This blogpost presents a Q&A with Yolo Akili Robinson, Executive Director and founder of Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM). The interactive discussion covers how health inequities in communities of color have become exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing increased stress and negative mental health impacts. Also discussed is how BEAM has adapted its approach to addressing mental health challenges in these communities by providing families with resources to support themselves, as well as advice for community health workers who might be overwhelmed by the crisis.

This webinar recording available for purchase from the American Psychological Association offers evidence-based techniques developed to promote preparedness, resilience, and effective coping when exposed to trauma-related materials.

Key learning objectives include:
• How to distinguish between secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue and those factors that convey risk or resilience.
• Ways to recognize coping strategies in real time after exposure to trauma-related material or traumatized individuals.
• How to identify effective self-regulation strategies after encountering trauma-related material.

This compassion resilience toolkit webpage features the importance of incorporating compassion resilience (the ability to maintain one’s well-being while interacting compassionately with individuals who are suffering) in the health care field and highlights its many positive impacts on clients, providers, and organizations. The toolkit describes fatigue in each of the four sectors of the Wellness Compass model (Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart), offers guidance on strategies to help build compassion resilience, and provides worksheets to rank levels of self-care in each of these sectors. It provides specific resources for leadership and includes combined activities for leadership and staff.

This July 2016 webinar, hosted by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, focused on methods of compassion fatigue management, encouraged self-care, and aimed to renew participants’ passion for their work. The webinar also provided valuable tools that caregivers can use to identify the warning signs of compassion fatigue as well as to help in developing techniques for self-care. One of the tools is a compassion fatigue symptoms checklist which covers physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and professional symptoms that caregivers might encounter.

This report covers lessons learned from the first phase (January 2020 to September 2020) of the Southeastern Cohort on Young Parents and Families. The Cohort is an initiative aimed at enhancing and aligning programs, policies, and systems to better support young parents (ages 18-24) and their families in Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina. The report presents findings on four key areas: understanding and engaging young parents, continuous improvement through data and feedback, service collaboration and alignment, and service delivery adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report describes the STRIVE program in Westchester County, New York, which is a full-time, eight-week course that teaches job readiness and job search skills. The report discusses a study of the STRIVE program, which aimed to answer these research questions: what was the context in which the STRIVE program operated; how was the STRIVE program designed; how was the STRIVE program implemented, what were its most prominent features, and what challenges faced managers and staff; and what are the lessons for program administrators wanting to implement this approach.

Drawn from site visits to two Appalachian communities, this report reviews how the opioid crisis affects children in families where there is substance misuse and how parents or caregivers could be better supported by service providers and systems. The report also looks at service providers’ limitations, either as a result of policy failures or regional economic challenges, and how people experiencing substance use disorders face constraints in access to treatment. There is also discussion of how although schools and early childhood care programs are potential resources for these families, they are underfunded and operate beyond capacity.

Helping families meet their basic needs has a direct impact on lowering their stress, especially during a crisis like COVID-19. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University produced a short paper that focuses on how parents and caregivers can build up and strengthen resilience as they face challenges due to the pandemic. The paper suggests ways program staff can help families and staff reduce sources of stress, including connecting parents and caregivers with programs and services that can help meet their basic needs; encouraging parents, staff, and co-workers to practice self-care; and giving parents a break from child care responsibilities. The paper notes that moving past the pandemic, strengthening core life skills and building and practicing executive function and self-regulation skills will go a long way towards managing daily life so parents are better able to provide care for themselves and family members. Practical tips are provided, such as signing up for text reminders of important appointments, using tools like daily schedules and grocery list apps, and creating checklists for completing important applications.

This KIDS COUNT report utilizes survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau to measure how low-income households and children have been affected by COVID-19. The report first illustrates the rates of child well-being before and during the pandemic. The report also presents findings on health insurance coverage and mental health services access, and measures economic instability during the pandemic as well as data on changes in children’s learning environments since the pandemic’s start in spring 2020. The report then provides strategies that can be implemented at the federal and state levels to address future needs of families and children.

This brief summarizes potential federal funding sources and programs that can be used to address barriers facing young parents and families, such as unemployment, disruption to education, financial instability, and lack of child care access, parenting experience, or family supports. Programs listed include, but are not limited to, TANF, SNAP, SSBG, Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program, Child Care Development Block Grant, WIOA, and the Family First Prevention Services Act Prevention Funds.