Say Something

by Dr. Donny Johnson

I am a psychologist. A doctor, in fact. In my lives as a performance poet and television showrunner, it doesn’t come up much. And, frankly, there’s no need for it to. On a day like today—which does not seem like a day at all, but a gasp in time—I believe that it is a must to share my thoughts from the point of view of a mental health professional. In that capacity, I’ve treated children and adolescents, families, including survivors and perpetrators of crime. The curse of a good memory is that I house all of their stories. Still. The blessing of that experience, however, is being unafraid to help people look for answers in scary places. In an afternoon text to a friend—the mother of school-age children—I declared today “unspeakable.” I realize that I was quite wrong; today is a day when we must speak up. A man who slaughtered 20 children and their guardian angels has asked the children in our lives a question. They are counting on us to answer. Every child who becomes aware of this event will ask. Some will ask out loud, others with the brutality in their play, the vanishing of their appetite, the impossibility of their sleep. Some will ask by saying nothing in a room that still echoes their voice from the day before. Every child wants to know. Assume this. The worst question I’ve heard so far is from a child who asked her father: “Is this going to happen again?” Not one of us would want to fill such a small life with an answer so massive it threatens to explode her. Yet, this child is the voice of millions of other children today. “Make sense of this for me”, they plead. Tell me the world has order. And, that you, adult who loves me, know the code. Tell me that I am safe. That the day after this day will not make you cry as it swallows me. Tell me that I can be happy.

And, here is where we must not lie. Here is where we prove that we are worthy to take care of them. I would not accept the invitation to call this act “evil.” Evil teaches us nothing; it is an enormity, an inhumanity that does not impel is to do, but avoid. Rather, I would focus on the essentially human of this day. Before he was a man that we do not understand, he was a teenager someone did not understand, a child not fully understood. Misunderstood people sometimes do bad things. Being misunderstood excuses nothing, but can explain much that can help us help the other misunderstood among us before they attack our lives. Consider telling the children in your life that trying to understand people is an act of love, and that the more we practice this act—an art, really—the fewer people there will be in the world who want to harm others. Tell them that, unlike the bad behavior of others, they have full control of their desire to understand others. They do not have to be passive and wait for the next time the day implodes. They have control of their generosity of spirit, and that such largesse changes people. And, that changed people change others. Tell the children in your life that you do not know what other people will do tomorrow, but that days like today are rare. Tell them that you do not understand these rare days either, but that you know exactly what will happen tomorrow and every new day after. Tell the children who love you that you will love and try with all that you are, to protect and understand them every day of your life.
When tragedy corrupts the day, the children in our lives have questions.
We are the answer.

Donny Jackson
December 14, 2012

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SHIELDS Holiday Party 2012

Photography by Jake with AlbaVisuals

SHIELDS' Directors, Board, Development Department and Holiday Party Planning Committee would like to thank each and every one who attended our Annual Holiday party and helped make it one of the most ambitious and extraordinary affairs we have ever presented!

THANK YOU
We also want to give special thanks to Malcolm Cooper, Kelly Johnson, Stacy Mercado, Stephanie Moss, Phyllis Story, Kendra Wilkins, Jamaal Withers, SHIELDS Accounting Department, Executive Management Team, Angel at DJ Pro Events, Elena Morales & Hilton LAX, Jake with AlbaVisuals, Samay at Spring Flowers and Events, Laritha and Archie Shanklin Photography, Tony Livingston, David Whitman and Darrel Straight for all of you hard work and dedication into making the event a success!

SHIELDS Collaborates with Free Arts for Free Arts Day!

On December 1, 2012, SHIELDS' Family Support and PIDP programs, in collaboration with Free Arts for Abused Children, invited families to engage in various art activities including animation pictures, improvosational acting, NASA discovery, graphic design, and flamenco dancing! 

As you can see from the pictures below, we had a great turnout and everyone had a ball!We thank Free Arts and all of the participants for making the event such a success!

Join Community Coalition’s 2nd People Power Assembly

How can we make 2013 really count for South L.A.?

Let your ideas and your voice be heard at Community Coalition’s 2nd People Power Assembly on Dec. 8 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The PPA is an exciting chance for Community Coalition supporters and members to set our priorities for building power in South L.A.

Next year will offer huge opportunities -- in L.A. mayoral and other local elections, immigration reform, implementation of Obamacare, and statewide criminal justice reform.

Express your ideas on how to seize these opportunities and others to continue to build power in South L.A.

Saturday, December 8th, 2012
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Community Coalition
8101 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044

Obamacare to Provide Help to Mental Health Patients

Monica Rodriguez, Daily News Los Angeles, Staff Writer

Obamacare will allow thousands of California adults to gain access to mental health services starting in 2014, according to a study released Wednesday.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found that about a half-million adults in need of mental health treatment will be able to access it through various means, including Medi-Cal and the California Health Benefit Exchange.

About 1.6 million California adults reported having symptoms of severe psychological distress and had problems that interfered with their daily activities, according to the center's 2009 California Health Interview Survey.

One-third of those who took the survey, or about a half-million people, were uninsured for all or part of the year when the data was collected.

"Health care reform has the potential to dramatically increase the number of Californians who can access mental health services," said Imelda Padilla-Frausto, the study's lead author.

Where those residents currently receive care is difficult to say because of the unavailability of data, Padilla-Frausto said.

Based on anecdotal information, "many people are going without or going to community clinics that may or may not have the capacity" to provide the necessary care, she said.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or Obamacare, aims to decrease the number of uninsured Americans and reduce the overall costs of health care.

Community clinics are overburdened with uninsured clients, but health care reform is expected to bolster community clinics and provide resources to treat at least some problems, Padilla-Frausto said.

"The upside (of health care reform) is 90 percent of those uninsured are going to have access to services," she said.

Agencies such as the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health are preparing for an increase in clients.

Most of those seeking services will be people with less severe problems that the department hasn't been able to assist, said Marvin Southard, director of the L.A. County Department of Mental Health.

They are clients who were told they couldn't receive service from the county because their problems weren't severe enough, he said.

Now, those same people will be able to receive care early on, "which is a good thing because it gives us an opportunity to intervene before they become disabled," Southard said.

The county has started enrolling tens of thousands of mental health clients for Medi-Cal through a special waiver in preparation for the 2014 implementation of the Affordable Care Act, he said.

In addition, various programs have already started operating that are part of an effort to provide clients services.

Among the programs is placing Mental Health Department personnel in county health clinics to make it easier for people to access services and to provide a way that takes away the stigma of seeking mental health services, Southard said.

Instead of going to a location that offers mental health services, those services simply become part of a person's overall well-being, he said.

Another program involves the creation of mobile teams that go and make contact with the homeless population and make services available to them, Southard said.

Those and other programs will probably became part of of a multi-prong strategy, he said.

Each program will be used in a different part of the county based on what works best in each area, he said.

Of the half million people discussed in the study, about a third will be residents of Los Angeles County, Southard said, and about 75,000 will seek care through the Department of Mental Health.

About 30,000 of the half million will be residents of San Bernardino County, according to that county's Department of Behavioral Health.

Of those, about 3,000 will have severe problems or have the potential for severe problems, said Michael Schertell, deputy director of the department.

Of the 30,000 people, most will have mild to moderate mental health problems that will be handled through managed care health service providers on an out-patient basis, Schertell said.

Most of the more severe cases will be addressed through the Department of Behavioral Health, he said.

It's going to be important for the county to work with health care providers in order to ensure clients receive "the right level of care at the right time," said Michelle Dusick, program manager for the San Bernardino County agency.

Prevention and early intervention programs as well as other programs to address the stigma of mental health that can keep people from seeking mental health care are in place and will continue, Dusick said.

Campaigns and programs that are designed to reach minority residents are also in place, she said.

Providing mental health services before problems become severe has many benefits because it addresses a situation before some people land in a hospital emergency room seeking treatment, Schertell said.

Other organizations such as the Pomona Community Health Center are working toward offering some mental health services, said Carmen Ibarra, the center's chief executive officer.

Ibarra said many of the center's clients need some type of mental health service.

In the center's plans are starting a program, possibly within a year, that will have mental health professionals providing short-term services monitored by a physician.

Should a patient need longer term services, then the person would be connected with the appropriate provider and follow-up to make sure the patient is receiving the necessary care.