According to Rural Health Information Hub, barriers to mental health treatment in rural areas include the desire to receive care (due to the stigma around mental health problems), lack of anonymity when seeking treatment and shortages of mental health workforce professionals.  The National Institute of mental health or NIH reports that more than 60% of rural Americans live in mental health professional shortage areas. These factors create obstacles for schools and administrations that are actively striving to provide mental health services to students. 

Listen to my conversation with Andy Cronin, the principal at Valentine Community Schools, to hear how his school is battling these obstacles.

Wellness - Episode 2: Mental Health in Rural Nebraska

Women are majoring in media, but many aren’t entering the industry or rising through the ranks after graduation. According to Poynter, two-thirds of students who earn degrees in journalism or communications are women, but women only make up one-third of the media industry. Women occupy only 23% of leadership roles in the top 200 major news outlets.

Kristin Gilger and Paola Boivin are professors at Arizona State University and are both leaders in their respected media field. Gilger and Boivin address key issues that women in media are facing and discuss some of their own experiences. They provide solutions to getting women in the media, keeping them in media, and helping them advance in the industry.

More stories like this can be found at https://nebraskanewsservice.net/?p=79220

Special Report: Women In Media

Every fall and spring, students in Nebraska take the MAP assessment. This assessment data is used to help teachers measure student’s understanding of concepts in math, reading, language and science. In this episode, Principal Kaela Heneger from Springfield Elementary and Heidi Zierott, director of learning at Springfield Platteview Community Schools discuss the MAP assessment tool and the results they are seeing this year. 

Check out this story and other stories like it on the Nebraska News Service website: nebraskanewsservice.net/?p=77713

Nebraska schools & COVID-19: Assessments and learning

Due to the increasing housing crisis in the state, several organizations have gathered together to collaborate on solving this problem. In this third episode, I will bring in several local and statewide organizations and advocacy groups that are helping this crisis through various avenues.

Check out this story and other stories like it on the Nebraska News Service website: nebraskanewsservice.net/?p=77769

UnHoused: Episode 3 Power in Collaboration

Nebraska’s 2020 election races were not much different from the rest of the US, though, when it comes to specific patterns and trends, especially in terms of the rural-urban red-blue split, and voters who elected a Democrat President and Republican representatives to the House and Senate.

Nebraska's fit in the bigger picture of the 2020 Election

This week we spend time with Julia Hebenstreit, the Executive Director at The Kim Foundation and Jude Connelly, a Licensed mental health professional and the Director of Connections Program at Project Harmony. The Kim Foundation is a nonprofit organization that strives to increase awareness, reduces stigma and provides education and resources related to mental illnesses and suicide prevention in Nebraska. The mission of Project Harmony is to protect and support children, collaborate with professionals and engage the community to end child abuse and neglect. Listen to how these two organizations are actively playing a role in increasing mental health resources in Nebraska schools.

Wellness- Episode 3: The Kim Foundation & Project Harmony

This week on Wellness: Mental Health in Schools, we hear from McKayla LaBorde and Sarah Hamilton, who are both employed by Nebraska’s Educational Service Unit (ESU) 3. LaBorde is the Executive Director of Student Services at ESU 3 and Sarah is a clinical social worker, who for the past 11 years has been working at a school district as a behavioral coach. 
ESUs divide school districts into geographic regions and provide support to districts in technology, systems, professional learning, special education support and services, and more recently helping with student mental health by providing support training, service providers and clinicians. Listen to this episode to hear how schools work creatively to provide mental health resources to students!

Wellness- Episode 4: Nebraska's Educational Service Units Influence on Mental Health

Racism did not end with the Civil Rights act of 1964. From microaggressions to acts of violence, examples of racism are still prominent today. In this episode, we talk to Temi Onayemi and Marcey Yates about racism today. The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the beginning of this year sparked a wave of protests across the United States throughout the summer and the Black Lives Matter organization gained a lot of attention and momentum.

Nebraska's Racial Past and Present: Racism today & the fight against it

Nebraska’s redlining practices from the 1900s are part of its racial history. Ed Zimmer, former Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Department's historic preservation planner and Lori Seibel, President and CEO of the Community Health Endowment of Lincoln discuss the racial redlining practices in Lincoln and how it affects the Lincoln community today.

Nebraska's Racial Past And Present: Redlining And Its Implications

Today, we will dive into the racial history of indigenous and black populations, the institutions that have disproportionately held these populations back and the fight against racism today.In this episode, we speak with Margaret Huettl, an assistant professor of history and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska Lincoln about the history of indigenous peoples in Nebraska. We also speak with Jeanette Jones, who is also an assistant professor of history and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. about the Omaha race riot in 1919 and how it affects Nebraskans today.

Nebraska’s Racial Past and Present: Roots of Racism

Nebraska News Service is the student news website at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.