All posts tagged "Childrenshealth"

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — High school classes start so early around this city that some kids get on buses at 5:30 in the morning. Just 10% of public schools nationwide start before 7:30 a.m., according to federal statistics. But in Nashville, classes start at 7:05 — a fact the new mayor, Freddie O’Connell, has been criticizing for years. “It’s not a badge of honor,” he said when he was still a city council member. Since his election in September, O’Connell has announced that pushing back school start times is a cornerstone of the education policy he is promoting. He and others around the country have......

More than half the children who attend Munchkin Land Daycare near Billings, Montana, have special needs or compromised immune systems. The kids, who range in age from 4 months to 9 years, have conditions that include fetal alcohol syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and Down syndrome, according to owner Sheryl Hutzenbiler. “These families came to me knowing we could offer them a safe and healthy environment,” Hutzenbiler said. Part of ensuring that healthy environment is having a strong vaccination policy, she said, especially for those who are immunocompromised or too young to receive the full slate o......

Last year, a student fell unconscious after walking out of a bathroom at Central High School in Pueblo, Colorado. When Jessica Foster, the school district’s lead nurse, heard the girl’s distraught friends mention drugs, she knew she had to act fast. Emergency responders were just four minutes away. “But still four minutes — if they are completely not breathing, it’s four minutes too long,” Foster said. Foster said she got a dose of naloxone, a medication that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose, and gave it to the student. The girl revived. Forty-five miles away in Colorado Springs, Mitchel......

Juan Campos has been working to save at-risk teens from gun violence for 16 years. As a street outreach worker in Oakland, California, he has seen the pull and power of gangs. And he offers teens support when they’ve emerged from the juvenile justice system, advocates for them in school, and, if needed, helps them find housing, mental health services, and treatment for substance abuse. But, he said, he’s never confronted a force as formidable as social media, where small boasts and disputes online can escalate into deadly violence in schoolyards and on street corners. Teens post photos or vide......

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988,” or the Crisis Text Line by texting “HOME” to 741741. After her teenage daughter attempted suicide and began to cycle through emergency rooms and mental health programs during the past three years, Sarah Delarosa noticed her own health also declined. She suffered from mini strokes and stomach bleeding, the mother of four in Corpus Christi, Texas, said. To make things worse, her daughter’s failing behavioral and mental health caused Delarosa to miss hours from her jo......

When it comes to health policy, former Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who died April 23 at age 88, leaves a complex legacy of major legislative achievements, changing positions, compromises, and fierce opposition. In many ways, though, Hatch’s evolution and leadership on health policy during his four decades in the U.S. Senate mirror that of the Republican Party. When he came to Washington as a neophyte politician after an upset victory in 1976, Hatch was a conservative firebrand, one of the early leaders of the “New Right” bent on dismantling the federal welfare state and banning abortion.......