2004 and 2005, its national Internet Crimes Against Children program saw an 84 percent rise in complaints that predators enticed minors on-line or traveled to meet them. Parents, teachers and librarians (and some school counselors) are among those attempting to teach children safe online practices, but many people feel that not nearly enough is being done to successfully address the escalating problem. Students should be given guidance in fourth or fifth grade, and by the time they reach middle school, they should have developed a sense of responsibility and the knowledge that what they put on the Internet goes out to people they're unaware of.
[Personal commentary: When I was at the elementary level, having a unit on internet safety was part of my classroom guidance, and it should be a part of your classroom guidance if you're at the elementary level because kids are way too technically savvy by the time they reach us at the middle school. Prepare them before they get to us, please.]