One of the girls wore crimson, the other emerald. They had long black hair. They were barefoot. They were cousins and of a low caste. As shown in gruesome photographs, they were barely more than children.
One was 14 and the other was 15, police said. Without a toilet in their home,...
Unacceptable.
If you are or someone you know is in a situation where there is physical or emotional abuse here is a list of numbers and directories so you can get some help/advice for the situation. In an emergency call 911 or your country’s emergency service number if you need immediate assistance or have already been hurt.
In the US: Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE(7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224
Canada: call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-363-9010
UK: call Women’s Aid at 0808 2000 247
Australia: Call 1800RESPECT at 1800 737 732. The website also allows you to chat with a qualified and experienced counsellor
New Zealand:Women’s Refuge - 0800733843
Are You Ok - 0800 456 450 (the website is full of information and support services contacts for families experiencing violence).
Worldwide: Visit International Directory of Domestic Violence Agencies for a global lists of helplines, shelters, and crisis centers.
Bullying has long-lasting effects on children’s mental health By Cari Nierenberg, LiveScience Bullied children don’t feel as good about themselves and experience more negative emotions as time passes. Being bullied at school leaves a lasting mark on young victims’ bodies and minds years after the bullying ends, a new study shows. Researchers found that bullying had its greatest influence on the health of kids who were repeatedly targeted, and it was linked with poorer mental and physical health, increased symptoms of depression and lower self-esteem. The study also revealed that victims of recent bullying fared worse than students who had been picked on by their peers further in the past. "The effects of bullying can snowball over time," said study researcher Laura Bogart, a social psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Children who experience continued bullying, such as in more than one grade, had more severe effects, she said. "The results are a strong argument for an immediate, early intervention of bullying," Bogart said. [10 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy Kids] The findings were published online on Feb. 17 and will appear in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics. Early intervention In the study, the researchers surveyed nearly 4,300 students attending public schools in Los Angeles, Houston and Birmingham, Ala. They collected data from students when they were in fifth, seventh and 10th grades, and also from their parents. To determine whether students were frequently or repeatedly bullied in elementary, middle and high school, they were asked how often another kid had kicked or pushed them in a mean way during the last year. Children also completed questionnaires describing their physical and mental well-being. By 10th grade, about 30 percent of the students in the study had been bullied. At all three grade levels, students who had never been bullied reported being the most psychologically healthy. But even the kids who had been bullied in the distant past had lasting psychological wounds, although not to the same extent as those being bullied currently or who were repeatedly bullied. For those children, mental health scores declined over time, suggesting they didn’t feel as good about themselves and experienced more negative emotions. The study did not look at bullying’s full range of physical effects, but the questionnaire asked children about basic physical activity, such as whether being bullied caused them to have trouble walking around the block, doing their chores or playing sports. It did not consider physical complaints and injuries, such as stomachaches, pain, cuts and broken bones, Bogart told Live Science. She also said the study only measured in-person bullying and didn’t include cyberbullying. "Cyberbullying would be a good future direction for this research," Bogart said. Warning signs The findings show that bullying’s emotional scars may remain long after the teasing and taunting stop. So what can a parent do to help their child? "The first step for parents is to strengthen communication with your child, so that bullying comes up in conversation, especially at younger ages," Bogart said. It can come up as part of a broader discussion about respecting other people and accepting differences among them, she suggested. Bogart also recommended that parents notice and recognize the signs of bullying, which may not be obvious physical clues like a black eye, but could take the form of unexplained scratches or bruises. Parents can also tune in to subtle changes in a child’s behavior, such as not wanting to go to school or seeming more anxious, sad or depressed. Bogart also suggested that parents should be even more vigilant to these warning signs if their child falls into one of the high-risk groups more likely to be bullied. These include kids who are obese or have disabilities, as well as young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Although not all children are victims of bullying, many kids are affected by it and see it happening at school, and are aware that it’s going on, Bogart said. She advised parents to help teach kids that it’s OK to speak up if they witness someone being bullied.
For more mental health news, Click Here to access the Serious Mental Illness Blog
It’s the kind of story that you wouldn’t believe unless you saw it with your own eyes. Thankfully, this story was caught on surveillance video, so we can do just that.
Charda Gregory, a 22 year-old hairdresser, had allegedly trashed a hotel room. She was taken into custody by Michigan police, then pepper sprayed in jail, slammed against a wall and strapped down to a chair.
It was then that officer Bernadette Najor took out a pair of scissors and started hacking away at Gregory’s hair.
According to Charda’s lawyer, her hair hair was torn with such force that she suffered some permanent hair loss.
The officer tried to justify her actions in the police report, saying that the hair was a “suicide risk.” Thankfully, this resulted in charges against Gregory being dropped, and Najor being fired. But had this not been caught on video, who knows what would have happened.
Other officers involved are now under investigation.
Watch the video and SPREAD THE WORD! These sorts of abusive cops can only get away with as much as we allow them to.
[In the News] Insurers directed to treat mental health issues the same as physical ailments By Sandhya Somashekhar and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Health and Science
The Obama administration issued a final rule Friday requiring insurers to treat mental health and substance-abuse problems the same way they do physical illnesses.
The rule provides long-awaited clarification on a mental health parity law that was enacted with much fanfare five years ago but had not been fully implemented as the federal government wrote and revised the regulations.
It also represents a fulfillment of a promise made by President Obama, who vowed to put the finishing touches on the regulations as part of a broader effort to address the problem of mass shootings, which have thrust mental health issues into the spotlight in recent years.
“For way too long, the health-care system has openly discriminated against Americans with behavioral health problems. In the past, it was legal for insurance companies to treat these disorders differently than medical and surgical needs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in announcing the rule Friday.
Because of the 2008 mental health parity law, as well as the 2010 Affordable Care Act, “we are finally closing these gaps in coverage,” she said.
Mental health advocates lauded Friday’s news because they have been eagerly awaiting final regulations since the passage of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act in 2008. Championed more than two decades ago by then-Sens. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the law was hailed as a milestone for people with mental illness and substance-abuse problems.
The administration issued interim rules in 2010 meant to partially explain the nuances of the law, but it still left ambiguity in a number of areas, including how insurance companies were to cover the kind of intensive treatment that falls in the gray area between emergency inpatient care and a doctor’s office visit.
Friday’s rule clarifies that people are entitled to information about the standards used by health plans to determine what kind of treatment they cover — information that could be valuable if people want to file a complaint alleging that their mental health service was not treated comparably to a medical one.
It also confirms that the gray-area treatments — for example, intensive therapy after a psychotic break that does not require hospitalization — should be covered in a similar fashion as a medical condition, such as the rehabilitation that takes place after a heart attack.
But some mental health advocates said it fell short in at least one respect: It did not indicate that the rules apply to people in private health plans administered through Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor.
They also noted that five years was a long time to wait for final rules. It was a period in which patients were somewhat reluctant to assert their rights under the law because of the lack of clarity, they said.
Still, they called Friday’s news historic and hailed it as a huge win for people who suffer from behavior problems.
“What a historic day this is, and what a difference it will make to families and individuals who have been discriminated against legally for many, many years,” said Debbie Plotnick, senior director of state policy for Mental Health America, an advocacy group.
By and large, insurance companies have already been abiding by the 2008 law, according to a federal study issued Friday in conjunction with the new rule.
Health plans “have worked to implement these requirements in a manner that is affordable, safe, and effective for patients,” Karen Ignagni, president of industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement Friday. “We appreciate that the final rule enables patients with mental and behavioral health conditions to continue to benefit from the innovative programs and services health plans have pioneered.”
The law applies only to health plans provided by employers with 50 workers or more. The Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, extended the parity rules to the private health insurance market. The rules do not apply to people in government health insurance programs such as Medicaid or Medicare.
Finalizing the rule had been among the priorities outlined by Obama and Vice President Biden shortly after the attack in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman opened fire, killing 20 first-graders and six school employees before taking his own life.
According to reports, the shooter, Adam Lanza, may have had a history of mental illness. Although studies show that people with mental disorders are more likely to be the victim of a crime than the perpetrator, Newtown and other mass shootings have prompted renewed interest in bolstering the nation’s mental health safety net.
That incident in particular led Obama and Biden to issue a plan to reduce gun violence through 23 proposed executive actions. With Friday’s announcement, all have now been fully or partially implemented.
For more mental health news, Click Here to access the Serious Mental Illness Blog
Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation,” Stewart said. “This is a call to action—not an act that will make things better in six months or a year’s time. This is action that might save a life today, or tonight, or tomorrow.
Patrick Stewart, who’s written about his experience with domestic violence before, calls for action towards ending violence against women.
