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She called the number on her syllabus offering counseling. No one picked up.

March 25, 2024
©Lisa Kurian Philip/WBEZ: Isabelle Dizon contacted her campus counseling center when she hit a low point during her sophomore year of college, but never heard back. Now a junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she hopes the school hires someone at the center to, at the very least, pick up the phone.

High need, low accessibility: Oglethorpe County residents face barriers to mental health care, even as teens and schools are willing to have the conversation

March 25, 2024
©Navya Shukla/The Oglethorpe Echo: Katie Edwards, a counselor at Oglethorpe County Elementary School, helps third-grader Londyn Wilson with a work- sheet during a guidance lesson last month. The lessons are regularly held to guide students' empathy, emotion regulation, perseverance and more.

For many Black sickle cell patients, care must reach deeper

March 14, 2024
©Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian: Sickle cell patient Alexis Tappan, right, is checked out by Rana Cooper on at the Methodist Hospital Cancer Institute and Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center. Memphis is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of adults living with sickle cell disease.

The Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas are tackling mental health, one patch at a time

McKinley Reid, Audrianna Guerrero and Sydney Judge are all part of Girl Scout Troop 5596. They started working on activities for their Okay to Say mental health badge in April. "We were learning about stress and empathy and gratitude," Judge explained. ©Trevon McWilliams/KERA
McKinley Reid, Audrianna Guerrero and Sydney Judge are all part of Girl Scout Troop 5596. They started working on activities for their Okay to Say mental health badge in April. "We were learning about stress and empathy and gratitude," Judge explained. ©Trevon McWilliams/KERA

KERA, May 19, 2022, by Elena Rivera: The COVID-19 pandemic worsened stress, anxiety and depression for young people—especially young girls. Those are things the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas have addressed through their mental health patch, called Okay to Say. It’s one part of a wider prevention effort to mitigate worse health outcomes for young people as they grow up.

Troop 5596 gathered around tables at the Methodist church in Justin, a community about 25 miles north of Fort Worth, one afternoon in late April. Groups of two and three girls were huddled over worksheets, talking about mindfulness and stress—and there was plenty to say.

Sydney Judge, 9, wrote “sisters” and “state testing” as her top stressors. Audrianna Guerrero, 10, asked her how she feels when she’s stressed.

“Like I’m gonna blow up,” Sydney said. “I feel frustrated. Sometimes I feel like no one believes in me.”

Her troop leaders, Rebecca Bartolomeo and Michelle Smith, asked her what she does when she feels that way.

“I go up to my room and play with my giant stress ball,” said Sydney, “or I go down to the garage and punch my punching bag.”

As the night continued, the Girl Scouts assembled mindfulness kits: plastic pencil cases filled with candy, colorful stickers and small books with activities to do when they feel anxious.

Read more here at KERA.

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